James Bulger - New Revelations

[SchadenfreudePersonified]

Just watching this - wondered if anyone else was interested in discussing it

Why are 10 year old boys with disturbed backgrounds demonised way beyond that of an adult murderer? The murder of children by children is not that uncommon and most societies treat is as a tragedy for all. On the other hand we try them in adult courts, name them, allow mobs to threaten and intimidate them and a large proportion of the public would have hung them then and still would today if that option was available. Whatever they did they were still 10 year old children.

Carben exactly we have men raping and murdering girls and women and they don't get demonised in the same way...

How f*cked we are as a society.

The part that really shocked me was the fact that both boys were expected to direct their legal teams (2 barristers and a solicitors) even though 6 months earlier they would have been too young to stand trial and even though an adult with the same mental capacity would have been considered incapable of doing so.

How on earth was a legal guardian not appointed to make legal decisions?

I think the sorrow and pain we all feel about this case encompasses ALL the issues not just the actual horror of poor James but the ongoing horror of what happened to RT growing up and all similar, and the horror of the mental health issues suffered by JV.

ALL of this is the dark side of life but in reality is happening, more than we'd like to imagine. In this case a strange synagie of the worst aspects of two cruel childhoods came together with the opportunity and the inclination of the moment and the results are, we were all harmed but also shocked enough to be discussing this today.

These lessons should never be forgotten. Pain teaches us it's time for huge changes.

I’m a couple years older than Venebles. Had a worse upbringing. No friends. Sometimes not even anyone I could trust growing up. I didn’t murder a child in cold blood. I think some kids, like it or not, are just born evil.

Trouble is,you can’t really compare this to any other murders. Yes adults murder children, but this case was unique. I can’t think of any other case in this country where young children have taken a strangers child and murdered them.
I’m not justifying the baying lynch mobs, I guess they were angry and emotional that this would happen in their community. They were probably normal sane people in normal life. I don’t know. I guess it’s hard to remain objective and balanced with a story so unbelievable.

I can’t help feel though that there could be people that are involved in these twos lives that have no idea who they are. I get why they got new identities, but I also feel that their friends have been cheated too, I mean you wouldn’t actually be friends with either of them if you knew who they were would you?

Having said that, I am at the same time, bitterly disappointed at personal experience of the mental health facilities in the UK. Having needed these for a close family member and being fobbed off with 'box ticking' but no real help for years!

I also can’t believe that these boys were tried as adults and had a media circus around them. This was 1993, not the Victorian times.

Jedi - no I would not wish to be friends with these.

The program sparked a discussion on this with dh and we were wondering if, given their right to anonymity, would their future partners know?

It is their burden to bear but a partner should be able to decide for themselves if they choose to live with this too? RT and JV cannot choose now, they just live and sleep with it, but a partner surely should have the choice?

I think a few rare people are just born evil. Look at Ted bundy. Although raised by his grand parents, he had a fairly normal and non abusive upbringing. Yet he kidnapped, murdered and raped many women. Total number may not even be known. Harold Shipman, a doctor no less, murdered hundreds. They will never know how many.

I think Venables was the leader personally. He showed no remorse, never has, and continues to commit crimes against children. Thompson at least has gone silently into the background.

JediJim you can be tried as an adult in scotland from the age of 8. At least you could, dunno if they raised it. They want to lower England and wales' age to 8 too, but don't think they ever have.

There was another small child called Jamie in Scotland also murdered by a child of 11. He was named and has never changed his name or been given anonymity. This was 3 years before Jamie Bulgers murder. I am sure there was outcry in Scotland at the time but the baying for bloody in England for Venebles and Thompson shocked me. They were also children.

Dangly, yes they would have to tell their partners their true identities. It’s part of their licence conditions. I can’t quite see how anyone would knowingly want to enter a relationship with them, but who knows? I would assume they would have a designated probation officer as well. I guess part of their ‘punishment’ is to live a lie.

I think psychopathy is born, and other personality disorders are made. You will have to google and make your own mind up on that because even psychologists are not wholly in agreement. Venables is likely to have psychopathic traits due to recent, and recurrent crimes (lack of conscience, remorse, doesn't learn the lesson). I fear he cannot be rehabilitated.

Does anyone know how long he will be in prison before another release and identity change?

The thing with Venables is that he’s told people who he is. There are multiple photos of him on the internet. I don’t think he can ever really be anonymous anymore.

Thompson seems to have managed it

Doesn't the fact that he 'boasts' about his crimes seem pyschopathic? Thompson I feel wants to tow the line and get on with his life.

Venables was also viewing physically abusive indecent images. Which suggests no lesson learned. It is within him.

Think it was Pat Barker that said aged about 12 she was drowning another child when an adult stopped her. Nothing happened and nothing happened again.

Really @mrwalkensir? That's horrific.

@Vasilisa19 - Psychopathy may be an innate trait, but psychopathy doesn't necessarily lead to violence and murder. It's perfectly possible to be a fairly law-abiding psychopath - the law, politics and business worlds are full of them. Ruthless, successful, cold-blooded to be married to or parented by, but not killers.

I think whatever tilts a person towards murder is due to nurture. Or lack of it.

We don't really know a huge amount about Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. They never testified in court, they can't give interviews to the press, they can't write a book about what happened. That's why these snippets of information about them are interesting.

I remember a policeman at the time felt that of the two Robert was definitely the leader and he was pure evil. Yet, he has committed no crimes since. So, who knows?

My son is 10. He's still such a mama's boy. I can't imagine him doing something so awful, but I also can't imagine him being taken from me and sent to prison for the next 8 years.

Can't see why this programme was aired. Did it bring anything new to the table?

Can't see why this programme was aired. Did it bring anything new to the table?

Not really, just snippits from RTs parole statement. I wondered if there is going to be more episodes as the show kept saying we need to look into the why more, but then didn't actually do that.

The only place James Bulger was ever called "Jamie" was in the imagination of the red-tops, FTR.

The reporter who wrote the book described above thinks that they never really knew what they intended to do with the kid they "got lost", and having wandered aimlessly for several hours, a) couldn't see any way out and b) unleashed their anger and frustration from their own lives of powerlessness and abuse. But all of this is speculation too. All we really know is that three children went down to the railway track, and two came back.

I think part of the peculiar fury about this case is that the boys transgress the idea of children as "innocent". We expect adult men to have dark and violent desires but children aren't supposed to, even though the whole idea of children as "innocent" is fairly recent, historically. And it helps us to push away the possibility that adults might have some complicity in what happened to all three of these children by tagging them "born evil".

Think it was Pat Barker that said aged about 12 she was drowning another child when an adult stopped her. Nothing happened and nothing happened again.

The "Regeneration" Pat Barker? How extraordinary - and what a brave thing to confess to.

I wonder how many other children's altercations would have ended more horribly without adult intervention. Learning to control our tempers takes longer with some than others.

"Born evil" is a very harsh judgement - and it also takes responsibility away from both the individual and society - "They/we couldn't do anything to stop it. They/we were born evil" I'm sorry 0 I can't accept that.

I think every one of us has traits that can be controlled or exaggerated by our environment and upbringing - society has a huge role to play. ("It takes a village to raise a child") Sadly, the days of any adult being able to remonstrate with a badly-behaved child are gone. You can't tell a child to pick up their rubbish/ stop swearing/ not punch another etc carers get angry and often aggressive - and this teaches kids a bad lesson too. Someone checks you - you respond with violence!

Yep, 95% sure it was her. Definitely a female author who wrote WW1 fiction , which was why it stuck in my mind as I’d read some of her books. It was on radio 4 a few years back and this was the case being discussed.