James Bulger's mother demands right to find freed killers

[suzywong]

as reported in the \link{http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news1.shtml\news of the world.

Should she have the right?

Discuss

do you think that the fact that there was two of them is significant? perhaps you could possibly, given time come to accept that a child could be so unbalanced and disturbed that he could commit these terrible act but what are the chances of two children being this badly damaged?

having read back along the thread, i just want to say that i dont think people who read these sort of books are strange or 'sad'. i think it maybe comes from a need to try to understand and make sense of it all. none of us knew james but his death has effected every single one of us, as you can tell from the emotion in these messages.

Tammy- if we allowed our emotions to rule our decisioms what would the world be like? Probably anarchy. A society with no justice system, where punishments were meted out based on emotions wouldnt be a society. It is when crimes like this happen that it is of paramount importance that we are able to step back for a while and try to comprehend how this happened.

Good post mikeyjon, thats what i mean, 2 kids that screwed up?
It leaves a nasty taste in my mouth and people keep asking me to back up my statements, i only read the one book and everything is justified in there, i just see this as a nasty, evil crime and the only victim is James, i dont have sympathy for T & V i feel nothing but anger and dis;like towards them and in a nutshell im glad i dont know where they are.
You are all better people than me for understanding and trying to see all sides.

FWIW I'll add my thoughts to what I posted earlier. When the boys were released I felt really angry and much like you did Tammy. From my own experience of the prison system I would have preferred them to have experienced a little of Adult prison as opposed to Youth Offenders Institute. I'm not of the 'lock em up and throw away the key' mentality but I just know the difference between both institutions. But I remember talking to my husband about it and he pointed out to me that the Judge who finally decided to release them was a very experienced and respected judge. He had heard mountains of evidence from psychologists and people who had lived with these boys for years. He decided that to send them to Adult prison would not serve either the community or the boys for the best. I had gotten all my information "the boys felt no remorse, thomson was laughing" etc from the tabloids and that just isn't reliable information. I think we have to respect the decision that was made by someone who knew more than the reporters trying to drum up sales. Just my opinion.

I don't know if MM posted a link to this article in which the foreman of the jury, defence lawyers and barrister and two psychiatrists who were directly involved with the trial give their views.

Hercules i understand what your saying, and i do forgive but on this count i cant. I will continue to read what people have to say though and respect that.

Tammy - it is always important to read a variety of views on a subject. The book you read sounds very one sided and was clearly not giving credence to other views.

Thank you Leq, as i said i will try and i will listen to your opinions.

mikey, that question about how there could be 2 has occurred to me as well. Perhaps one is a monster by nature, and the other was persuaded because he was already an unstable child due to a rough home life. In which case, maybe the latter one is able to be rehabilitated. But not the former?

I really don't know. I just think it is plausible that nurture is not 100% to blame.

mikeyjon, I am not strange or sad reading these books, I am actually a student nurse and this is part of my course. It is deemed the professionals of the future who will be working with damaged people be well versed in the facts of such things. Sorry if I apear aggressive there but I felt that was a sweeping statment without knowing the facts.

Can I also ask, and no disrespect to anyone intended, why we are all so horrified that children committed these offenses, however adults committ offenses against children regulary. I am not condoning or justifying the actions of t&v at all or making any less of the awful things that they did to little, jamie or even the grief his mother must feel every second of the day.. but they were children and society holds a responsiblity for all our members.

We happily take the credit for achievers in society and people who do good, but the rest??

Quote from Arnon Bentovim Psychiatrist

"This is an indictment of our understanding of children, he believes, and at the core of why the case was dealt with as it was. It was utterly against children's rights, he insists, to consider the case in an adult court. "These were two very disturbed children, who acted as a gang, reinforcing each other. Quite a number of people saw them with this child, who must have been becoming increasingly distressed, but nobody intervened. And yet the children are condemned in an extreme way. Obviously they couldn't cope with a child of two. They dealt with him in the way that gangs deal with people they can't cope with. We know that the anger that young people display can be extreme because their capacity for self-control is limited. But none of those factors were considered."

(Bentovim interviewed Venables for the defence, and later contributed to his case before the European court of human rights, which resulted in the landmark ruling that the extension of the boys' minimum sentence by the then home secretary had been unlawful.)

Thanks for that last link posted. It seems that those closely connected dont share the same views that many here do.

From spacedonkey's link:

And she should have a better idea than most, shouldn't she.

leg. Good post x

I just cant accept this wasnt meant, or they were from a bad upbringing and they had problems. Its called life deal with it without killing someone. I find it hard to stomach and yes they were 10 and they behaved like they were 10 afterwards because they were frightened.

Whilst they were playing Nintendo and wanting a world of chocolate, James' mom and dad were planning his funeral.
They couldnt even say goodbye to him because his broken body was such a mess they wouldnt let them see him.

excellant post jan.

excellant post jan.

Sorry kid, i know you're being abused, negleted, veryu troubled, of a younger mental age, but get over it!

Just how should abused children "deal with it" ?

Tammy, if you, as an adult, are unable to control your feelings, why do you expect a couple of 10yr olds to be able to do so?

I'm not trying to be facetious, btw - we as adults should be able to control feelings that we know in our heads aren't quite rational. We can't always do this.

The fact that there were 2 of them almost makes it easier to understand. Makes me think of "Lord of the Flies" (William Gold/Golding?).

There was no apparent abuse, and this woman has letters after her name so she must be right.
Maybe these kids were just messed up and had bad genes.

They were young children. Of course they are going to act as young children. You are expecting them to have adult guilt and act in the way we would want a guilty adult to act.

Good post, BFM.

And once again - AGAIN - nobody is condoning those actions.

Perhap tammy you could work for NOW ;) This is a very very very emotive subject and we are all mums here to we do have strong views. We dont know all the facts and decisions based on emotional reaction can often be wrong and regreted later.

I also can't accept the argument that they were just ten year olds. This seems to imply they were normal ten year olds. Normal ten year olds do not lre and murder two year olds.

Also, there is a lot of talk about this crime being so horrific because of the young age of the offenders. I think it is so horrific because if the young age of the victim.

What do you mean "there was no apparent abuse"?