Bulger killer inquiry demand
A petition demanding answers about how James Bulger’s killer was freed to commit new offences could be debated in parliament.
The campaign, which gained more than 145,000 signatures and is supported by the murdered toddler’s mother, calls for a public inquiry into Jon Venables’s time in the prison system.
He and Robert Thompson were both boys when they kidnapped, tortured and murdered two- year- old James nearly 25 years ago.
Earlier this week, Venables – who lives under a new identity – was convicted of possessing indecent images of children for a second time and jailed for three years and four months.
The petition claims “there have been a number of issues that have been swept under the carpet”, including why the ki l ler was deemed rehabilitated.
Just days from the 25th anniversary of the crime on February 12, 1993, more than 145,000 people had put their names to the claim: “We want a Public Inquiry into the James Bulger murder case.”
It will now be considered for a debate in Parliament.
James’s mother Denise Fergus hailed the milestone, having expressed anger at how the justice system failed her son.
It’s those images. Grainy CCTV of a boy holding a toddler’s hand in the middle of a busy shopping centre.
Police mugshots of two 10-year-olds, each of them just over 4ft tall.
They a re seared into the nat ion’s conscience, disturbing pictures that still have the power to shock even after 25 years.
And the names. Rober t Thompson and Jon Venables, as familiar now as they ever were, alongside the name of James Bulger, the two-year- old from Bootle on Merseyside who they so casually abducted, tortured and murdered.
They are images and names imprinted on history. A quarter of a century after the killing of James, the emotion of the horrific crime has never gone away.
And the rage and fury around them has never left us.
Last week’s TV programme The Bulger Killers: Was Justice Done? was accused of being too sympathetic to the killers.
In a second documentary, A Mother’s Story, James’s mum Denise Fergus laid bare her continued grief and fury.
Like all of us, I feel nothing but disgust for the crime those two children committed. And nothing but compassion for James Bulger’s family.
But it was wrong to identify the killers in the first place. They were 10 years old.
They would have still faced trial. The jury would have still heard the awful details of how James was dragged more than two miles, beaten, stripped and stoned by the pair before being left for dead on a railway line.
We would still have heard the evidence that would eventually convict the boys. Venables’s taped police confession; the damning blood splatters on Thompson’s clothes and shoes.
The verdict would have been the same, the eight-year minimum term for the pair would have still been branded too lenient.
For Denise and Ralph, James’s heartbroken parents, no sentence would have ever been long enough.
It was judge Mr Justice Morland who allowed the identities of the killers to be released at the end of the trial, saying the public interest overrode theirs.
He said at the time there was “a need for a public debate on crimes committed by young children”.
A debate? Please. It became a sickening national obsession. And little has changed in a quarter of a century. Our feeding frenzy for the case continues.
It ’ s easier as a societ y to demonise Venables and Thompson and brand them as evil than to separate the child from the crime.
There are just a handful of child- on- child killings every year in this country and usually they are the product of poor parenting, bullying and abuse or children simply not being able to understand the consequences of their actions.
While these cases might provoke horror, the Bulger case created baying mobs, hatred and vigilante attacks.
So what made the Bulger case different? A sequence of events outside of the murder that created a perfect storm.
Those emotive pictures; their identification; a Tory government at the time obsessed with getting tough on youth crime and a judiciary under pressure from politicians.
The crime quickly became a focus for everything that was considered wicked in this country.
Some progress has been made. In Scotland, the age of criminal responsibility was changed in 2016 from eight to 12. In England and Wales, it is still 10.
In 2009, two brothers from Yorkshire aged 10 and 11 were convicted of the attempted murder of two chi ldren by beating, stoning and torturing them. The judge refused to allow the boys’ identities to be revealed.
As a result, there was nothing like the hysteria that surrounded Thompson and Venables.
The Bulger killers were granted lifelong anonymity with their new identities when they were released on licence at 18.
Venables, now 35, has been recalled to prison for a second time after being caught with thousands of child porn images.
And so the frenzy continues. And today it’s about identity. The child killer’s former lawyer has waded in, saying it is now time to unmask Venables.
By contrast, Thompson has not been heard of again. He has never reoffended.
His rehabilitation can be regarded as a success. He’s served his sentence, however unduly lenient you may think it was.
The terrible crime he committed as a 10-year- old is part of his past.
But despite his new life, he will never be free from who he was and what he did. And nor will we.