James Bulger, a Mother`s Story

There but for the grace of God .... Most of us have been lax at some point during our children's lives and any one of us could have ended up in the dreadful scenario Denise Fergus found herself in - had she turned the other way when she left the mall she would have found the boys with him but they had already tried to abduct a child earlier in the day so evil was already in their minds and if it hadn't been James it would probably have been another child. I left my 2 month old son in his pram under the stairwell in a department store 46 years ago to run upstairs for something and thought nothing of it - a few months later a baby was disfigured in the same place. It could have been mine - I never left him again but it could have been too late. Venables and Thompson were just young children but that doesn't detract from what they did - they were deemed old enough to know right from wrong and as such should have been punished. The fact the Venables is still committing crimes as an adult shows the punishment probably didn't fit the crime - one can only hope that Thompson has gone on to lead a better life.

Possibly the punishment added to the child's troubled life .

Listening to the men abused as children by a football coach one man said he was too afraid to adopt a child for fear people would think he was abusing a child , so he and his wife are childless , so sad hearing this

There was a lot of evidence left out of the trial due to its very distressing nature. The trial wasn’t to establish guilt as they confessed but to establish that they knew right from wrong. The CPS gave the minimum evidence necessary. There are some suggestion if all evidence gathered had been presented to the court then the period of incarceration would have been longer. The punishment may not have fitted the crime. Venables has broken the terms of his license several times, in escalating severity. He should now serve his full sentence.

If the trial wasn't to establish guilt why a jury verdict of guilty ?

The trial was to establish whether the children could be convicted in law of guilt given their extremely young age at the time of the murder. If they had committed the crime 6 months earlier, they would not have been able in law to be found guilty due to age restrictions on criminal responsibility.

Both Venables & Thompson admitted they killed James after abducting him and Venables showed a degree of remorse, which was indicative of him being aware what he was doing was wrong,

The most salient point in the trial was that the defence offered no evidence.

Mary Bell was 11 and faced a trial ,

Listening to a psychologist who has written books on the subject of children’s brains on a programme last night which was about children who kill in US and (treated far worse than here) life with no parole for a 14 year old is brutal and so wrong I think we have a long way to go to even understand at what age maturity starts, the psycharitrist was adamant that a 14 years olds brain does not have the maturity we believe they have, that they are not the emotional developed beings we expect
Those boys were only 10 I do not condone what they did or why they did it I do not feel any the less concern for Denise Bulger or little Jamie but I do think we have to, as a civilised society, look beyond the eye for an eye mentality they needed help not to hear full grown adults screaming to get them and certainly no child should be put in prison for life with no chance of ever being able to change

the trial of the two children lasted 17 days, the jury failed to reach a verdict on the alleged attempted abduction of another child earlier on that day

Mary Bell did not admit guilt, she was also 1 day shy of 11 when she killed the first child. She wasn't convicted of murder but of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Her mental illness at the time of the crimes was possibly one of the rea
ons she was successfully treated and rehabilitated.

There is no substantial evidence of mental illness in either Venables or Thompson.

Unfortunately I don't believe we will really know what the true cause was of that terrible day, whether they were products of a broken society or simply deviant. Venables subsequent behaviour could be blamed on the fact that he was never rehabilitated because he is beyond redemption or because his early incarceration resulted in him becoming institutionalised and thus unable to cope on release turning to drink and drugs.
There was however a suggestion of sexual abuse in James' ( not Jamie, his mother has requested that if speaking about him we use his correct name ) murder.

Venables's has now been convicted twice of paedophilia. Was he abused and became an abuser, who knows? There is a lot about this case which is unexplained and worrying for that fact alone.

What was a disgrace , the police officers who gave interviews , one said the boys were freaks and should not be compared with other boys , they were evil. Makes one wonder what was said to the two children , the crime was horrific but so was the behaviour of some adults.

I still do not understand how come a jury and a seventeen day trial with a verdict st the end of guilty wasn't a trial for murder sorry . A trial to see if they could be convicted in law of guilt does not make sense , either one can be tried or not tried for a crime

A plea of guilt means no trial but a sentence given after a hearing,

Society certainly did not cover itself in glory. However at the very middle of this is a little boy who has tortured and murdered. I have read the evidence gathered & the injuries that James sustained.

I wish I hadn't.

Hardened police officers of 20+ years service broke down giving evidence, had to under go counselling and some are still traumatised by what they found. I understand why faced with that level of barbarity, they would say those boys were 'evil'. In the heat of the moment, it would be hard to find another explanation.

Had the trial been handled differently, perhaps Denise Fergus would have felt her son's murderers did not go unpunished, perhaps Venables would have had more support, who knows.

What I will never loose sight of, is a very small child, scared, cold and confused was tortured and left to die, alone on a railway track.

Whilst academically I understand the case is complex, I equally understand the visceral hatred held for Venables and Thompson.

Then I am sorry but it was a trial for murder .

It was a trial to see if they could be guilty of murder. The age of criminal responsibility was a key factor in this case.

There is absolutely no doubt at all that they murdered the child. The trial was to establish whether they knew that by murdering him they were committing a wrong doing.

Sorry but what you claim is decided before there is any trial, a jury is not called to decide if anyone can be guilty of murder , they are called to decide innocent or guilty of a crime .

If you had access to all the evidence gathered you must be in that police force, related to a member of the police force , related to family or a family friend or connected to either the defence or prosecution team. You have said not all the evidence was presented in court .

That is a major assumption to make. There is a wealth of evidence in the public domain, both through the books written by James parents and the journalists who covered the case. In addition to the various criminology and legal text books that exist. If the case is of real interest, have a read of it.
Perhaps also read a little about how guilt is established in a minor.

so evidence withheld from the trial is in the public domain.

No, I don't want to read any books on it but thank you

I'm not sure why you're arguing Anniebach.
It was a hellish sad scenario for all concerned. I'm sure we can agree on that.

I am not arguing

It was, and remains, a terrible tragedy for the family of Jamie Bulger and for the boys who killed him.

Venables and Thompson were by all accounts "damaged" children who had suffered emotional and physical neglect, and allowed access to the sort of explicit material that no child should have access to.

Even if they had been children from stable, nurturing backgrounds, more recent research based on brain imaging has shown that the child's and young person's brain operates very differently from that of an adult. They are unable to process information in the same way and are more likely to act impetuously and without a full appreciation of the consequences of their actions. That is why in many countries the legal process is very different when applied to children.

Also, as Blake Morrison's article (link provided) points out, these 10 year old boys would have been unable to properly understand the proceedings and so be unable to instruct their lawyers - which I thought was an essential feature if a person is tried as an adult.

In my view, it was a disgrace that the boys were tried in an adult court and I believe that their treatment at the hands of press and the legal system damaged them even further and reduced the likelihood of them being rehabilitated.

There is often an implication that people who disagree with young children being tried as adults have no real understanding of, or sympathy for, the parents of Jamie Bulger and the devastation that this terrible act brought to their lives. But it isn't a competition in which the person who shouts the loudest about the inherent wickedness of these children wins the moral argument. The sight of adults banging on prison vans and calling for two little boys to be "hanged" sickened me.

www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/feb/06/bulger.ukcrime

Well said Eleothan,

You sum up all that needs to be said on the subject for me Eloethan.

The fact that Venables is still committing crimes as an adult shows the punishment probably didn't fit the crime - one can only hope that Thompson has gone on to lead a better life.
Willow As far as I recall they were both sent to 'a secure home' so perhaps for the first time in their young lives, they were introduced to some structure and routine, education and training in the hope that they could be rehabilitated and go on to lead a normal, crime-free life.
Presumably Thompson has done that but Venables, unfortunately, has not. Perhaps he was too damaged for any attempts at rehabilitation to be of any use.

When the police on the case publicly called these children freaks what did they say to them in private , the terror of being in the dock, they couldn't see over the top, the excuse for human beings screaming outside the court 'hang them ' they were still in .junior school, some children are fearful just moving on to the High School .

I watched the programme. But could hardly see it for tears. I admire James mom. She has made a new life but James is part of it and always will be.
Those two boys, were failed before they did their horrendous act, others have the same upbringing and don't do what they did. I understand Thompson has kept out of trouble and works, good job they were separated .
We have all taken our eyes of children for a second, who could imagine for a second something so vile happening.