To think that Denise Fergus should have stayed at home?

[2blessed2bstressed]

I don't understand why she (mum of Jamie Bulger) had to go and sit in court when John Venables was being sentenced for his more recent crime. I will never forget the horror of hearing what happened to her little boy, and I know that she will never get over it - but how can it possibly help her to keep appearing on tv and making statements about what happens now? She seems to feel she has a right to be told all about everything, and while I can sympathise with her opinion to a certain extent I don't know that she does really. I saw her being interviewed when he was arrested earlier in the year and she said she'd had to keep her children off school because of the publicity - but she seems to be generating a lot of it herself.
Please don't think me hard hearted, it's just that I don't get it.

If someone did to my boy what those two did to little Jamie, I'd want to make sure that they knew that I would never ever let them off the hook.

I'd want them to see the face of the mother whose child they battered and left for dead on the train tracks.

I'd want my face to fucking haunt them.

OP, YABU. Put yourself in her shoes for just 1 little second. She's had to live like that for the past 17 years.

Juicy12: They may well have been children then but he is an adult now and a fucked up one at that. What else is he going to do with the remainder of his screwed up life? How many more sick things is he going to do? James was denied a life, childhood or adulthood because of their actions and I would say the fact he (Venebles) is still perpetrating crimes against young children shows that "justice" was not served in this case. Yes, he served a prison sentance but what good has it done? It kept him off the streets but it has not rehabilitated him has it? It hasn't stopped him having warped thoughts about children has it? Is he less of a threat to society now?

The mother of his victim has every right to make sure he sees her face when he closes his eyes although personally, I doubt he does, his twisted brain is full of much, much, more disgusting images, the ones he gets off on, the ones of innocent young children. He is neither innocent or a child now is he?

That must be the worst thing for Denise Fergus, the loss of her future with her child.

No watching him go through school, no getting his first job, no grandchildren, she can't even have arguments with him when he's having a teenager strop.

Even though she is living her life with her family, she can never escape what has happened, and she wants to do what she thinks is right to stop other families having to go through that.

If it were my child (God forbid) I would want vengeance over justice.

TBH I think the poor woman would just like it not to have happened, I think what she would really really like would to have taken her son for his first day at school, seen him play football, took pride in his exam results, met his first girlfriend, danced at his wedding, held her first grandchild, but she was denied all this because two little gobshits from rat breeding lower class scum families tortured and killed her baby.

Why on earth should they have been allowed to live any sort of normal or good life? It is clear this one can not, he is no better then a rabid animal,
And I don't care if that makes some bleeding hearts think I am ignorant, if what happened to that woman ever happened to you I would love to see how much you stood up for the scum then,

James. His name is James.

He was NEVER called Jamie in life, and this is something that Denise Fergus (not Bulger) spoke about quite strongly in an article.

I agree. She needs to find some way to heal from all of this. Turning up stony faced and commenting doesn't actually help her or anyone else.

I have every sympathy in terms of the horrific things that she and her son went through, though.

hairytriangle how do you know it doesn't help her though? If commenting and being present at court makes her feel better even for a millisecond, then I think she should keep on.

I can't see any possible way for any mother to 'heal' from the effects of what those two did to her little boy.

i have no idea how anyone can possibly deem it fit to comment on her, what she does, what she says, how she conducts herself when they have absolutely no clue what that women has had to endure and feel every day for almost 20 years i think its insulting to tell her how to feel, act, or speak about what is clearly a massive part of her life, for good or ill, venables is part of her life and will unfortunately be forever.

how can anyone comment unless they have had the self same thing happen to them?

my son was assaulted last night. he has special needs. i watched with absolute satisfaction as his attacker was handcuffed and put in a cell, because my instinct is to protect and defend and look out for my child.

imagine just for a second how that women feels, knowing not only were her sons killers freed but that one of them perhaps should not have been, as he has now been free to distribute and watch 8 year old girls being raped.

im sorry but this self righteous crap irritates me. how can anyone have the right to comment on how she feels or what she should do?

I would imagine that Denise Fergus won't worry a fig about what the op decides her behaviour should be. She has been to a place that no parent ever wants to go and has seen, in her eyes, the courts kowtow to the murderers of her son. Certainly as children they should have been given a second chance however Venables has proved that his sickness goes that deep that he deserves a lot worse than jail.

Perhaps it is a compulsion that she has to see what men these murderous boys have become. And isn't Cheshire near, too near, where James was abducted, tortured and killed? I'm not too sure of that. But what I am sure of is that I hope that I, nor any of my family, ever learn what she goes through and what pain she must surely feel every time she hears those names mentioned.

Think about this, they knew where she was, all that time, and she wouldn't have known if they turned up at her kid's school. That would chill the bones. Now she knows where one of them is at least.

As others have said I have never stood in Mrs Fergus shoes, and I pray to God I never do.

But this tragedy has defined her- and her subsequent children, they are not allowed out to play she takes them everywhere (they are not that little)her grief consumes her ability to find joy in them (this is more or less what she said in an article I read where she gave an interview) she wont even allow her oldest surviving child to spend time with his dad without her because she can't bear to be parted from him.

She follows the movements of the two killers of her sons obsessively. As others have said if someone had done that to my son I might well be the same- BUT

Jon Vennables was given a sentence of two years (the top end for the crime he committed) he will then continue to serve his sentence of life in jail. There is nothing more the judge could do- so her statement attacking the sentence is hollow-and is just about her showing us how hurt and angry she still is.

One thing I did think was that her obsession with the sentencing may be (and this is my speculation) that she has formed the opinion that had he not done what he did to James Bulger, JV might not have been downloading child pornography and so she feels this offence stems from that and should be considered alongside it.

To me that may not be rational- but if someone murdered my son I would probably never be rational again.

"Turning up stony faced and commenting doesn't actually help her or anyone else."

Hairytriangle - can you read that again and see how callous that sounds?

The chances are that none of us will ever have our two year olds kidnapped, sexually abused, tortured and beaten to death with rocks before their body is decapitated by a train. So we'll never know how she thinks or feels will we?

As far as I'm concerned whatever it takes and whatever Denise has to do just to get through the day is ok by me.

callous,horrid op casting aspersions on a grieving mum.fortunately none of us know the horrors or details she has had to process.show some humanity for a mother,a woman

When this new thing blew up I saw her interviewed.

She is so, so tormented by what happened - my heart goes out to her. I think that's probably why she went.

I can see why people don't think it's healthy but as others have said for her it's the way she copes.

If I were in her shoes I'm sure I would walk to the ends of the earth to make sure that those two suffered for the rest of their lives.

YABU. Who are we to judge the actions of a mother grieving the loss of her murdered son.

YABU, and pretty horrid as well.

Be glad you don't get it.

What a sickening OP.

She obviously feels it is helping her. That's all we need to know. As long as she says within the law she is entitled to handle this any damn way she chooses.

Ian McNichol's and Michael Hamilton's two daughters were raped and murdered by the serial killer Peter Tobin.

For 17 years, these two men (both the girls' mothers died early deaths from substance abuse after their daughters' disappeared) never stopped looking for their daughters and putting pressure on police to find them.

The young womens' bones were found in 2008 in the same back garden, evidence of Vicky's murder was discovered in the loft of a house where Tobin lived, near the village where Vicky disappeared and she was wearing the same clothes she'd disappeared in when her skeleton was discovered.

Now, these fathers attend every single hearing the monster who murdered their daughters has, whether he shows up or not.

They speak to the press wherever possible.

I guess we should all just tell them how unhealthy it is and they'd do better just to stay home, that it wasn't healthy for them to have campaigned so tirelessly to find their daughters and bring their killer to justice.

FFS.

oh ffs
why bring poor little Baby P inot it, a blameless baby,
comparing, or even mentioning him in the same post as those monsters is sick.

I can see why you brought baby Peter into it mildmannered, you're saying that we should feel the same outrage for the childhood Venables had to suffer that we felt for the one Peter had to.

But as 2Shoes says, Peter was a blameless baby, and in the way we're forced to think about Venables we don't want to think of him as a child when he murdered James, because it was a very adult thing to do.

Children who commit brutal murders are damaged, and Venables subsequent offences beg the question of whether in fact they are damaged beyond repair and so their lives should be written off?

It's not their fault they are damaged, but should society give them chance after chance to live a 'normal' life at the expense of others welfare? Denise Fergus has to ask that question on behalf of us and the damaged children.

Pulling the wool over your eyes is not going to do anything whatsoever to avoid the sort of catastrophe that James Bulger underwent at the hands of two very damaged young boys.

It may be a very unpalatable comparison to make, but it is a valid one, and we are lucky that there are professional people willing to draw such comparisons in order to help future children and avoid any sort of repetition. These are good things, no?

Venables was a blameless baby at one point, too - that is the point. No-one is saying that baby Peter would have turned out like him, but the damage does have to start somewhere and that poor baby suffered untold damage. As awful as it is to admit, it is unlikely he would have turned into a well-rounded, happy child or adult.

I'm surprised people can't (or won't) see the bigger picture and do think janitor's post is on the mark.

And I don't think society has given Venables chance after chance...? He has been given one chance following on from extensive rehabilitation. He has since committed another crime, and is back in prison accordingly...