The killers walked James for two and half miles and were spotted by 38 people — some of whom challenged the pair. Venables and Thompson told passers-by that the distressed toddler was their younger brother or that he was lost and they were taking him to a local police station. They poured modelling paint into his eyes, stoned him and clubbed him with bricks and dropped a 22lb iron bar on him. Twisted Venables and Thompson then weighted his head down with rubble and lay him across railway tracks hoping he would be hit by a train to make the murder look like an accident.
Jamie, who suffered 42 injuries in total, was sliced in half by a train and his body discovered two days later. The tragic tot was born on March 16, , in Merseyside. In November , Venables was again sent to prison for possessing child abuse images on his computer. The Bulger case has prompted widespread debate on the issue of how to handle young offenders when they are sentenced or released from custody.
One of the boys later revealed that they were planning to find a child to abduct, lead him to the busy road alongside the shopping centre, and push him into the path of oncoming traffic. Whilst inside the A. Tym's butcher's shop on the lower floor of the centre at around , Denise, who had been temporarily distracted, realised that her son had disappeared.
The boys joked about pushing Bulger into the canal. Bulger had a bump on his forehead and was crying, but most bystanders did nothing to intervene. One of the boys threw blue Humbrol modelling paint, which they had stolen earlier, into Bulger's left eye. Batteries were placed in Bulger's mouth and, [22] according to police, some batteries may have been inserted into his anus , although none were found. Alan Williams, the case's pathologist , stated that Bulger suffered so many injuries—42 in total—that none could be isolated as the fatal blow.
After they left the scene, his body was cut in half by a train. Police suspected that there was a sexual element to the crime, since Bulger's shoes, socks, trousers and underpants had been removed. The pathologist's report, which was read out in court, found that Bulger's foreskin had been forcibly retracted. The police quickly found low-resolution video images of Bulger's abduction from the New Strand Shopping Centre by two unidentified boys. The breakthrough came when a woman, on seeing slightly enhanced images of the two boys on national television, recognised Venables, who she knew had played truant with Thompson that day.
She contacted police and the boys were arrested. The fact that the suspects were so young came as a shock to investigating officers, headed by Detective Superintendent Albert Kirby, of Merseyside Police. Early press reports and police statements had referred to Bulger being seen with "two youths" suggesting that the killers were teenagers , the ages of the boys being difficult to ascertain from the images captured by CCTV.
Both had blood on their shoes; the blood on Thompson's shoe was matched to Bulger's through DNA tests. A pattern of bruising on Bulger's right cheek matched the features of the upper part of a shoe worn by Thompson; a paint mark in the toecap of one of Venables's shoes indicated he must have used "some force" when he kicked Bulger.
Mug shots of Venables and Thompson taken at the time of their arrest. The boys were each charged with the murder of James Bulger on 20 February , [8] and appeared at South Sefton Youth Court on 22 February , when they were remanded in custody to await trial. Up to five hundred protesters gathered at South Sefton Magistrates' Court during the boys' initial court appearances. The parents of the accused were moved to different parts of the country and assumed new identities following death threats from vigilantes.
Thompson and Venables had attempted to lead away another two-year-old boy, but had been prevented by the boy's mother. Each boy sat in view of the court on raised chairs so they could see out of the dock designed for adults accompanied by two social workers.
Although they were separated from their parents, they were within touching distance when their families attended the trial. News stories reported the demeanour of the defendants. Thompson and Venables were considered by the court to be capable of "mischievous discretion", meaning an ability to act with criminal intent as they were mature enough to understand that they were doing something seriously wrong.
Vizard replied, "If the issue is on the balance of probabilities, I think I can answer with certainty. Thompson and Venables did not speak during the trial, and the case against them was based to a large extent on the more than 20 hours of tape-recorded police interviews with the boys, which were played back in court.
Venables later described how Bulger seemed to like him, holding his hand and allowing him to pick him up on the meandering journey to the scene of his murder.
The pathologist spent 33 minutes outlining the injuries sustained by Bulger; many of those to his legs had been inflicted after he was stripped from the waist down. Brain damage was extensive and included a haemorrhage. The boys, by then aged 11, were found guilty of Bulger's murder at the Preston court on 24 November , becoming the youngest convicted murderers of the 20th century. In my judgment, your conduct was both cunning and very wicked.
There was a need for an informed public debate on crimes committed by young children. Shortly after the trial, and after the judge had recommended a minimum sentence of eight years, Lord Taylor of Gosforth , the Lord Chief Justice , recommended that the two boys should serve a minimum of ten years, [8] which would have made them eligible for release in February at the age of The editors of the Sun newspaper handed a petition bearing nearly , signatures to Home Secretary Michael Howard , in a bid to increase the time spent by both boys in custody.
Lord Donaldson criticised Howard's intervention, describing the increased tariff as "institutionalised vengeance Tony Blair , then Shadow Home Secretary , gave a speech in Wellingborough during which he said: "We hear of crimes so horrific they provoke anger and disbelief in equal proportions These are the ugly manifestations of a society that is becoming unworthy of that name.
Justice Morland stated that exposure to violent videos might have encouraged the actions of Thompson and Venables, but this was disputed by David Maclean , the Minister of State at the Home Office at the time, who pointed out that police had found no evidence linking the case with " video nasties ". Some British tabloid newspapers claimed that the attack on Bulger was inspired by the film Child's Play 3 , and campaigned for the rules on "video nasties" to be tightened.
A Merseyside detective said "We went through something like titles rented by the Venables family. There were some you or I wouldn't want to see, but nothing—no scene, or plot, or dialogue—where you could put your finger on the freeze button and say that influenced a boy to go out and commit murder. Helens on Merseyside. These locations were not publicly known until after the boys' release. The records were stored at the units and copied to officials in Whitehall.
The boys were taught to conceal their real names and the crime they had committed which resulted in their being in the units. Venables' parents regularly visited their son at Red Bank, just as Thompson's mother did, every three days, at Barton Moss. In , lawyers for Thompson and Venables appealed to the European Court of Human Rights that the boys' trial had not been impartial, since they were too young to follow proceedings and understand an adult court.
The European Court dismissed their claim that the trial was inhuman and degrading treatment, but upheld their claim they were denied a fair hearing by the nature of the court proceedings. In September , Bulger's parents appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, but failed to persuade the court that a victim of a crime has the right to be involved in determining the sentence of the perpetrator.
In October , he recommended the tariff be reduced from ten to eight years, [8] adding that young offender institutions were a "corrosive atmosphere" for the juveniles. In June , after a six-month review, the parole board ruled the boys were no longer a threat to public safety and could be released as their minimum tariff had expired in February of that year. The Home Secretary David Blunkett approved the decision, and they were released a few weeks later on lifelong licence after serving eight years.
They were charged with his murder on 20 February The case against them was based largely on 20 hours of video interviews conducted by police — the boys did not speak during the trial. On 24 November Thompson and Venables were found guilty, becoming the youngest convicted murderers of the 20th century.
After their releases in , both Thompson and Venables were given new identities on the understanding that they had been rehabilitated and did not break the law again. In , seven years after being released from prison, Venables was arrested after a drunken fight and was given a formal warning by the probation service. He was also given a caution for being in possession of Class A drug cocaine. Two years later he was sent back to prison after he was found with images of child sexual abuse.
The Parole Board recommended his release in However, in he was arrested again for possessing child abuse images , and sentenced to 40 months behind bars in February Venables, whose identity has been changed twice more since his initial release on account of it being compromised, is expected to have a parole hearing in October.
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