To ask your thoughts on Jon Venables joining a dating site?

[Sallystyle]

With his new name no one can do a google search on him and find his history.

He was found not long ago with images of child abuse.

Should he be able to get on with his life now he is out of prison? Of course he can just as easily meet someone in the pub.

I just had a debate with a family member about this so interested in your thoughts.

Link here

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/james-bulger-killer-jon-venables-5039227

Nicknacky, I've found this link to the Guardian which mentions it:

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

The tapes of their police interviews were used at trial except for the one were a sexual motive was discussed which was deliberately omitted. They thought it was too disturbing apparently.

I'm not saying I think there should be a regime of gruel and cold showers. But I do think prison, even for youth offenders, shouldn't be an attractive prospect, it is a deterrent as well as a rehabilitation prospect. When you read the accounts of how they were treated, they had lots of pocket money, birthday presents, shopping trips, facilities which were improved purely for them, snogging girlfriends in the unit or shagging your teacher, you really do wonder where exactly the deterrent comes in.

moan thanks for the link, it's interesting and I will read it properly when I can.

However my interpretation is different to yours I regards the tape. If both defence and prosecution agree to a piece of evidence and have no issues with it's legality or content then they can agree to it and it doesn't need to be heard or produced in court.

I would imagine the defence were keen to keep it out of court as it would be damaging to the case. So I don't agree at all that the prosecution attempted to brush it under the carpet.

awful to think about but you are going to come into contact with those that have abused

should we always know their name how will this benefit our society. would it make us less thoughtful regarding the security of our children as we know where they all are

of course I think the protection of children comes before everything else but I have (though at times it has been questioned) faith in our justice system

if he was named he would have to change his name again and again as those out to get him are not protecting the children they are doing it for their own reasons

read up on prisons behaviour no matter how hard and dreadful conditions are some people will return over and over again and want to because they become institutionalised. Making them less comfortable will not change that

meditrina -you are right that the criminal age of responsibility was (and I think still is) 10 in England for some time before the Bulger murder. Normally, children who were thought to have committed serious crimes were tried in juvenile courts; what was different in this case is that the authorities - headed by Michael Howard, an extremely unpopular Home Secretary in an extremely unpopular government - sought to gain some popular appeal by trying Venables and Thompson in an adult court. I believe it was the first time that this had happened to children of that age.

Their crime was sickening and horrific but the treatment of them reflects very badly upon the powers that were at that time and the press.

Okay, putting the original trial behind him, does this sound like Venables has been rehabilitated? Convicted of possession/distribution of indecent images of children, posing online as a mother who was abusing her daughter, arrest for affray and a caution for possession of cocaine.

"On 21 June 2010, Venables was charged with possession and distribution of indecent images of children. It was alleged that he downloaded 57 indecent images of children over a twelve month period to February 2010, and allowed other people to access the files through a peer-to-peer network. Venables faced two charges under the Protection of Children Act 1978. On 23 July 2010, Venables appeared at a court hearing at the Old Bailey via a video link, visible only to the judge hearing the case. He pleaded guilty to charges of downloading and distributing child pornography, and was given a sentence of two years' imprisonment.

At the court hearing, it emerged that Venables had posed in online chat rooms as 35-year-old Dawn "Dawnie" Smith, a married woman from Liverpool who boasted about abusing her eight-year-old daughter, in the hope of obtaining further child pornography.

Venables had contacted his probation officer in February 2010, fearing that his new official identity had been compromised. When the officer arrived at his home, Venables was attempting to remove the hard drive of his computer with a knife and a tin opener. The officer's suspicions were aroused, and the computer was taken away for examination, leading to the discovery of the child pornography, which included children as young as two being raped by adults.

The judge ruled that Venables' new identity could not be revealed, but the media was allowed to report that he had been living in Cheshire at the time of his arrest. The High Court also heard that Venables had been arrested on suspicion of affray in September 2008, following a drunken street fight with another man. Later the same year, he was cautioned for possession of cocaine"

Well Denise Ferguson certainly thinks it was hushed up and an inconvenient truth which was suppressed by the parole board in their rush to declare Venables rehabilitated.

Amaretto I agree with you. It's interesting to note that when these offenders against children resurface it's always on a sink estate in a crappy northern town doing a minimum wage job. And the people who are most vocal I'm their defence are middle class southern urbanites. I guess it's an awful lot easier to be understanding when you know these dregs won't be dumped near you in Richmond or Wimbledon or Beckenham.

something we agree with Moan

they will often be housed as cheaply as possibly often in run down estates, many housing more than just a few of course this should not be the case

but that is about costs and lack of funding (not suggesting they have penthouses in Knightsbridge) not about their criminal past but you are right mc can certainly shout louder and be listened to more

Whenever issues surrounding child offenders come up it always makes me immensely sad. So often young offenders are victims of abuse and are immensely damaged young people. What those boys did was horrific and that a small boy was killed sickens me... but they were children. At least one appears to have been subject to serious physical, emotional and likely sexual abuse. That is also immensely sad. They were punished for their actions whilst their neglectful, abusive parents went scot free.
When abused children are murdered by their parents the red-tops get outraged and wring their hands. When they live to be damaged older children and adults the same papers bay for their blood. I'm not even really talking about Venables here, he is the most extreme example, but general attitudes towards troubled young people are pretty shocking. I'm a teacher and our most difficult students are almost without exception the most vulnerable and damaged. Society is full of sympathy when they appear as victims in the newspaper but sympathy runs out when they are disruptive in little Jimmy's class or are caught shoplifting or become violent. The criminals in our society were more often than not once frightened, abused children who were 'lucky' enough to survive. Does that mean we should forgive all their crimes? of course not, but they should be punished within the law and, especially with children, the focus should be on rehabilitating them.

the focus should be on rehabilitating them

Agreed. It seems to have worked for Thompson but no Venables.

As an adult he has downloaded and shared pictures of 2-year-olds being raped. He has made up an online persona of a woman abusing her 8 year old daughter. He has not been rehabilitated and I honestly doubt he ever will.

I'd say rehabilitatn or not committing certain crimes should prevent that person found guilty from ever living in society again. And certainly and absolutely not under an assumed name. I simply do not think they should have ever been freed. The crime was so horrific.

I agree. He is clearly not rehabilitated and probably won't ever be. I don't know if the 10 year old could have been rehabilitated if the case had been handled differently. Perhaps not but I think it's possible opportunities to rehabilitate him were missed in the frenzy to ensure there was retribution for their crimes.

I think that there is a very real possibility that Venables wants to be back inside. He spent his adolescence in a high security facility, and would have become accustomed to a sense of safety which he had never experienced before and likely never will again. I know some people are going to say that he would have verbalised it, but I disagree. He grew up under pressure to conform to the goal of rehabilitation, and, obviously, the potential of earning a life truly without limitations will be almost as appealing as being back in juvey.

It's the middle ground - the reality of his circumstances - which I feel fuels his seeming ambivalence. To do something which would land him in prison for the rest of his days... that's actually quite the challenge, if authorities are really as involved as we want to think. I don't imagine that he wants to die (therefore, hiding his identity remains of importance to him and would be an essential measure in maintaining his freedom to offend again), and he's clearly no fool, so I also doubt that he desires a life of low pay and paranoia any more than anyone else would. (Circumstances of that variety can cause people, especially those who lack typical survival strategies, to offend their way into prison, even with no prior convictions, so I think the risk is surely higher with someone who spent their adolescence under those conditions and has little left to fear.)

It is time that we properly take institutionalization into account. I, personally, would rather see him locked up again, given the unique experience he has had, than force vulnerable people to live with the risk that he would reoffend specifically to achieve the outcome which most of us want for him anyway. I can think of few things more tragic than the loss of a child's life (or will to live) just so that Venables can earn himself a certain life sentence. Is this not the entire issue? For over half of his life, he has been more acutely aware than most that very few things he can do will ensure that outcome. Standards used to gauge the motivations of other people of his age and background may not apply as readily to him.

But, who am I to comment? If we're going to have a discussion about him at all, the more conjecture the better as we may between us come up with reasonable theoretical basis for policy change which affects opportunities for offenders the wider picture. If you will, the circumstances we are aware of as a thought exercise rather than the specific case of Jon Venables, which necessarily is highly secret.

The emphasis does appear to be on the trial though rather than the 7 or 8 years of intensive input and rehab the boys received afterwards.

Having said that, there's evidence that the trial itself (for any child found guilty of violent crimes) can have a huge/lasting impact on them.

I found this (rather long) article both very interesting, and very frightening. It does seem quite balanced though and gives an insight into the type of secure children's homes where Venables and Thompson were housed. Frightening because there are so many more of these children out there that we never get to hear about. The story of the boy and the cat chilled me to the bone.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/the-end-of-innocence-inside-britains-child-prisons-1874053.html

Chunderella.......I take it you think they should not have been tried in an adult court or else you are just making the point that trying them in an adult court was not the actions of bleeding heart liberals. However the way they have been treated since the trial have certainly been the actions of bleeding heart liberals. The case of their being tried in an adult prison rightly or wrongly shouldn't be a sticking point in the way they have been treated since.
Throughout their time in secure accommodation and also since their release the feelings of James's mother have been callously disregarded. I remember her anger and distress when it was revealed that Thomson and Venerables were being allowed into Liverpool to watch a football match. This was after it had been decreed that neither must set foot in Liverpool ever again. I can't imagine what this must have done to her. What an absolute kick in the teeth that must have been to her. So I really do not give a flying fig about where they were tried or the reasons for it. My only concern is for the family of James who somehow have to struggle through life and have to be subjected to reading things such as what this post is about.

DepecheNo Interesting point re: offending his way back to security.

The penultimate paragraph in the article I linked says (quote from one of the senior workers):

"The bitterest irony for him is when he sees kids crying on the day their sentence is up.

“I’ve often seen them in tears because they do not want to go home”.

Pinefruits, I agree with you. When they were released the Bulgers insisted they were still dangerous and they were dismissed as bitter noisy chavs who should show deference to the experts who knew better than them. We know that at least in the case of Venables they were right. We also know the authorities lied because they were released as they 'no longer posed any risk to the public', yet before he was even arrested for the child porn charges they knew he was dangerous enough to warn off the girl he got pregnant. And we just don't know about Thompson because we know Venables was reoffending for quite some time, taking drugs, fighting and breaking his bail condition but they were all brushed under the carpet because of his special status.

And the Bulgers were also dismissed because we were reassured they would be properly supervised by people who knew better than the Bulgers. But Venables wasn't. It gets harder and harder to listen to people with bleeding hearts when time and time again they have been proved wrong by Venables and the Bulgers have been proved right.

The 'trying as adults' is a red herring that is conveniently tossed out by bleeding hearts to excuse anything Venables does. In reality it made very little practical difference and a lot of that was cosmetic. And it reflected the gravity of their crime.

I agree with one of the earlier posters, I think with Venables we'll probably all be posting here in a few years time when he's killed another child and the same people will be lecturing yet another family with a dead child telling them it's all the systems fault because some lawyers wore wigs, called him by his last name and allowed reporters into their trial and we all have to feel sorry for Venables when he kills babies, coz the poor lamb can't help it.

But the only part which was really unliberal was being tried as adults. And really Chunderella what do you think is most likely to have impacted on his reoffending? The fact 20 years ago a judge didn't take his silly wig off and called him by his surname? Or that more recently he knew he could break the law, break his bail conditions, enter Merseyside, fight, get arrested, take drugs and nobody would do a damn thing about it because they were too scared of admitting the Bulgers were right all along and they were wrong? The authorities wouldn't do anything until they were absolutely forced.

In some ways I really wish they'd been tried as adults because it wouldn't be available to be trotted out as a red herring every time Venables does something wrong. But in reality I know that even if they had done the people who want to look for something else to blame would always find it. If they had been tried as children this thread would probably be full of people complaining that they were brought the wrong brand of trainers or a play station when they wanted an x-box, or given peas with his dinner instead of sweetcorn so of course we can't blame a man in his mid-30s for looking at child porn when he'd gone through so much trauma.

this is quite an emotive topic for me as I am personally connected to a similar case although it involved slightly older children and a much older victim. however I think that the pitchfork brigade need to remember that we as a society failed those boys massively.

the authorities knew full well about the abusive situation Robert Thompson was in and did nothing. the authorities allowed the law to be changed in order to try two young boys as grown men. they faced the same charges and possibly consequences as the likes of the Kray Twins and Harold Shipman yet they were children. they had their faces and names plastered across every news outlet in the world. that should never have been allowed and the judge who allowed it should have been dismiss and barred from practising law and being on the bench.

their crimes were horrific but they have never been allowed to have a life away from it. no one has gone out of their way to publish computer aged photos of Robert Thompson but no one could resist the ones of John venebles.

the title of paedophile covers an exceptionally broad list of offences and in some cases yes I believe the offenders can be rehabilitated and in others I don't. but regardless of whether you believe it or not the way our society is set up means that people are permitted to try and live a normal life, fall in love, get married, have kids etc regardless of their criminal past. they will be closely monitored and will have a variety of restrictions placed upon them but they are allowed that life and that choice.

personally I would be far more concerned about the hundreds that the authorities don't know about that the ones they do

John venebles with children......

(Shudder)

Now that would be society failing children badly.

Some people thoroughly deserve the pitchforks and brimstone attitude they receive.

It's also possible that JV would have re offended regardless of how he was tried, rehabilitated or released. Humans are complicated beings and don't always fit a mould, so I don't think one particular aspect such as rehabilitation can be blamed. If it was as simple as that then reoffending rates as a whole would be lower.

The law wasn't changed for Thompson & Venables. It was changed afterwards. They were tried under existing laws which meant children aged 10-14 could only be found criminally responsible if the prosecution could prove they knew right from wrong which they did.

And despite the constant wails of 'they were tried as adults' it's just being trotted out. Nobody has been able to explain what exactly it was about being tried as an adult that was so traumatic it absolves a 30 year old man of blame for looking at child pornography.

I for one am glad they were named. It seems like since that decision was made the authorities, in Venables case, systematically hid his pattern of reoffending from the public. If he's on this dating site they're obviously not supervising him properly AGAIN. And if he hadn't been named and the public and the press hadn't discovered it, it would probably be being covered up yet again.

I totally agree with you moan everything.