C4 now - the James Bulger case **Trigger Warning - Contains Info about the case** (Title edited by MNHQ)

[Hairgician]

Sat watching this now.

I do not accept the view that those 2 boys were treated unfairly. They murdered that poor little boy and they knew what they were doing and that it was wrong.

They should be rotting in jail. Aibu to say justice not served??

would you have supported them through their trial and visited them in custody? Or would the heinous nature of the crime mean you would have to disconnect and leave them to the state to deal with?

I remember hearing a radio programme about the case and cases of other child offenders years ago now, and there's one bit that stuck with me. One of the experts involved said (as part of discussing the Bulger case specifically) that they worked hard to keep contact between the mothers and children going, even where there were question marks over the mother's parenting and the child's treatment at home, because - he said - it was virtually impossible to rehabilitate any young person who thought that their mother didn't love them anymore. I've always wondered if Lionel Shriver had come across this before writing We Need To Talk About Kevin.

Lemony "they were 10, they knew it was wrong but can’t be held to adult standards of logic"

Logic, no. Humanity, yes.

I think they and Mary Bell and whoever else should be locked away forever, partly to prevent them becoming parents.

Does anyone know why this is unavailable on All 4 now? I watched the first bit and then came up saying it was no longer available

I was just about to mention 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'

What's the significance of them becoming parents?

I'm in the process of reading Denise Fergus's book, it's just so tragic. What those boys did was horrendous, but at the end of the day they were just boys.

She herself says she just wanted to feel they were properly punished in an adult prison, she certainly didn't condone any of the vigilantes' threats. It must be so hard to feel that she hasn't managed to achieve justice for her little boy.

That’s strange, pom

But what sort of justice would have been justice; lock them up and throw away the key? To two children who are 10?

I do get what you're saying obviously, @Elendon but it's not me who lost her little boy that day.

I'm not sure for any parent in her circumstance that any justice would ever suffice. That's one of the reasons we as a society administer the 'justice' instead, through more balanced eyes.

It's also harrowing to hear the parents of young men who kill - as the BBC 'Life on Death Row' has shown. Lovely little boys who somehow took a wrong path in their teens and end killing.

Somebody posted a perfectly normal thread about their child hitting another child in nursery (which is an every day occurrence), but what if it had been with scissors, or knife and resulted in death.
Where do we draw the line between a kid who just went too far and resulted in a terrible 'accident' and one who was an evil murderous so and so who deserved to die?
Venables and Thomson were the most extreme examples, hence their notoriety, but where IS that line between evil child and one who just made a terrible mistake?
Do we judge it on how shocked we feel and transfer our level with shock onto their level of evil?

No worries @Lizzie48

Would be nice if you did have an answer though.

Oh and @Lizzie48

Thanks for your reply.

This is why we have judges to decide these things. No good just hand wringing and saying 'but what would be true justice?' Decisions have to be made, and it wasn't decided to 'throw away the key'.

• Thompson, 'scuse typos!

Sadly I don't, does anyone? There are absolutely no winners here.

where IS that line between evil child and one who just made a terrible mistake?

The level of premeditation in their actions for me takes it past the point of being 'just a terrible mistake'.

Remember this little boy was killed by other little boys. When do we stop seeing our little boys as little boys?

Where PP are saying that the boys, or at least Thompson had awful backgrounds, where are the sources?

I'm not disputing that they did but from the programme one of the journalists in court said she heard very little on the boys' background so unsure how everyone seems to know this to be the case?

Apologies if this has been covered.

If there is no hope for 10 year old boys, there is certainly no hope for adults who've killed, and that would have been the message delivered had they had indefinite sentences.

On top of that, we still face the societal issue of 'how do we get from an innocent baby, to someone we want to incarcerate forever (or kill) - within 10 years?'
That's a question that's pretty horrific in itself.

I've had the same issue re All4. Stopped mid way through, said it was no longer available and now it's gone.

Lemony Snicket in what world does a family exist where a mother who has been beaten by her father, marries a violent alcoholic who beats her and has seven children who abuse each other so badly that some end up removed from the household constitute an "average-ish" background? Are you really a journalist? These are widely available facts about the background of one of these boys, as is the possibility that one was possibly sexually abused by his brother,who was known to have sexually abused other children.

The premeditation was difficult to assess, as it was believed (nobody really knows) that they'd only intended to take a child (not to kill), but as the travelled further and further, it dawned on them the predicament they were then in - what to do with a child they'd taken.

I don't want to go into details and relive it all over again, because some readers might actually be close to the case, but the general principle is that the final outcome was not necessarily planned. It 'evolved'.

In retrospect, both had considerable opportunity to hand over James with relatively little consequence, but in the minds of two 10 year olds, they almost certainly couldn't see that.

Their backgrounds (one in particular) were harsh, but by no means rare.
However, just because their circumstances were not particularly rare, doesn't mean they weren't more affected than most others ever are.

By the very virtue of what eventually transpired, we can say they were exceptions. Once we accept that, we have to ask 'what factors made them exceptions?'. Their backgrounds will almost certainly have been hugely influential, but not the sole reason.

The wrong kids, in the wrong circumstances, at the wrong time, with the wrong ideas, given the wrong opportunity.... when all those factors combine, you get exceptional events.

I don't think they should have been given new identities either. Or at least new identities on the understanding that any partner would be told about their past. The very thought of welcoming either of those two into a family would fill me with total horror. And the thought of one of them being your parent or partner. No.

I think it's also connected to the 2 boys having egged each other on. Children do that; neither of them would have done what they did on their own, or with different friends. That's why at teachers or parents separate children who are a bad influence on each other.