Investigation as online posts ‘reveal Bulger killer identity’

THE Attorney General’s office has announced an inquiry into social media messages that may identify one of the killers of James Bulger.

The posts would be breaking a worldwide injunction on identifying convicted Jon Venables or Robert Thompson, his co-defendant.

The pair murdered two-year-old James in Liverpool in 1993. They were released in 2001 with new identities protected by a court order, preventing anyone from publishing photographs of them or information which could lead to them being identified. The order covers material purported to show them, even if it is not actually them.

In 2013, two men received suspended sentences for contempt of court after posting photographs on Twitter said to show the two.

Now new messages are said to have been posted on social media sites suggesting information that might identify Venables. A spokesman for the Attorney General’s office said: “We have received a complaint that the anonymity order has been breached and we are investigating it.”

Other online messages seem to show the location of Maxine Carr, former girlfriend of Ian Huntley, the Soham murderer, the Guardian reported.

The Attorney General’s office said it had not received a complaint relating to her case but would investigate if it did. Carr was also granted a new identity after her release in 2004 after giving Huntley a false alibi for the day Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the Soham schoolgirls, went missing.

Earlier this year, Jeremy Wright QC, the Attorney General, said laws needed to catch up with the social media age.