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??

Such an upsetting case all round.
My mind still can't make sense of what happened to him or what drove those boys to do it. Did they ever make any attempt to show remorse or write letters to Jamie's parents ? we will never know why they did it. It's not like they'll ever be interviewed as adults and certainly as children they didn't explain their actions.
Poor Denise and Ralph.
RIP little James.

I don't think it's a case of (not) knowing right from wrong, or having poor impulse control. They were (and one still is) sadistic. Normal children and adults don't have those impulses in the first place.

They didn't steal his sweets. They tortured him to death over a prolonged period. They could have stopped at any time, but they chose not too- presumably because they enjoyed it.

I don't believe they should have been given the chance to re-habilitate. Once a line has been crossed to that extent, there's no way back to normal society.

Kelvin McKenzie is a twat (Hillsborough anyone? - no one has read The Scum in Liverpool for years).

The Norwegian Child Psychologist spoke sense as did both the solicitors.

Agree with Thesmallthings. These were not neuro typical, 'normal' 10 year olds. Their background and experiences would have greatly affected their morality and understanding of right and wrong. There was horrendous sibling torture in one home. You can't say all 10 year olds know right from wrong, it's just incorrect.

I fully believe that they should have been locked up for life regardless of their age - some crimes are just too heinous.

Where is the evidence to suggest Venables and Thompson were abused etc, there are several reports from the time to suggest quite the opposite.

Hard to take Kelvin Mackenzie lecturing us on right/wrong and fact/fiction when his paper has never cared little about those differences!

They are a danger to the public regardless.
They should not be the ones getting protection, it should be the public they should be protecting by locking them up and throwing away the key.

Zany Thompson was certainly abused. Venables' mum had MH issues and was too close to her child.

What reports are you referring to?

I think some people find it hard to face up to the appalling things human beings are capable of and that feeling becomes stronger when a child does something really awful

I don't think it's easy to label them as evil. I think it's actually quite hard to say "yes I understand how horrific human beings can be". For some people it's even harder to label a child but an instinctively decent child couldn't have gone near what they did.

I was 18 when the trial was held and the first thing I thought was, if they're not locked up for life, how do I know I won't end up working with one of them? I'm more comfortable with them being locked up for life than any other option.

I agree with all the arguments against treating them like adults. They were not. Also agree they must have been disturbed. Finally, I don't think 'the baying mob' are the right people to judge complex cases like this, as the general public lacks all of the data.

I'm astonished at the posters saying 'they were only 10....had horrendous upbringings.....10 year olds don't have impulse control, don't know the consequences of their actions! They didn't stumble across James, they enticed him away with the intention of hurting him. They conducted a prolonged attack, they could've stopped at any point, but they didn't. They didn't hit him once and walk away, they hit him over and over and over and over again with several objects. And tortured him! They watched James suffer and cry. They didn't stop. They carried on hurting him. They are not 'normal' unfortunate 10 year olds with a rough upbringing. Other children who have rough upbringings don't commit acts of this nature.

Anyone interested may find Gitta Sereney's book 'cries unheard' interesting reading. Sereney was a remarkable journalist, worked in horrendous situations in Red Cross camps during the war so had worked with children and families in extreme trauma, and interviewed several extreme high profile war criminals attempting to push them for what responsibility they took and to admit what really happened to their victims. She was not a soft touch by any means. She was sent to cover the Mary Bell trials and then several decades later the Bulger trial, and her comparisons and insights make for very interesting reading. One of the key things she mentions was whether the way adult trials are run led to the children who had committed such terrible crimes being faced with the enormity of what they had done in a way they understood, or receiving meaningful consequences they could make sense of, and that failed in justice for the victim and their family.

She also talked about the difficulty of raising a disturbed child in a care and education/therapeutic based situation for eight years in a way that is not a prison environment, and then transferring the young person to a prison environment on the day they turn eighteen as was done with Mary Bell. Thompson and Venables were handled differently but she felt that the government and system had learned almost nothing from the Bell case.

mikado1 - I think the reaction would have been the same due to the awful nature of what happened to James. This isn't the only case where people have crowded round the vans etc.

Yes, I have definitely read varying reports too, in Ralph Bulger's book it does state that the family were told the boys had not had the awful childhoods some papers chose to report. I would imagine his information was more accurate than the headlines?

Ralph Bulger made it clear he did not want a witch hunt for the boys but wanted justice to be served and also no anonymity as he felt this would encourage people to search for them and potentially ruin the lives of innocent people that the public believed to be them. This was actually the case of a boy they arrested early on in the case, the family were driven out of their home even when the lad was released.

@babyccinoo what do you mean she was too close to her child?
She wasn't that day or he wouldn't of gone out and killed a baby

I also don't know what the point is of making and showing a programme like this. All it does is stir up the fuckwits - to what purpose?

How on earth is it right that those people do not know who they are living with.

Zany it's a condition of their release that they have to tell partners of their identity. Thompson did marry.

God, some people need to look into this more. Venables was not a Baby P.

Thompson's mum was an alcoholic, he was child 5 out of 7, all of the kids battered each other and were afraid of each other according to NSPCC reports. NSPCC said that nothing individual meant they should be taken into care but the sum was horrendous.

Venables had separated parents who coparented. His mum was suicidal, but not abusive. His siblings had learning disability. No record of abuse exists. He's the one who had a record of violence prior to the torture and murder of James, he throttled a child at school.

The story is tragic for all involved

and yes of course more so for James Bulger and his family I wouldn’t expect them to not what both to still be in jail

I don’t believe people (and certainly not children) are evil but we are all capable of inflicting pain on other why some do well it’s very complex but rarely have those that commit horrendous crimes come from secure loving homes and these two boys certainly didn’t

Nope. They are not worth rehabilitating. The time and money and heartache that has gone into protecting these two MEN is a joke

Why was Thompson not worth rehabilitating? He has committed no offences since his release. Would it really have been better for society if he'd been locked up for 60 or 70 years?

Neither would need all that time and money to protect them if it were not for the way the media has spent the last 25 years demonising two people who were seriously abused children at the time of their crime, and if they hadn't done their utmost to stir up the baying mob at every conceivable opportunity,

Other issues apart, imagine if they'd been released under their real names. Neither of their names is that uncommon, and we live in a society where people demonise paediatricians. Life for every man called Robert Thompson or any remotely similar variant of that name would have become sheer hell.

Babyccinoo - do you actually know this? I am not being funny by asking this, I am genuinely intrigued. I am referring to those reports discussed by Ralph Bulger in his book.

Regardless I don't think it is an excuse, my DH suffered terrible abuse as a young child and at 10 he still would not have done anything like this. I know it is not black and white of course.

I wouldn't want to live in a society which felt that locking two 10 year olds up for the rest of their life, without making any effort to rehabilitate them or get to the bottom of their issues.

That's such a grim and exceptionally narrow-minded perspective.

babyccinoo - I did not realise that re telling people, I am quite shocked that is the case TBH. Presumably only people they are living with though and not employers, friends (with children) etc?

Lilacblue, if you can't come up with a better argument than slinging abuse around, perhaps you need to take a good look at what that says about you.