KILLING JAMES ‘MADE ME A BETTER MAN’
ONE of James Bulger’s killers says the murder had allowed him to have a “better life”.
Robert Thompson was described as an “urban feral child” when he snatched the two-year-old in 1993.
He was just 10 and had been living on the streets for two years.
A serial school truant, he started shoplifting at seven and had done it “hundreds of times”.
Though he said he was “desperately sorry”, Thompson said committing the crime that shocked Britain had made him a “better person”.
The frank declaration – in a statement to the parole board which helped secure his release at 18 – is sure to devastate James’s parents.
It is revealed for the first time in a documentary called James Bulger: The New Revelations, due to be broadcast on Channel 5 at 9pm tonight.
Thompson said: “I do feel aware that I am now a better person and have had a better life and a better education than if I had not committed the murder.
“There is obviously an irony to this.
“But it is part of my remorseful feelings as well.
“I personally wish Mr and Mrs Bulger and their families to know that I am desperately sorry for what I did and aware of the enormity of what I did.”
Thompson and his accomplice Jon Venables, who was also 10, kicked James, battered him with bricks and hit him with a fishplate – a heavy metal link used to connect railway tracks – after luring him away from his mum
a Merseyside shopping centre. They were each ordered ® to be detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.
After serving eight years both were freed with new identities to safeguard them from revenge attacks.
Thompson was forced to attend lessons in his secure unit.
Following his release, he was able to obtain work and – now aged 36 – has not committed another crime.
Amanda Knowles, who managed the unit where he served his time, said: “It proves that rehabilitation can be successful.
“Robert was able to re-enter society and disappear into the world out there and get on with his life.” But Venables – who the programme will claim was a bullying victim and more immature than Thompson – has been in and out of jail ever since.
He was returned to prison for three years for distributing child porn in 2010. Two years after his release he was arrested and cautioned by police for trying to access the internet in breach of rules for sex offenders.
Last November, police found 1,170 photos and videos on his laptop showing men and women abusing children.
Jailing him for 40 months, Mr Justice Edis said he was “manipulative and dishonest”.
The TV programme claims Venables – whose dad once stripped him and threatened to cut off his manhood with scissors for eating chocolate off the Christmas tree – had appeared the worst affected by James’s murder.
James’s parents are battling to stop him being released on parole in time for Christmas.