James Bulger, a Mother`s Story

The truth is, if adults had stepped in, at any time...things would not have gone this far. This should have happened when CPS was called on the Thompsons, or the police called, or the teachers, doctors, counsellors, ect... saw Venables acting strange, or with the parents, ect.
This should have happened, when 38 people saw James ( the number is probably a lot higher)

It is your duty to step in, and get to the bottom of things. If your eyes see it...and your conscious has to live with it, you better believe God is calling you to stand up and do something.

There is no suitable Justice for a murdered victim, unless you can bring them back, safe.

You can't.

The best Justice is prevention.

I'm proud of Denise, she has come a long way...and she is helping children and families. This is something that should have been going on long before, it shouldn't take a devastating death to open people's eyes. It's still going on today...and we as society should have learned this ions and centuries ago.

Justice is being served.

I have compassion for the two children who killed James.

Sometimes the justice system, made by man...seems to fail us, but the justice served by God will right all wrongs with time.

They were children, they should not have been tried in an adult court, but they did get leniency, and only serve 8 years.

Robert Thompson has shown up until this point, that he has been able to go on, and live a life outside of criminal activity. He may have learned his lesson. However, he will go on for the rest of his life, knowing he killed a small child, knowing how he killed him, and hearing his cries before he falls asleep at night. He knows what he did, he will always be in his own psychological prison....his hell. Part of his justice, is growing up..no, he's not that same kid, he's now an adult who has to live with this horrific crime that he committed. His torment should exceed Denise's torment, he is directly responsible for killing and taking James life. He will forever regret, be guilty, and live with that...as he should.

Jon Venables, on the other hand...has shown he is beyond repair. His psychological state, is one...that will land him nine psychological ward of prison, or a high security mental institute for the rest of his life. I don't believe the British justice system, will be lenient on him as an adult. They won't be able to, he's on the wrong side of the line as it is right now...he's showing he is disturbed, damaged, and a threat to society. They won't be able to let him loose after this, because he will end up dead by revenge, or suicide.

Things have a way of working out in the long wrong...this is still unfolding.

You can not compare Mary Bell to Jon Venables, nor Jon Venables to Robert Thompson on rehabilitation...no two people are alike, what works for one...may not for another.

I do not think, Denise needs to be constantly looking over her shoulder, or watching out for these boys. I think she's been through enough...and it would not be letting James down to find peace, and happiness in her life. I think James would want that. I'm a firm believer in the afterlife, and I believe he is in a better place than all of us.

I don't think the justice system could have done anything different to create a better outcome. Nobody can say, or knows...things most likely would have still turned out the way they are today.

I always believed, after seeing Jon hold James hand and was the one to lead him away, and after hearing his interview...that he was the leader. I still think he is hiding things that happened to him as a child, and he always will.

Their parents let them down, CPS let them down, their teachers let them down, and yes society let all of them down, including James.

Once they committed murder, the damage was done. The British Justice System, had to serve justice, and clean up the carnage left behind.

Unfortunately, they can not make everyone happy, or find the balance of what is Justice...because everyone disagrees when dealing with children. So the story has to unfold, and play out....and it's still playing today.

I do not know the appropriate punishment for such a crime with small children...I trust God will ultimately have the last say...but I do think society has a responsibility...to the victims families as well. Not because they deserve it, or because you have to....but because you should. If you see someone needs help...your eyes see this, it is your responsibility to help. You are being called to help.

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.

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 .

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.

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

Well said Eleothan,

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

I am not arguing

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.

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

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.

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 .

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.

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

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.

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,

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.

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.

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

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

Mary Bell was 11 and faced a trial ,

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.

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

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.