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Original poster

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

480 replies

Sallystyle · 26/01/2015 12:57

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

OP posts:
YouTheCat · 26/01/2015 15:18

They were rehabilitated - years and years of counselling for a start.

And then new identities on release. They both were given every opportunity to create new, law abiding lives for themselves. Jon Venables hasn't done this. He has revelled in his notoriety.

JanineStHubbins · 26/01/2015 15:18

Janine if they Haden't committed their crimes, we would not be here discussing this.

Indeed. But they were tried under English law by an English judge - ie by 'us' as a society.

YouTheCat · 26/01/2015 15:19

That would be because they are English and their crime was committed in England.

FreudiansSlipper · 26/01/2015 15:19

I am not sure why any of us need to know this

it is for the his probation officer and those services that work with him to deal with

I am sure all the press constantly surrounding him is making their work harder no doubt he will have to have his identity changed once again

Aeroflotgirl · 26/01/2015 15:19

Also it's about remorse, I gather Robert Thopson showed remorse and was sorry for what he did, But Jon Venables was not, even bragging about his notoriety hence the need for identity changes. He is resonsible for himself and his actions as an adult now, he is no longer a child.

Tsoukalosy · 26/01/2015 15:21

The point is he shouldnt have a new identity. He is a danger to society. Why does his rights trump his victims and future victims rights?

Aeroflotgirl · 26/01/2015 15:22

I don't think she should have. authorities have a duty to inform his potential dates who they really are.

Aeroflotgirl · 26/01/2015 15:23

At the end of the day, they committed a heinous crime, the punishment wasent enough.

JanineStHubbins · 26/01/2015 15:23

Quite, YoutheCat. I'm responding to Aeroflot's earlier statement that 'we didn't try them, their crimes tried themselves' (or something like that).

FreudiansSlipper · 26/01/2015 15:23

And then new identities on release. They both were given every opportunity to create new, law abiding lives for themselves. Jon Venables hasn't done this. He has revelled in his notoriety

YouTheCat how do you know this?

wishmiplass · 26/01/2015 15:23

You I think Janine's making a different point...

Aeroflotgirl · 26/01/2015 15:26

Freud I believe Robert Thompson has, U.S. under the radar and is rehabilitating, but Jon Venables has not, hence him being in the public domain again with crimes relating to paedophiles. If he had followed a similar path to Robert Thomposon, he woukd not be in the press.

Tsoukalosy · 26/01/2015 15:26

This reply has been deleted

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MoanCollins · 26/01/2015 15:26

Mary Bell's conduct has been questionable. For example circumventing the laws which are designed to stop criminals from profiting from their work. And yes Bulger and Thompson had backgrounds which somewhat mitigated their offences because they had a skewed view of acceptable behaviour.

Venables is more worrying because he seems to have very capably manipulated the adults around him who were responsible for his supervision. Many of them were taken in by him, one of them slept with him and people involved in his supervision have spoken of their shock that he reoffended, because they took his expressions of remorse and contrition as genuine, but given his pattern of reoffending they were probably merely a show because he knew what these adults wanted him to say and he gave them what he wanted.

I think though that the reoffending is far more likely to be the result of being a sexually sadistic paedophile rather than being because the poor little lamb didn't have his hand held enough through the justice system.

YouTheCat · 26/01/2015 15:26

Jon Venables was in Australia as far as I'm aware, with a new identity and no one (except the relevant authorities) knowing who he was. His identity came out when he was found guilty of paedophilia. I believe I read this in a newspaper years ago.

I have no idea where the other lad is because he has a new identity, went and made a life for himself and hasn't put his head above the parapet, like Venables has.

MoanCollins · 26/01/2015 15:27

Because no amount of supervision by parole officers can make you want to look at child porn, none of it.

JanineStHubbins · 26/01/2015 15:28

Dense? Grin

wishmiplass · 26/01/2015 15:30

Moan eh?

WannaBe · 26/01/2015 15:30

yes but let's look at why they have new identities. Because the judge saw fit to name them so as to satisfy the baying mob. As such they were always identifyable. If they had not been named, as is the case with all under 16's even now, they would have been released under licence and got on with their lives, possibly re-offended yes, but there wouldn't have needed to be a new identity, a new witch hunt every time someone thought they'd spotted them and went to the press.

Venables should be judged based on the crimes he committed as an adult. Anyone who thinks that ten year old children should be locked up for the rest of their lives is twisted. Regardless of what they had done (and no-one is disputing that what they did was horrific).

But at ten they:

Were too young to drive
too young to drink
too young to vote
too young to consent to sex (on the basis they were not mature enough)
too young to possibly even walk to school alone in some cases.
Too young to legally watch certain films or buy certain games.

And yet they were old enough to be tried as adults for the crime they committed and for people to consider they should have been locked up for ever. How does that work then? It should not just be the nature of the crime which determines whether you're too young to be responsible. Again, the reason they were tried as adults wasn't because they were responsible in the way an adult is, it was to satisfy the outraged public.

The age of criminal responsibility was actually lowered to make a special example of them.

Responsibility for the crimes committed as a child does not sit in the same league as those committed as an adult.

Venables is responsible for the crimes he has committed as an adult. He is of course responsible for the crimes he committed as a child, but an adult should have been responsible for him before it came to that. You don't tell me a ten year old wakes up one morening and decides to murder a toddler and before that he was a normal happy healthy child. Somewhere someone must have noticed that something was very, very wrong with this child, and yet no-one looked out for either of them.

I read that Thompson's elder brother attempted suicide in order to be taken into care.

You simply cannot judge children on the same level as adults. if so then what is the point of having age orf responsibility for e.g. driving drinking, sexual relationships? If you're old enough to be tried for murder then surely you're old enough to drive a car? no thought not.

Hatespiders · 26/01/2015 15:32

To those who express a wish for men like these to be refused a new identity, I'd say that if not, they'd be lynched in the street within five minutes if their true identities were revealed. It's as if a fatwah had been issued against them by the general public.

I deplore what they did, and personally doubt if they should be at liberty, but I'm completely against lynching mobs and death-by-vengeance in the street.
At the time of the murder, many many people declared their determination to hack these two to pieces if they could get hold of them. That sort of mentality is deplorable.

FreudiansSlipper · 26/01/2015 15:33

Jamie Bugler's mother tracked him down

this is I am not critical of as I can not possibly relate in anyway to how how she feels

but what I am is the press publishing this story we did not need to know

and again how is us knowing helping anyone the press are never going to leave either alone. if Robert Thompson in anyway commits a crime we shall hear about it because the press do not want to let this go but they should and let the authorities deal with the situation

YouTheCat · 26/01/2015 15:36

I couldn't find a link to the article - but it was from a good few years ago.

If Venables hadn't committed more crimes then he'd be living a quiet life and able to get on with it. He's had 4 different identities and blows his cover every time.

TheFecklessFairy · 26/01/2015 15:37

Well said WannaBe - a really level headed post.

Can you imagine the outrage on MN if a Mners child of 10 was to be tried as an adult?

FreudiansSlipper · 26/01/2015 15:43

but again that is for the authorities to deal with

not the press and not the public

DopeyDawg · 26/01/2015 15:50

I think the fact that Venables keeps giving away his new ID is indicative of the fact that HE doesn't want / feel able to maintain a 'fresh start'.

I'd say the possession of images of child abuse was also pointing to this.

Given that may be the case, it will be better for society at large, and Venables himself, not to be 'at large'.