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

Suboptimal, the point you're missing is that any other offenders, rapists, murderers, those who look at images of child abuse - when you meet them in a pub or online you can go and find out what their criminal record is. That's not the case with Venables as it's deliberately hidden.

It seems social services didn't even tell a girl he was in a relationship with until she was quite heavily pregnant with his child.

Freudian I think you even equating Jon Venables childhood to abuse is an insult. It was nowhere near abuse and nowhere near the kind of childhood one might expect could give some sort of mitigating circumstances towards the murder. Especially considering the vast majority of abuse victims don't go on to kill babies or get turned on by child abuse images. I also think it insults the Bulgers when people are so desperate to excuse and minimize they will try and find abuse where none existed.

And the incident with the woman who slept with him did not entirely revolve around the staff member, it also involved a young man who is clearly an expert manipulator. Personally I would like to see the case reinvestigated because I think the authorities were far too quick to believe Venables version of events and accept his 'remorse' and his blaming of Thompson. I think Thompson was probably a lot less likely to know what people wanted to say, I think Venables role was much greater than has been uncovered so far and it's remained hidden because he is such a skilled manipulator and the people supervising him have been so keen to be manipulated.

Chunderella I believe it's Thompson who is gay.

Moan there is a lot of assertion and conjecture in that post, but the point is that it's only what you have surmised after reading third and fourth hand accounts.

Unless you work with this man in a professional capacity, you don't know.

The trial of Venables and Thompson was not British Justice's finest hour. It was a complete farce.

That is worry a Chunderella I am a single parent myself I am aware that I am a possibly easier target but they do not come with it stamped on their forehead and fact is we just do not know who is a paedophile, it could be our new friendly seems to be a great father neighbour, child's teacher, doctor, friends father the list is endless

we can only do our best to protect children

we can not lock up for ever every paedophile or those that go on to abuse (not every paedophile does) and naming them and outing them allows a vigilante society and how does this really benefit us to live in a society that allows the public to take the law into their own hands

Moan I think you have "missed the point" that ex offenders don't come with a neon sign over their heads advertising the fact.

So their offences may be discoverable, but you have to know to look first. I doubt there are many who date who bother to check the sex offenders register after the first meeting....

Funnily enough you're probably a lot more likely to get the nod if you've accidentally come across JV. As has been shown several times, he doesn't seem to really fly under the radar.

Don't be ridiculous Suboptimal, the only conjecture I've seen is people suggesting that Venables was abused when there's absolutely no evidence that's true.

Yes we do know that they have new identities which are not associated with the offences. That's not conjecture, it's a fact. Ditto the manipulation, these are accounts which have been given to professionals who worked with him. Multiple workers have related that Thompson was seen as the leader and the more dangerous one and that they were shocked when Venables began reoffending. We also now know that Venables has a sexual interest in children. That's another fact, and the case has never been re-examined bearing that in mind which I think is a mistake. The possibility of a sexual motive on the part of Venables has never been properly investigated.

For all those who believe that Jon Venables did not have a very dysfunctional childhood, perhaps you could read this article from the Guardian. To quote from it:

In January 1987, the police were called to Susan Venables' home because the children (then seven, five and three) had been left alone for three hours. Case notes observe that [his mother's] "serious depressive problem" made Venables suicidal.

and

After the trial, Mr Justice Morland laid the moral responsibility squarely with the parents. He said a public debate about the parenting and family background of Thompson and Venables was required. "In my judgement," he averred, "the home background, upbringing, family circumstances, parental behaviour and relationships were needed in the public domain so that informed and worthwhile debate can take place for the public good in the case of grave crimes by young children."

"I do not quite understand why someone who has been abused would find it insulting to read that JV may have been a victim himself"

I don't think anyone would be insulted if there was any suggestion that he had been abused. Certainly, no one's offended when the serious abuse RT suffered on a daily basis is brought in as a mitigating factor. But the simple fact is professionals have been over every millimetre of his life looking for anything, and not the slightest whiff of anything out of the ordinary has been found. Not from him, or his family or the school or anyone else. Obviously no one can ever say for sure, but I'm pretty confident that the therapists that dealt with him for years are better placed to comment than some random housewife on an Internet forum

That's not to say he had a fantastic life- but if parental divorce, maternal MH issues or siblings with SN predispose one to torture and murder then half the kids I know will be locked up by the time they're fifteen.

It doesn't really help anyone- least of all him- to keep insisting that he was damaged by a life of unbearable abuse against all evidence. As I said earlier, I firmly believe that whatever did go so horribly wrong for him comes from his own psychiatric make-up.

Lala I find it shocking that the judge himself could indicate that there were very grave problems at home and still be happy to try those two boys as adults. What happened at the time was nothing more than a witch hunt.

What the two did was horrific, but the British justice system does not have hundreds of years of good case history just so it can all be thrown out of the window when the baying mob demand it.

And was there then an inquiry into the services school had failed the two boys over their lives? Were the parents looked at? And if not, why not?

Sadly lala no one wanted informed and worthwhile debate about what drove these two young boys to do what they did, did they?

No, they just wanted blood, and then to forget.

I am not sure why you think it is an insult. Of course the vast majority of abuse victims (as numbers are very high) do not go on to abuse but abuse is complex and so is neglect (which can be a form of abuse) and the impact it can have on victims and in turn their behaviour is something that can not be ignored and is very difficult to measure

I can not speak for how the Bulger family feel and not sure you can either I would never expect them to feel anything but anger and hatred for JV and RT but the press feeds this sadly. I hope one day they can feel less hatred for their own peace of mind how I am not sure. But the law does not take into account of how the family feels about a crime, that is not how our law system works

And as for the member of staff who slept with him the blame is entirely with her. Clients/those in your care/patients often try to manipulate it is something they have often learnt to do often as protection for themselves (though not always) its is something you have to deal with in a professional way

I'd be interested to know at what age people think that children can be held responsible as adults for crimes they commit. Bearing in mind that the age of criminal responsibility was actually lowered in order to try these two boys, how far do you think that should go?

Most children do know that hurting others is wrong. We teach them that from an early age. so at what age does a child go from child who although has committed wrong cannot be held responsible on the same level, to sadistic bastard who should be locked up until their eighteenth birthday and then hung in front of a baying mob... Eight perhaps? six? five? three? where is the line drawn?

Even if Venables was a sadist from the outset, why did no-one ever notice? You don't wake up a sadist one morning, if you are capable of committing the horrific murder of a toddler there will have been signs that he was not of normal persuasion. It simply isn't possible that there were no signs that there was something very seriously amiss with this child's personality.

Last year that woman in scotland was only sentenced to five years for the manslaughtr of her child - the one she reported missing and had the country looking for, - meanwhile she had tortured him to death over the last five days of his life. beating him while he was being sick, causing injuries so severe that he died, and then she calasly hid his body in her car, took his twin sibling to nursery and then dumped him in woods before starting a national hunt for a missing child. And people on here sympathised with her because she was a mother and must have been mentally ill. But she was an adult capable of calculating her actions to the enth degree. And yet a child commits a horrific murder and we must show them no consideration, because whatever they did outweighs any of the circumstances that drove them there.

JV is responsible for the crimes he has committed as an adult the reason why he has been given a new identity is because of the crime he committed as a child one which, even if he had been rehabilitated from, will never leave him.

From what I've read, Robert Thompson was successfully rehabilitated. And yet there are still people who would be happy to see him put to death at the hands of the vijilanti mob, for something which he did as a ten year old child.

Chunderella how would we manage prisons

there is a reason so few prisoners are given a full life sentence (life meaning life). Our prisons would become totally overcrowded and unmanageable sad (in some cases) but true

And then there is rehabilitation. There is evidence to support that it works or has worked but we are just not supporting this enough. I am not totally sure it can cure someone but of how they manage their thoughts and feelings

suboptimal but Venables has thoroughly discredited people like you through his own behaviour. The argument was that they were just children who'd made a mistake and they would be given the softly softly treatment which would guarantee they would never offend again. In fact the prosecution did its best to play down the sexual elements of the crime and they were brushed under the carpet. The idea that they might pose a danger was poo poo'd and we were told they would fit back neatly into society and never be heard from again. Of course it's not worked out like that with Venables. And you have to wonder if we'd condemned a little bit more and understood a little bit less we'd be in the same situation. If prison had been a place he feared going back to rather than a retreat, if he's been encouraged to face the enormity of what he did rather than being told he was a victim.

the thread about the women in Scotland who tortured her son

i was on that thread and the majority were disgusted with what she done,the majority thought she should of got longer and could not understand how a mother could do that, and there were very few bleeding hearts on that thread a few but the majority were apalled by her actions

WannaBe

There were actually a great many signs that JV had a violent/disturbed/sadistic personality if you read accounts of his behavioural outbursts at the various schools he attended. His mum believed that he had ADHD and tried to change his diet accordingly.

Who knows what the outcome could've been if someone had taken his behaviour seriously and referred him to a half-decent CAMHS service,

Moan genuine question, where is the information that the prosecution wanted to hush up evidence? That would be an unusual angle for them to take!

And I think it's simplistic to think that prisons should be a place that people don't want to go back to. Many prisoners like the routine, lack of responsibility, three meals a day and not to mention the additional facilities that they don't have access to on the inside. We would have to go back to complete basics with gruel and hard labour for it to be an incentive not to reoffend!

I remember that thread too.

The majority were horrified by that evil woman's actions, I remember a lot of emotion running high and very few people 'supporting' her for want of a better word.

Though my own feelings may have clouded my memory I suppose.

Freudian no you wouldn't know would you, until he did it to you and yours. If that did happen (god forbid) how would you feel that his identity had not been disclosed and you could potentially have monitored his interactions with your family?

AmarettoSour why even give it a thought

there a many paedophiles that have abused that are around that I am not aware of I can not obsess about them or JV it would have a negative impact on my life

"Bearing in mind that the age of criminal responsibility was actually lowered in order to try these two boys, how far do you think that should go?"

I don't think that's quite right. The age of criminal responsibility in England has been 10 for ages, but if under 14 there had to be specific consideration of whether the juvenile indeed had the capability to determine right from wrong. Nothing was changed specifically for this case.

The age in Scotland is 8, isn't it?

I'm not saying we should obsess over it, obviously that's not healthy, but the fact is advocating his 'right' to anonymity is placing innocent people at risk. Taking vigilante justice out the equation why shouldn't people know who he is? I sure as hell would want to if he moved next door to me and if he was alienated well, that's the price he has to pay for his actions.

I may be jaded as I've personally seen several cases of known paedophiles being placed in streets filled with children, I don't see how they deserve to be protected more than the children they abuse