If I had turned right instead of left I could have saved James
Bulger mum tells of harrowing regrets
THE mother of James Bulger has spoken of the regrets that still torment her – including her desperate search for him when he vanished 25 years ago.
Denise Fergus admits she is haunted by a series of “what-ifs” over that fateful day in February 1993 when her toddler son was abducted in a busy shopping centre.
And says her “biggest regret” is going in the wrong direction when she came out of a shop as soon as she realised he had disappeared.
She believes if she had turned right rather than left she would have seen James – and saved him.
The two-year-old was led away by two boys aged only 10 as Denise was buying meat in a butcher’s at the Strand shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside.
In a new book called I Let Him Go, the mum tells how she still agonises over her decision to take James shopping at all that day.
She constantly wishes she had strapped him safely in a buggy rather than opting to let him walk and lead him by the hand. And she relives the moment she let go of him
Whenever I look back on the day James was taken I am haunted by what-ifs DENISE FERGUS MOTHER OF MURDERED TWO-YEAR-OLD
briefly to get her purse out to pay for two pork chops.
In the book she says: “Whenever I look back on the day that James was taken, I am haunted by many what-ifs.
“But do you know what my biggest regret is? That I didn’t turn right instead of left – if I had taken the right turn and gone around the corner, I would have seen James being led away.”
Denise says there was a 50:50 chance of making the correct choice but she did the “most logical thing” and headed left towards the security offices. CCTV images later showed tiny James trustingly walking off with his killers the other way.
His body was found on a disused rail line three days later, a crime that shocked the world.
His killers, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, were jailed for life but released on licence with new identities in 2001. Denise adds: ‘When I gave birth to my baby boy, I was full of hopes and dreams for him.
“The one thing I didn’t ever imagine was burying my son’s tiny body after his murder. No parent wants to outlive their child or say goodbye – but my final hours and minutes with my beautiful James will be etched on my mind until my dying day.
“Getting my purse out to buy two pork chops for tea was the last thing I did before my world imploded for ever.”
Last week a controversy broke out as it emerged Venables is to be tried in secret for offences relating to indecent images of children.