Unmask the monster
Bulger family calls for toddler’s killer to lose anonymity after he gets just 40 months’ jail for hoarding child porn
The family of James Bulger called for his killer to lose his anonymity yesterday as they said he had ‘got away with it again’ after being jailed for just 40 months for child porn.
Ralph Bulger, 51, demanded Jon Venables’ new identity be revealed for the safety of the public after he was jailed yesterday for hoarding child abuse images.
Mr Bulger warned his son’s killer could strike again when he becomes eligible for parole in 20 months. ‘Forty months is a joke,’ he said. ‘It’s an insult to the family.
‘We’ve got to watch this sexual deviant. We know what he’s capable of. he’s just waiting for another victim. Let’s just make sure there are no more victims.’
Mr Bulger yesterday launched a legal challenge to Venables’ lifelong anonymity after his son’s killer was jailed after admitting charges of making indecent images of children and having a ‘sickening paedophile’s manual’.
The Old Bailey heard that he continues to pose a ‘lifelong risk’ and presents a ‘high risk of serious harm to children’.
The 35-year- old could be freed in just 20 months even though the court heard he had downloaded 1,170 images and videos of young- sters being sexually abused while supposedly under the supervision of probation and police.
It was the second time he had been caught downloading child pornography following his release from jail in 2001 having served eight years for the kidnap, torture and murder of two-year-old James in 1993, when he was just ten years old. In 2010 he pleaded guilty to downloading and distributing child pornography and was jailed for two years.
For the past four years Venables has been living anonymously in a flat living a ‘relatively normal life’, with only local police and his probation workers knowing of his whereabouts and new identity.
Yesterday it emerged that he breached his licence conditions in 2015 by going online just weeks before a Sexual harm Prevention Order preventing him from accessing the internet expired. But secretly he was only handed a police caution rather than being taken to court.
Then in July 2017 Venables started trawling the dark web for ‘repulsive’ images and videos depicting babies and young boys being brutally abused. On a day he was being assessed by probation, he downloaded 1,170 images on a laptop hidden behind the headboard in his bedroom, including a paedophile manual providing ‘graphic details’ of how children can be ‘trained’ to ‘endure increasingly extreme forms of sexual abuse’.
After he was caught last November, Venables said: ‘This is my own fault. I have let people down again. I have had stupid urges.’
Yesterday edward Fitzgerald QC, defending, insisted his client deserved praise for his ‘honesty’. he said: ‘Jon Venables still has the capacity for good and a capacity for change. he has asked me to apologise to all those he has let down. And to apologise to the family of James Bulger for the renewed distress by his reoffending.’
But James’s mother Denise Fergus said this was just ‘rubbing salt in the wound’ as she called for a public inquiry over what she described as collusion by the authorities to cover up Venables’ pattern of vile behaviour. her spokesman, Chris Johnson, said: ‘The sentence is too short.
‘Three years and four months for horrendous re-offending like this is a farce. It was shocking to hear in court that he had breached the terms of his parole in 2015 by getting access to the internet.
‘What is most disturbing is that the authorities chose to hush it up by just giving him a police caution. That was fundamentally wrong and highlights the need for a public inquiry into the mistakes and cover-ups that have happened in this case since the start.’
In launching his legal challenge to the lifelong anonymity given to Venables, Mr Bulger has described it as a ‘failed experiment’ that had put the public at risk. his solicitor Robin Makin said: ‘ We are immensely concerned about the danger that Jon Venables would pose if he is released again.
‘Due to his innate nature, there has to be a fundamental reassessment of the injunction order.
‘It seems to be perfectly obvious that the authorities haven’t been able to manage him in the community. he’s already reverted to committing further criminal offences. Where is this going to lead?’