Bulger mum’s fury as killer secretly seeks online dates
THE mother of murdered toddler James Bulger yesterday spoke of her fears after it emerged one of her son’s killers has been allowed to join a popular dating website.
Denise Fergus, 47, said it was frightening women may have unwittingly contacted Jon Venables without having any idea of his true identity.
Under strict rules put in place following his release from prison, the murderer and paedophile has lifelong anonymity, meaning anyone he speaks to online will not know about his past.
Last night Mrs Fergus, who now runs a charity dedicated to her son’s memory, said: ‘It’s quite disgusting that a child murderer and paedophile can have access to online dating websites.
‘I feel so sorry for the girls and women who do not know who they’re chatting to. He’s capable of anything.
‘Who’s to say that he’s not prowling the internet, looking for mothers and targeting their children? That’s the most frightening thing.
‘The Parole Board should have some kind of system where they can watch what he is doing on the internet. He seems to be left to his own devices and getting away with it all the time.’
Venables and his friend Robert Thompson were only ten when they killed two-year-old James in 1993, after abducting him from a shopping centre in Bootle, Liverpool.
They were jailed but released with new identities after serving eight years, without spending a day in an adult prison.
In 2010, however, it emerged Venables, 32, was back behind bars for breaking the conditions of his release by downloading and distributing more than 100 images of child abuse, some involving victims as young as two.
In one instance he messaged another convicted paedophile claiming to be a married mother who abused her eightyear-old daughter, and offered to sell access to the child.
He was jailed for a further two years before being released again in 2013. Journalist and child protection expert Mark Williams-Thomas found Venables’ online dating profile in a joint investigation with the Sunday Mirror.
He said: ‘James Bulger’s murder was so horrific that Venables should remain under constant supervision and never be allowed to freely trawl the internet, let alone with the added fact that he was also convicted of a child sex offence.
‘When Venables was convicted in 2010 after using the internet to commit child sex offences, everyone was saying, “How has he got access?” But now it is happening all over again.’
Mr Williams-Thomas said it was worrying that Venables could potentially contact single mothers, putting their children at risk of abuse.
He added: ‘The thing about child sex offenders is that their behaviour does not change – he will always be a child sex offender.’ In his dating profile Venables, who pays a monthly subscription to the site, says he has a good sense of humour and loves music and football.
It is not clear whether the name used on his dating profile is an online persona or the new, identity given to him in 2001.
In March 2013, similar revelations emerged that Venables was searching for love online.
It was reported that, in 2007, he tried to seduce single mother Sarah Finn, 36, by sending her flattering messages on a social media website.
Mrs Fergus’s husband Stuart, fundraising manager for the James Bulger Memorial Trust, said the Parole Board and Government are failing to take Venables’ crimes seriously.
‘One of the things that Venables did last time was pretend to be a female online so he could commit his crimes – there should be alarm bells ringing,’ he said.
‘He’s getting away with it’