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Original poster

The Bulger killers: was justice done?

999 replies

WannaBeWonderWoman · 08/02/2018 00:07

Following on from previous thread which was filled.

What would have been the correct way to deal with these little boys who subjected a tiny two year old to protracted agony and unimaginable suffering then?

Interested to know what all the bleeding hearts on here believe should have happened? Whether they attended an adult court and were convicted of murder which they confessed to anyway, was this crueller to them than what they put that child through? They were well treated and even when they were serving their 'sentence' they were protected and given all they wanted (more than they would have got if they'd been in their own homes probably) and had all the help and therapy it was possible to give them. Did they suffer? You could actually argue that they benefitted from killing. They have to live with what they've done, yes, but if they did I find it hard to comprehend that Thompson especially (who came across as the leader in the interviews) can.

The Norwegian case which is often compared to this is nowhere similar IMO. The perpetrators were a similar age to their victim. They were 6 which is almost half the age V&T were and they wouldn't have been tried here anyway. Most importantly that crime was not premeditated or drawn out for hours like the many horrors inflicted on James.

He was the only victim here.

OP posts:
Sleepingbunnies · 08/02/2018 14:55

Yes I do Andro.

Elendon · 08/02/2018 14:55

Who is going to sanction the death penalty for two 10 year old boys?

It's ridiculous and barbaric to think that the state would do such a thing in the 21st century.

HarveyKietelRabbit · 08/02/2018 14:58

I always enjoy the death pentalty advocates.

Killing is wrong, so horrific, such an affront to humanity that we will....kill you for doing it.

Makes sense.

WitchesHatRim · 08/02/2018 14:59

their names should not have been released after sentence was passed.

Is that going to happen for every murderer then?

What about that even more offences have been committed?

Elendon · 08/02/2018 15:00

Perhaps those who considers that hanging children of 10 is a good idea might want to read this.

www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/child.html

Sleepingbunnies · 08/02/2018 15:06

harvey You believe that they should be released? To marry your daughter/son? To raise children?

BlackEyedKid · 08/02/2018 15:07

some of the remarks I hear about what some people would like to happen to two ten year olds make me wonder just who is evil.

Rebeccaslicker · 08/02/2018 15:08

If someone has the sort of material that V had, should we wait until he has actually committed a "real crime"? How do we balance not locking up someone for life unnecessarily with not throwing another child under the bus?

This is my concern with a blind faith that T has been rehabilitated. Is it truly possible after a crime like that? And if your background was genuinely so terrible that it led you to do something like that, can you ever grow away from it? I'd like to think he has been fully rehabilitated (not least because people will inevitably hold him up as an example of what rehabilitation can achieve in other cases). But we won't ever know for sure unless he does reoffend.

A good family friend of mine is a very senior criminal psychologist. He hasn't worked with T and V, but he has some rather terrifying thoughts about people who are born with more of a capacity to kill and what prevents it happening in most of the population. Basically, scratch the surface and we're still animals!

Sleepingbunnies · 08/02/2018 15:09

Two 10 year olds that tourtured and murdered a 2 year old. Yup, im fine with my remarks.

LagunaBubbles · 08/02/2018 15:12

He has not, as far as we know (and I think we would) applied his paedophilic tendencies to a child. His crimes since being released for murder are relatively minor. Why does that indicate a danger to the public that requires him to be imprisoned for the rest of his life?

Depends your defintion of "relatively minor" though doesnt it...shoplifting a lipstick from Boots maybe is minor...downloading and viewing images of children being sexually abused? Not so much.

Aridane · 08/02/2018 15:13

I hate to think what this thread / other threads are going to be like tongith / tomorrow after the ITV Trevor McDonald/ Denise Fergus interview this evening...

Pomegranatepompom · 08/02/2018 15:14

I can't understand why people think these children should have had longer sentences than adults who have carried equally if not worse crimes.

Cherrycokewinning · 08/02/2018 15:14

Downloading child abuse images is relatively minor compared to murder, of course it is.

Cherrycokewinning · 08/02/2018 15:15

Rebecca- the same could be said for all the hundreds of thousands of people convicted of downloading child abuse images everyday - you sentence them for that offence and don’t keep them off the street forever just in cases -unless there is specific evidence that they are a serious danger to children

Aridane · 08/02/2018 15:15

Yes, Pomegranate - I commented on the other thread that we seem to be judging them more harshly than adults who have carried out equally bad / worse crimes...

loobyloo1234 · 08/02/2018 15:19

The only way justice would have been done would have been for those two evil boys to have been hit by the same train

HOWEVER - if Thompson is rehabilitated as the media/police etc would have us believe, then the punishment did work - for now

Venables however has had many chances and IMO he is a danger to society, an ongoing one at that. And for that, he should never be released

YetAnotherUser · 08/02/2018 15:20

Some people clearly need to learn the difference between justice and revenge.

Sleepingbunnies · 08/02/2018 15:21

You think justice was served yet?

YetAnotherUser · 08/02/2018 15:23

You think justice was served yet?

No, because they weren't tried in a juvenile court like they should have been.

Rebeccaslicker · 08/02/2018 15:23

Cherry - but without putting down the graphic details, those people haven't done what V has already done to a small child. Although I do think anyone who knowingly looks at that sort of stuff is disgusting, but that's a whole other thread!

And this is the second time V has been caught with that sort of stuff on his computer. That suggests that he's more at risk of actually taking it to the next level of hurting another child than most, I would say.

LagunaBubbles · 08/02/2018 15:23

Downloading child abuse images is relatively minor compared to murder, of course it is

You said His crimes since being released for murder are relatively minor, I disagree.

GlassButterfly · 08/02/2018 15:24

I didnt read the other thread, but they should have been put to death at the time, save all this money and aggro now, they will never change, never be rehabilitated., poor JB's mother, what a nightmare her life has been, all this protracted agony, if they had been hung/lethal injection at the time, she could have tried to come to terms with it and they would never be free to reoffend again.

BarbarianMum · 08/02/2018 15:24

some of the remarks I hear about what some people would like to happen to two ten year olds make me wonder just who is evil.

Condemning people is easy. Labelling them as "evil" is nice and simple and morally satisfying. Understanding what has gone wrong when children kill is harder, and more tortuous and can lead to quite uncomfortable and challenging conclusions.

WitchesHatRim · 08/02/2018 15:24

I can't understand why people think these children should have had longer sentences than adults who have carried equally if not worse crimes.

They didn't have a long sentence for torture and murder though. 8 years isn't long enough for murder no matter whose committed it.

This isn't just about the horrific murder however. Venebales has committed further crimes.

ChaosNeverRains · 08/02/2018 15:25

In this case for example yes I believe that they should have faced the death penalty. and at what age would you have them put to death? At ten?

And more to the point, who do you think should be the one to carry out that act?

How does one interview for an executioner anyway? What criteria should someone have to fulfil to be employed to execute ten year olds and how proud would you be if your son or daughter applied for that job?

I read an article somewhere once about the high levels of ptsd and mh difficulties experienced by people who were required to be executioners as part of their job in e.g. the states. It didn’t make for pleasant reading.

But that aside, even if one believed that they should have served whole life sentences (which I don’t but even if you did) you would have to be a certain kind of twisted sick bastard to want to be an executioner of children.