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??

CoolCarrie, I think they did release the names of the pair who killed the girls mother and sister (and you must know who they are to have phrased it that way!)

I would imagine the boys abuse and neglect was not mentioned ir down played as it didn't fit the media's evil monster spin.. they didn't want any one thinking why or how could a 10 year old do that or have a understanding of the boys life's.

I did read though that a lady who had a son and was in a relationship was warned by social services to immediately stop contact and she was sure it was one of them.

Sounds like a lie. They are required to tell their partners their real identity.

Why would a social worker (or anyone) recognise V or T? They must look very differently to what they did then.

I watched this and I feel for James parents and always will. I have no sympathy for the boys who did this and never will i don't care about their age.

Baby they had social workers untill they was released. They would chaperone them on outings.

What I find out is why they where placed together, I would habe thought itd have been more beneficial for their rehabilitation apart

Therefore I don't buy the 'only 10' and brain development excuses.
If they had been 4 or 5 then perhaps, never at 10 years old"

Have a look at my previous post. Doesn’t matter how old you are.

IF you haven’t developed healthy attachments to a primary care giver in your first 12-18 months of life, you are likely to experience significant difficulties with reasoning, executive function, empathy... all the qualities these boys appeared to lack.

You can be 3 or 10. Child brain development is linear.

My DS is 10. He has very little understanding of cause and effect and poor impulse control. He really struggles with thought processes that the average 4 year old would find second nature.

The brain is a complex thing.

The boys' abusive background was mentioned at the time, I remember it being in the papers that I read. But not in the headlines, and it didn't stick in the minds of the general public.

Baby they had social workers untill they was released. They would chaperone them on outings.

Oh I see, I thought they meant after they were released.

What I find out is why they where placed together, I would habe thought itd have been more beneficial for their rehabilitation apart

They were definitely in separate institutions.

They were placed in separate institutions. I didn't know one was gay until reading this thread (and I don't think the public is entitled to that sort of disclosure anyway).

CoolCarrie I didn't think the murderers in the Rough case had had their names revealed. Although they were easy to discover if you looked on social media so it may have been decided just to reveal and then give them new identities.

Either you believe they were evil, or you have to at least try to understand what factors lead to the them doing it.

Peter Sutcliife (Yorkshire Ripper), Myra Hindley and Ian Brady (Moors Murders) - they were all children once. They went to school, played, skipped, all the normal things. Somewhere along the line they slowly turned into killers.

In the case of Thompson and Venables, we KNOW this happened within 10 years - we know it happened during their childhood, not some weird period as adults, and that makes us want to understand 'what in the space of childhood can make kids do that?'

We don't know the answers, but there has to be something right? Probably a multitude of things caused it, but better to try and understand at least some factors than just pretend they were born to be killers and nothing we could have done would ever have stopped it. I don't believe that.

Ohh .my mistake.. I was reading an article on Thomson and it said when he was released he was told he had to cut ties with venerable... I assumed they where in the same unit.

Perhaps they were born to be killers?

I don't believe in the concept of "evil", but I do absolutely believe that damage or malfunction of the frontal lobe can cause sadistic/sociopathic behaviours in individuals who have had very non-traumatic upbringings.

We don't know everything about the functioning of the brain. We certainly don't know everything about their particular brains seeing as they are alive and well, and have never been autopsied.

Maybe 30 years down the line a conclusive genetic component will be discovered. Who knows?

If they were born to be killers (a concept I do not believe in), then it's even more remarkable that two of them were located within a couple of miles of each other and they discovered each other by the age of 10.
I personally believe it far more likely that they each had issues, but when combined, rather than calm each other, they combined to make each other worse (on that particular day).

That's not to say I completely discount the notion of being born to kill, it's just not one I personally subscribe to.

On the one hand, if they had killed my DS I would want them strung up. On the other, if one of them was my DS, I would have been desperate to protect them (I don't mean cover up for them, I just mean keep them away from all the media etc). I think the scenes when they were being driven in the blue vans and adults were screaming and thumping on the vans and demanding they be let out to face lynch mob justice right then and there are disgusting.

A few years ago I trained as a Prison Officer. Venables was in custody at that time, I have no idea where. I didn’t do the job very long but had a small insight into the Justice system.
Both of them are on life license. If they enter into a relationship, they are obliged to reveal their true identity. Even so I doubt they are totally supervised. I read somewhere that Venables was trying to groom women online, with children and even pretended to be a woman himself. He was caught by his probation officer, after he ousted himself to his work mates. This was on his last arrest.
I have no idea how those boys continued to hurt James, wouldn’t their conscience at all say this is wrong. They could have ended it at any time.
Likewise what about the adults who even stopped the boys and let them go? I guess they would feel an element of guilt too.
In light of Venables, I hope he is locked away for a long time, I think his chances have run out.

Thank you Carrie, I knew was getting some thing wrong when recalling those details. You’re right, it is Anne Hulme who is now the author, not Mary Bell.

The fact that grown men (and in some cases women too) would have been happy to rip them to shreds (kill them) only serves to demonstrate that people CAN be capable of killing with the right motivation.
Moreover, most of those people were not directly affected, just members of society at large.
Now, it's ironic that two 10 olds who committed a horrific act could be subject to equal horror at the hands of adults. The adults would argue they had just cause and the circumstances allowed it, and yet they could not fathom that somehow far deeper and stranger circumstances might have lead to the children's crimes.

I have little doubt that had those children been released to the howling mob, many of the mob might well have changed their minds at the actual prospect of harming a child, no matter what the child themselves had done, but some of them would not.

Yes I'm sure those adults who questioned them but let them continue must have felt awful and we can all learn something from that.

The idea that they could have stopped at anytime is really lacking insight into a child's capabilities. At a boarding school in Dublin last year a 14yo was assaulted with a hockey stick and vaseline by another boy. Horrific , and yet about 10 other onlookers, there by chance, stood by. I'd like to think my child would shout stop or at least run for help but not one did. We're they all depraved and hopelessly lacking in empathy or were they unable to do what any adult woukd see as obvious? And these were teenagers and we can assume most had 'normal' upbringings.

No sympathy for either of them. Even as children. Only for that poor little boy they murdered and his family.
Hope they both rot in hell.

I haven't read the entire thread. I can't deal with all of the details of what that poor baby suffered at their hands.

Yes. They were children themselves. Yes they were allegedly abused/had shitty upbringings

However, lots of children suffer horrific abuse and don't wind up being sadistic monsters.
I mean the ones back in isn't he? And the other one... Okay he may well be behaving now but he will remember their actions vividly everyday I am sure. The thought that he is undoubtedly around children. Neighbours, in supermarkets etc makes my skin crawl. The idea that he may be a father/husband/godfather is quite frankly unthinkable.

At 18 they should have been sent to a cat a prison. No questions.
With potential to reassess in the DISTANT future

@Glynroberts I am a journalist, albeit newly, for a very reputable paper. However I was , admittedly, mostly going off of various documentaries I’ve seen which have said their childhoods were average ( seeing as I wasn’t born when the original event occurred).
After reading a few posts I did ask ‘were they abused?’ If you read down a little bit.

I’m on a forum, not writing a story, and so haven’t fact checked to the extent I maybe should have. Thank you for your answer, I’ll take it on board.

I’ve probably posted more on this thread than I wanted to, it’s a very upsetting crime. I think even the passing of 25 years hasn’t really healed. It doesn’t seem that long ago really.
For me the 1990s were a good decade to grow up in but overshadowed somewhat by some terrible events.
Denise I believe does charity work for James charity and try’s to reach out to bereathed families. Ralph I think keeps a more quiet lifestyle although has been on the tv a few times.
I really think Denise should be honoured for her work despite the utter turmoil she has gone through. The woman is amazing. In my humble opinion.

At 18 they should have been sent to a cat a prison. No questions.
With potential to reassess in the DISTANT future

Well, it's been 17 years and Thompson has not reoffended in any way (we would know about it if he had), so evidently he was able to be rehabilitated during those 8 years.

They should have been evaluated at age 18, individually. A decision regarding their futures should then have been made. The fundamental mistake here was not releasing the boys after 8 years, but deciding the two cases together. They were individuals, adults by that time, and had been on the receiving end of rehabilitative treatment for 8 years. They should have been evaluated separately, and I highly doubt - if that had been done - that Venables would've been released at that time.

Apart from the horrific loss of James, I think it's terribly sad that Ralph has nothing to do with his second son, Michael. The pain of the devastating loss must have so many reverberations for them all.