Unmask killer call

Reoffending child murderer should be outed, victim’s dad says

THE father of murdered child James Bulger is demanding his son’s twisted killer be stripped of his anonymity after being returned to jail for possessing child pornography.

Last week Jon Venables was arrested in a top secret police operation and returned to prison. It has also emerged that he was using dating websites searching for single mothers as he built up a sickening stash of child abuse images.

Ralph Bulger said an up-todate picture of Venables, now 35, should be released to the public and that the child killer should face a life sentence for his role in the notorious kidnap and murder of James in 1993.

“Why has Venables still got the privilege of a secret identity?” Mr Bulger, 51, said. “He was given anonymity back when they were 10 because the authorities were convinced they could rehabilitate him.

“We know now that failed and so when Venables reoffended he should not only have been recalled to prison for life but stripped of his hidden identity. “What’s really damaging is that when Venables now commits crimes against children he is a grown 35-year-old man and all we see is a photograph of him as a young boy of 10.

“If people saw a photo of him as the adult monster he truly is they would have a very different perception of the person committing the crimes. There are no valid excuses left to protect his identity..”

Venables and Robert Thompson were 10 when they snatched two-year-old James at a shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside, in 1993 while the youngster’s mother Denise was distracted.

The pair walked him 4km to nearby Walton where they tortured and killed James before abandoning his mutilated body on railway tracks. After Venables and Thompson were convicted of murder they were detained in youth custody before being released on a life licence in 2001.

Officials are understood to have found the stash of indecent material on Venables’ computer during a routine visit early last week and swiftly alerted cops. The grim haul is thought to include “sickening” child abuse images similar to those that sparked his first recall to jail in 2010.

Meanwhile, it has emerged Venables was using a website popular with single mums. Police made the discovery when they arrested him last week.