To wonder how many people actually understand

[TheLadyEvenstar]

How it feels for the Victim and victims family when a criminal is released or escapes and then reoffends?

I have one hell of a lot of sympathy for James Bulgers family and to some extent understand how she is feeling right now.

1993 little James was murdered, that was also the year i was sexually and violently assaulted, no the 2 were not connected. But one thing that does connect them is Jack Straw made a bad decision on both cases.

He made the final decision on releasing the Bulger killers and also the final decision on moving my attacker from Rampton to Prestwich hospital - the result in both has been awful.

For Denise and her family they had to be notified when these 2 were released, and now that Venables is back inside after commiting another crime - level 4 child pornography - just one less than beastiality and violent pornography/acts.

For myself I was contacted in 2006 to tell me the criminal who attacked me had escaped and was on the loose. Took from November 2006 - March 2007 for him to be caught and then only because he reoffended did that happen.

I know the dread i felt daily and the pain it caused me and my family. Imagine being glad your Dad, in my case, was no longer alive to know he had escaped and that the man who had hurt me was on the loose to do the same to another woman.

Its easy to say, they were children/too young/difunctional family etc but at the end of the day the sympathy should not be with the criminals but the forgotten victims - THE FAMILIES OF THE VICTIMS. Because they will never forget what their child/parent/sibling went through.

SpicedGherkin, he has committed a serious offence, I fail to see how any criminal offence can be victimless.

It was reference to the thread in general, to people wanting to widen who is punished beyond the perpetrator and just general flippancy. In retrospect it was probably both a little unfocused, and making the quote work a little too hard.

But I like quoting from Aliens.

Stay frosty.

aha! all is revealed.

"I doubt there are any 10YO murderers in there tho"

But that wasn't what you asked for. What you asked for was murderers or torturers. I doubt many people even know of 3 examples 10 year old murderers (and almost certainly not 3 examples of them being tried and convicted as adults) so it would be near impossible to give 3 examples of reformed 10 year old killers so you can't dismiss examples given on that basis otherwise you are moving the goal-post. You asked for 3 convicted violent criminals who have gone on to contribute to society, so I'll agree with you in dismissing vaughan and offenders like that. What you said above:

can anyone please give me 3 examples of offenders of this sort (murderers / torturers etc) actually going on to make a meaningful contribution to society.

and

no one has give me 3 cases of criminals who have gone on to provide something useful to society.

Mary Bell.

Mary Bell committed her crimes with a second child[Norma Bell-no relation].The interesting things about that case are that Norma was acquitted as 'simple minded].Mary went on to be fully remorseful and became totally rehabilitated unlike Venables she proved to be a good mother and is now a proud grandmother.I read a lot about the case as I was teaching at the school she went to just after the crimes were committed.

What is very interesting on this thread is the eloquence and intelligence of some posters and the complete insane illogicality of others. Some of you are coming across as a bit dim.

TLE yes I totally agree wholehartedly with you

Yes though the boys were 10 when they murdered little James Bulger, but I believe they did know very well what they were doing. It was said that they were out looking in Bootle for a little child to torture and unfortunatly poor James was targeted. The crimes were so horrific what they did to that poor poor little boy, of course they knew what they were doing, they are not stupid! It wasent some bungled atttack, it was a premeditated set of crimes that led to poor James to be killed. Yes though they sereved their time, it was not enough for what they did to that little boy, they did just not kill him, they tortured him. If that was your little child you would not be so forgiving.

I was only about 14 at the time and though i felt sad, I did not really realise until I was a mum and my little girl was the same age as James.

Why do people (Rhubarb) keep going on about a child-porn offence?

Isn't that just speculation??

Where's your evidence (note: The Sun is not evidence).

I'm agreeing with MadameDefarges posts.

No TSC life should mean life for any murder like that adult or child, there should be harsher custodial sentances in general. I find it hard to feel sorry for James killers or to feel any sympathy, what they did to that defensless little boy. They should be institutionalised for life, not prison but in a psychiatric institution.

Why is it being stated here as a fact that he downloaded child porn images, and that there are other victims - nobody knows what has happened so rumour is being stated as fact.
I for one am glad that we do not live in a country where vigilante justice is acceptable and by not giving them a new identity somebody would attack and possibly kill them, we can't have people dishing out their own punishments where would it end and that's not a society I want to live in

pigletmania - I have asked before and I will ask again for the details of the crimes NOT to be posted. Some of us DO NOT want to be reminded of that. You may think you are making a point, but I don't think anyone of this thread is questioning what they did that day. I studied the case for criminology, it affected me to the extent that I dropped law. I couldn't do it.

It's taken me a long time to stop crying over the details of what they did. Heaven only knows how his mother copes. So will people please STOP posting details.

I have also reported your post as it is very upsetting.

zubin and weegiemum. Whilst I admit that The Sun is not the best of papers to quote, apparently they do know exactly what Venables has done as Jack Straw has ordered them NOT to publish any further details. So I think we can safely say that Venables was involved in some sort of sexual crime.

Jack Straw himself says it was a crime of a most serious nature.

My point is that there are now new victims of Venables - are you going to deny that or does it not matter unless his new victims also happened to be children?

If anyone killed my child I would of course, want to hunt them down and torture and kill the murderer.

That is why we have a justice system.

I was 7 years old when those 2 monsters did what they did.

I remember being sat in a school assembly and the deputy head was talking about criminal responsibility and the debate over whether they knew what they were doing at aged 10.

I was 7 and I remember vividly being shocked (and I didn't know the full story obviously) that anyone could think that 10 was too young to understand.

For everyone saying that these poor boys are victims of their upbringing, well that may be... but at 27 and possibly committing further crimes- do we still say oh its okay because they had a terrible childhood? No we don't because as an adult we make them take full responsibility.

And at the age of 10 unless they had some sort of learning disability then I'm sure they knew exactly what they were doing.

I'm sure we can attribute most despicable actions to events that occurred in childhood or upbringing, but it doesn't mean that people can be excused and allowed to get away with it.

Oh for god sake why do people post details of what happened that day? It is like the worst kind of tabloid grief porn.

We are all adults, we all know what went on. We do not need to read it in all its salacious detail again.

Agree with Rhubarb.

But you don't know there were more victims, you don't even know for a fact he has committed another crime - he has been accused of a crime and nobody knows anymore than that. Of course it matters if there are victims of crimes irrespective of the age but you are stating tabloid rumour as absolute facts

BESSIE 123
"But I still do not think you can expect a 10 year old child to take responsibility for something he has done as a child for the rest of his life"

i don't know. For a child to do something this evil, can they be redeemed? I think not. I am not saying lock them up, and throw away the key. BUT I think they are pure evil, and should always be scrutinsed, always. I am tired of people using excuses, some kids are rotton apples, end of. If a ten year old acted irresponsible and cuased a death, well fine your argiment stands. But not for what they did.

Denise Fergus, while she suffered the most awful loss imaginable, doesn't really know anything about this.

Leave her the fuck alone she is not even in this thread.

sorry, was so annoyed I forgot to send my condolances to OP. I am sad this happened to you

and piglet...dont post this shit why the hell is that helpful or even relevant???

Zubin, The Daily Telegraph granted but bear with me: "Venables has been recalled to prison, reportedly over allegations of possessing high-level ?Category Four? child pornography. Crown Prosecution Service lawyers will decide whether he should be charged under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which carries a maximum term of 18 months in jail.

There were also claims that Venables repeatedly breached his parole by taking drugs and ignoring a ban on visiting Liverpool, where he and Robert Thompson murdered two-year-old James in 1993."

Jack Straw at the time refused to confirm or deny the rumours but confirmed that these were "very serious allegations".

Then in the Today programme Mr Straw appeared to confirm the rumours by saying he would "make a judgment about if there's information ? given that it's already out in the newspapers ? we can confirm."[64]

So are you still going to question whether there are/were any new victims of Jon Venables?

I think it is extremely important that we realise we all agree that an adult committing serious offences must be dealt with for that offence, and not to think that those who feel that 10 year olds should not be dealt with in the same as adults think he should not be punished for whatever crime he has committed now.

We can speculate, or even firmly believe that these children were pure evil and are beyond rehabilitation, but unless you try to rehabilitate them, you will never know.

We owe it to our society as a whole to attempt the rehabilitation of offenders, whatever their crimes. Because morally and practically it is the only option for society.

The reason why the age of these children matters so much, is because their crime flies in the face of what we believe about children, and about our society. It is easier emotionally to marginalise them and demonise them as individuals than to see them as a manifestation extreme human behaviour in our society.

In some sense, an adult doing this is regarded as impure anyway, but a child doing it is a severe blow to our collective sense of balance in the world. We would rather collectively stone these offenders to death (in a strange minicry of their actual crime) than take on board our society can produce such psychopathic behaviour in children.

Because by doing so, we are effectively "killing" the savage and psychopathic part of all of us. we of course know this part exists, because it is ironically, the very part that is aroused by acts of this nature.

We feel that same blood lust, blind, unmediated fury the desire to hurt...but as adults we should be able to both feel those emotions, and then to put them aside.