James Bulger - New Revelations

[SchadenfreudePersonified]

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

Zack I agree. Three children went into those railway tracks, two came back. Dead toddlers can’t tell tales can they...
He was never known as Jamie, only James. The media use this name, don’t know why.

I think the boys knew basic right from wrong ( as discussed in the boys interview tape) but too young to realise the consequences.
They didn’t imagine being caught or locked up. They didn’t think of the CCTV. They did it think about eye witnesses or forensics. Ten year olds don’t think of these things.

Sadly it seems that James was murdered because they were scared of getting into trouble for taking him. This seems to me the most heartbreaking. If they had let him go, I doubt and further action would have been taken. Maybe a ticking off from police but nothing much else.
Yes there are too many if onlys...
25 years on and the case still tugs at the heart strings.

He was never known as Jamie, only James. The media use this name, don’t know why.

I think it's worth noticing that, actually, as an example of how subtle and pervasive the narrative created by the media can be. For James they invented a cutesy diminutive, to emphasise his cuteness, smallness, vulnerability, as though you were on familiar terms with him. In contrast, Bobby Thompson, who was never known as Robert, was always referred to as so in the papers. He gets the more formal, distancing use of his birth certificate name.

I think when children that young commit murder, they are themselves victims as much as their victim. The whole thing is a horrible tragedy and I was shocked at the time that their parents were never brought into it. The press were only interested in portraying them as monsters.

Also I was never quite sure of the circumstances of how they managed to walk off with a toddler in the first place.

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!

Absolute nonsense. Where do you live? I've told other people's children off and no-one has ever responded with violence.

Not nonsense shearwater - just because you haven't ben threatened, doesn't mean that other people haven't been. I speak from personal experience.

However I agree that all the children in this hideous tableau were victims. Though, I'm not quite sure what you mean by " how they managed to walk off with a toddler in the first place."

it is absolutely disgusting to class the boys who murdered James as victims. "they were not victims as much as the victim"
he died a terrible death at 2, they now have their whole lives to live.
these threads always turn this way. awful.

I couldn't remember the circumstances of how the toddler had come to be on his own, but I found an article from the time which set out the circumstances.

I speak from personal experience I'm sorry you have had that experience, but some parents would always behave like that. There is nothing about today's parents which makes them more likely to behave that way. People fear violence because of how crimes are reported in the media, but apart from the recent surges in some cities (and I don't think any of that was as a result of someone telling a child off) in fact we live in far less violent times than when this terrible crime occurred.

it is absolutely disgusting to class the boys who murdered James as victims. "they were not victims as much as the victim

I'm sorry you feel that way. Probably best not to read threads like this if you can't handle uncomfortable truths. If a child kills another child then society has failed in some way, it's all too easy to brand someone a "monster" and distance yourself.

i will read them thanks. I disagree with that that is a truth.
they are not victims of this "crime"
They might be victims of other things. but only one child was murdered .

Shearwater on what basis are you quoting that violence is down since the early 90’s. The fact is society is far more violent today. We have people smuggling, slavery, children being abused by pedophiles over the net. I’m sorry but I don’t see where you are coming from.

Gitta Sereny made the point in her book just after the event that the killers' childhood was damaged and violent. Nobody wanted to hear it.

Has Gitta Sereny written about the James Bulger murder? I'll have to try to get a copy of that. Her books about Mary Bell, Franz Stangl and Albert Speer are engrossing.

Mary Bell was another child who killed a child - and the account of her life of abuse by her mother is heartbreaking.

I can totally understand where Samcro is coming from - James died, and he died horribly; the other two are living free. But at the same time any child whose pain goes unnoticed, as Bobby Thompson's and Jon Venables' did, is a victim. And people who are hurt lash out at others.

It could have been their way of exorcising their own pain and terror - or it could have been something as banal as not knowing what to do with this child they had stolen, and thinking that this was the easiest way out.
Either way, James Bulger was murdered.

The other boys aren't victims of the crime, but they were victims of aun uncaring society that finds it easier to demonise children than to accept responsibility for what they did.

Shearwater - I do think that society in general is becoming more violent. Children carry knives and think nothing of using them, it seems. Drug-taking is rife; there is a huge rift between haves and have-nots, and an atmosphere of entitlement - one where everyone seems to have rights, but no-one has responsibilities.

When James Bulger died, it wasn't as violent as it is today, and maybe those boys could have been stopped if someone had stepped in (I would emphasise that I don't blame ANY of the adults who queried them and then let them go on their way - no-one could have anticipated a horror like this. No-one.)

But there are so many young people, and many not-so-young, for whom aggression is the first response to any hint of criticism.

Another really interesting book on the case is As If by Blake Morrisonm who followed the trial and got to know the parents of Venables and Thompson, making them out to be far more human than most press suggests. Morrison was clearly really affected by the fact they were children on trial as adults.

I really admire the compassion and thoughtfulness on this thread. Born Evil is an easy thing to say and is an abdication of responsibility. Surely we don't think people are born good as well. What about the rest of us who are doing our best just to muddle through - do we get no credit for trying?

It is entirely possible to acknowledge that the murder of James Bulger was horrific while at the same time recognising that it was not the action of two perfectly normal ten year olds.

Let’s be honest here, you don’t just wake up one morning and think “oh I know, i think I’ll go out today and murder a child.” There will have been behaviours which led to that happening. behaviours which were never picked up by the authorities or their families or anyone who would have been in a position to help them in some way. To just write off society’s responsibility for the fact that two ten year olds reached the point of murdering a two year old before anyone noticing that there was anything amiss with their behaviour is to assume that any child could turn at any time and become a murderer,and we all know that that is simply not the case.

And as simplistic as it is to say that most children with horrific childhoods do not go on to become murderers, I think it’s also fair to say that most murderers had horrific childhoods. Not always of abuse or neglect, but often with mh issues, addiction issues, things which are not picked up before they go on to commit horrific crimes.

For the most part we don’t feel the need to empathise because most don’t go on to commit those crimes until into adulthood by which time they are rightly responsible for the crimes they commit. But when they are ten year old children questions need to rightfully be asked as to how things ever reached that point.

And we also need to ask the question as to why the law was changed in order to try them as adults when they were still children. Who was that really about? At ten they were to young to vote, too young to drink, too young to even buy a lottery ticket, but because it was a murder they were suddenly escalated to being adults? Why? Because what they did was so horrific? No, to satisfy the baying mob.

Well put SummerGems.

amp.theguardian.com/books/2012/jun/19/gitta-sereny

And well put indeed, Summergems.

Thank you Summergems

And thank you for the link Ceilingrose. I checked Amazon and could only find the French version

Followed this from the Gitta Sereny obituary link

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/25/james-bulger-killers-rehabilitation-jon-venables

Interesting comments on brain abnormalities/defects. And also that, while in the USA brain scans are increasingly being used by defence lawyers to argue for sentence reduction on the grounds that "S/he couldn't help it", there is a more compelling argument for keeping such "helpless" individuals away from the public, for the protection of innocent people - I have to admit that I agree with the latter view.

Pat Barker has written a really good, thought provoking, novel about a young boy committing a horrendous crime, in this case the murder of an elderly woman. She has obviously thought a lot about this sort of scenario.

I suppose it begs the question as to whether we need to have parents more accountable for the crimes children commit? If there was clear evidence of abuse/neglect - surely those in charge of raising future citizens need to be shown the consequences of failing their duty. My own children, as most, have been taught from a very young age to respect those more vulnerable than ourselves, treat others like you would like to be treated, and never hit or kick. Its fairly basic parenting. Not to trivialize what happened, but being a parent is a very responsible job that needs serious ramifications when you fail to meet even the basics.

I am writing from the perspective of someone who has a niece on the at-risk register from shocking abuse, still with her abuser, social services next to useless (in fact have made the whole thing worse), and now watching her (niece) life become terribly chaotic in terms of school and crime. Her mother is living a very charmed life with absolutely no consequences for her parenting - not even a flicker of regret. Social services are busy trying to 'teach' her good parenting skills, as opposed to physically assaulting her own daughter. You can't fix evil.

Yes, I do often wonder about the other siblings of the Thompson and Venebles. How did they turn out? Were they removed from the parents?

Trashy, I know one of Thompson's older brothers put himself into care voluntarily. That was before the murder though. They truly had a horrific upbringing and the brothers literally tortured each other. The only thing I've read about them since is that Ann Thompson moved closer to the unit Robert was being kept in and visited often and that he maintained a good relationship with her and the wider family but it's not clear if she had custody of the rest.

Bobby had a couple of younger brothers who were still with Ann. Most of his older brothers were already adult or close to adult and living violent and chaotic lives. Jon had two younger siblings both of whom had special needs. I don't think any of them were removed from their (remaining) parents, whose failings were not of significant abuse, generally. (As far as I have read, Ann Thompson may have been chaotic and poorly equipped to parent, as well as having a stint of heavy drinking before James's death, but not herself abusive - the abuse came from the boys' father Bobby Senior before he left and the older boys.)

Really interesting thoughts upthread about the dynamic between Thompson and venables. Certainly the impression I got initially was that Thompson was the ringleader but the more I read / hear about the case the more venables seems to emerge as the more disturbed. The fact he has reoffended and apparently voluntarily blown his cover seems to support that. It seems Thompson had a truly awful and abusive childhood whilst venables’ was relatively ‘normal’. Pure supposition of course but perhaps Thompson was a damaged and angry young boy whilst venables was more calculating and manipulative. Of course we have no idea if this was really the case but it’s just the impression I’ve got.

I think perhaps it was just terrible luck that the 2 boys cane together - I imagine neither would have committed murder alone. A similar theory was mooted re Brady and Hindley- that it was just a terrible coincidence that they happened to meet each other and that they drove on each other’s disturbed ideology, and that they probably would not have killed alone (particularly hindley).

I also wondered about the wisdom of releasing the boys’ names. I can sort of see the ‘public interest’ reasons behind it but ultimately it ended up costing the taxpayer given that they both had to be given new identities as a result - twice in venables’ case.