Murder of James Bulger

James Bulger
James Bulger
Born	(1990-03-16)16 March 1990 Liverpool, Merseyside, England
Died	12 February 1993(1993-02-12) (aged 2) Walton, Liverpool, England
Cause of death	Murdered by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson

James Patrick Bulger (16 March 1990 – 12 February 1993) was a victim of abduction and murder in Liverpool, England, in 1993. His killers were two 10-year-old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson (both born in August 1982).

James disappeared from the New Strand Shopping Centre, Bootle, where he had been with his mother Denise, on 12 February 1993 and his mutilated body was found on a railway line in nearby Walton on 14 February. Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, then 10, were charged with James's murder on 22 February and remanded in custody.

On 24 November 1993, the two boys, by then 11, were found guilty of murder at Preston Crown Court. The trial judge sentenced them to be detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure, with a recommendation that they should be kept in custody for "very, very many years to come". Shortly after the trial, Lord Taylor of Gosforth, the Lord Chief Justice, ordered that the two boys should serve a minimum of ten years, which would have made them eligible for release in February 2003 at the age of twenty. (They were charged with Bulger's murder on 22 February 1993.)

The popular press felt the sentence was too lenient, and the editors of The Sun newspaper handed a petition bearing 300,000 signatures to Home Secretary Michael Howard, in a bid to increase the time spent by both boys in custody. This campaign was successful, and in 1995 Howard announced that the boys would be kept in custody for a minimum of fifteen years, meaning that they would not be considered for release until February 2008, by which time they would be twenty-five years of age.

In 1997, the Court of Appeal ruled that Howard's decision to set a fifteen year tariff was unlawful, and the Home Secretary lost his power to set minimum terms for life-sentence prisoners under eighteen-years of age. The High Court and European Court of Human Rights have since ruled that, though the parliament may set minimum and maximum terms for individual categories of crime, it is the responsibility of the trial judge, with the benefit of all the evidence and argument from both prosecution and defense council, to determine the minimum term in individual criminal cases.

Thompson and Venables were released on a life licence in June 2001, after serving eight years, when a parole hearing concluded that public safety would not be threatened by their rehabilitation. An injunction was imposed after the trial preventing the publication of details about the boys, for fear of reprisals. The injunction remained in force following their release, so their new identities and locations could not be published. The 2007 film Boy A was inspired by this case and the release of Thompson and Venables.

The murder

Police officers who worked on the case revealed that Venables and Thompson had made several attempts throughout the day of 12 February 1993 to abduct a child. They were seen on the shopping centre's CCTV casually observing other children, selecting a target and going to try and rape it like the sick little fucks do best.

Before the abduction in the shopping centre, the boys had attempted to walk off with another child. They were overheard in a store talking about "taking one of the two" and the mother of the two children thought they were attempting to steal some goods. It was later reported by one of the boys that they were planning to take one of the two children, lead them outside and push the child in front of the passing cars causing an accident on the busy road. One officer commented that Bulger's killing was not simply an opportunist crime: it had been systematically planned. "They knew exactly what they were doing. They had planned... from the outset... to go and kill a young boy."

CCTV still of James Bulger being kidnapped by Venables and Thompson (above Bulger), recorded on shopping centre CCTV

That same afternoon, James Bulger (often mentioned as "Jamie Bulger" in press reports, although never called "Jamie" by his family), from nearby Kirkby, went with his mother Denise to a nearby shopping centre. While inside a shop, Mrs. Bulger realised her son had disappeared. He had wandered out of the shop on his own and was spotted by the two boys. They approached him, spoke to him and won his confidence, before taking him by the hand and leading him out of the precinct. This moment was captured on a CCTV camera at 15:39.

The boys took Bulger on a two and a half mile (four km) circuitous walk. They led him to a canal, where he sustained injuries to his head and face, after apparently being dropped to the ground. Later, a witness reported seeing Bulger being kicked in the ribs by one of the boys, to prod him along.

During the walk, the boys were seen by thirty-eight people. Some reported there was bruising on Bulger's face, while others reported that he was laughing, the boys seemingly alternating between hurting and distracting him. Two people challenged the older boys, but they claimed that James was a younger brother or that he was lost and they were taking him to the local police station. Eventually they led Bulger to a railway line near the disused Walton & Anfield railway station on Walton Lane.

Facts established at trial show that, at this location, one of the boys threw blue modelling paint on Bulger's face. They kicked him and hit him with bricks, stones and a twenty-two lbs (ten kg) iron bar. They then placed batteries in his mouth. False reports claiming the batteries were pushed up his anus were spread by a chain letter. The letter also claimed that Bulger's fingers were cut off using scissors; this is also untrue. James suffered skull fractures as a result of the iron bar striking his head; this wound is believed to have caused his death. Extreme violence was used on the boy; his mother, at her own request, has never been made aware of the full extent of the injuries he suffered.

Before they left him, the boys laid Bulger across the railway tracks and weighted his head down with rubble, in hopes that a train would hit him and make his death appear an accident. Two days later, on 14 February, Bulger's severed body was discovered; a forensic pathologist testified that he had died before he was indeed run over by a train.

As the circumstances surrounding the death became clear, tabloid newspapers compared the killers with Myra Hindley and Ian Brady who had committed the Moors Murders during the 1960s. They denounced the people who had seen Bulger, but not realised the trouble he was in, as the "Liverpool 38" (see Kitty Genovese, bystander effect). The railway embankment upon which his body had been discovered was flooded with hundreds of bunches of flowers.

This crime created great anger in Liverpool. The family of one boy who was detained for questioning, but subsequently released, had to flee the city. The breakthrough came when a woman, on seeing slightly enhanced images of the two boys on national television, believed she recognised them as two local tearaways. She contacted police and two suspects were arrested. That the boys were so young came as a shock to investigating officers, headed by DS Albert Kirby of the Merseyside Police. Early press reports and police statements had referred to Bulger being seen with "two youths", the ages of the boys being difficult to ascertain from the opaque images captured by CCTV

Thompson and Venables did not confess immediately but the police knew from an early stage that they had the people they were looking for. While the two boys blamed each other for the murder, police identified Thompson, whom they described as being totally without remorse, as the leading figure. Forensics tests also confirmed that both boys had the same blue paint on their clothing as on Bulger's body. Both had blood on their shoes; blood on Thompson's shoe was matched to Bulger through DNA tests.

The boys were charged with Bulger's murder on 22 February 1993. They were the youngest people charged with murder in England and Wales during the 20th century.

The trial

Venables and Thompson at the time of their arrest

In the aftermath of their arrest, and throughout the media accounts of their trial, the boys were referred to as 'Child A' (Venables) and 'Child B' (Thompson). At the close of the trial, the judge ruled their names should be released (because of the nature of the murder and the public reaction), and they were identified along with lengthy descriptions of their lives and backgrounds. Public shock was compounded by the release, after the trial, of mug shots taken during questioning by police. The pictures showed frightened children, and many found it hard to believe such a crime had been perpetrated by two people so young.

Five hundred protesters gathered at South Sefton Magistrates' Court during the boys' initial court appearances. The parents of the accused were moved to different parts of the country and assumed new identities following death threats from vigilantes.

The full trial took place at Preston Crown Court, conducted as an adult trial with the accused in the dock away from their parents, and the judge and court officials in legal regalia. Each boy sat in view of the court on raised chairs (so they could see out of the dock designed for adults) accompanied by two social workers. Although they were separated from their parents, they were within touching distance when their families attended the trial. News stories reported the demeanour of the defendants. These aspects were criticised by the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled they had not received a fair trial.

The boys, who did not testify in their defence, were found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment at a young offenders' institution at Her Majesty's Pleasure. The judge, Mr Justice Morland, recommended that they should be detained in custody for "very, very many years to come".

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor of Gosforth, later ruled that the pair should serve at least 10 years in custody. It was increased to 15 years by the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, "acting in the public interest". This was overturned in 1997 by the Law Lords, who ruled that it was "unlawful" for the Home Secretary to decide on minimum sentences for offenders aged under 18.

In October 2000, Lord Chief Justice Harry Woolf reduced their minimum sentence by two years in recognition of their good behaviour and remorse shown in detention, restoring the original trial judge's eight-year recommended minimum.

In court, details of the backgrounds of Thompson and Venables were not admitted. Thompson was one of the youngest of seven boys. His mother, a lone parent, was an alcoholic. His father, who left home when Thompson was five, was a drinker who beat and sexually abused his wife and children. Despite his quiet and friendly manner, Thompson came from a home in which it was normal for the older children to attack the younger ones, and Thompson was invariably on the receiving end.

Venables' parents were also separated. His brother and sister had educational problems and attended special schools, while his mother suffered psychiatric problems. Following his parents' separation, Venables became isolated and an attention-seeker: at school, he banged his head on walls. No effort was made to find the cause of his distress.

Other media commentators blamed the behaviour of Venables and Thompson on their families, or their social situation in one of the most deprived areas of the UK. The Liverpool Echo described it as 'a wounded city... The region's economy was on its knees, and unemployment was soaring'. A 2001 Ofsted report on Liverpool's schools said 'the city of Liverpool has the highest degree of deprivation in the country'. Following the murder, the boys' mothers, Susan Venables and Ann Thompson, were attacked in the street and vilified in the press.

Thompson's father had abandoned his wife and children five years previously, one week before the family home was burned down. Ann Thompson was a heavy drinker who found it difficult to control her seven children. Notes obtained by author Blake Morrison from an NSPCC case conference on the family, described it as 'appalling'. The children 'bit, hammered, battered, {and} tortured each other'. Incidents in the report included Philip (the third child) threatening his older brother Ian with a knife. Ian asked to be taken into foster care, and when he was returned to his family, he attempted suicide with painkillers. Ann and Philip had also attempted suicide.

Venables' family was less chaotic; although his parents were separated, they lived near each other, and he lived at his father's house two days a week. Both his older brother and younger sister had learning disabilities severe enough to attend special schools for children too disabled to be taught in the main system. Venables was hyperactive, and had attempted to strangle a boy in a fight at school. The police had been called to Susan Venables's house in 1987, when she left her children (then 3, 5 and 7) alone in the house for three hours. Case notes from that incident describe Susan's 'severe depressive problem' and suicidal tendencies.

Appeal and release

In 1999, lawyers for Venables and Thompson appealed to the European Court of Human Rights that the boys' trial had not been impartial, since they were too young to follow proceedings and understand an adult court. They claimed that Howard's intervention led to a charged atmosphere, making a fair trial impossible. The Court found in the boys' favour.

The European Court case led to the new Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, reviewing the minimum sentence. In October 2000, he recommended the tariff be reduced from ten to eight years, adding that young offenders' institutions were a 'corrosive atmosphere' for the juveniles.

In June 2001, after a six-month review, the parole board ruled the boys were no longer a threat to public safety and could be released as their minimum tariff had expired in the February of that year. The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, approved the decision, and they were released within weeks. They were given new identities and moved to secret locations under a "witness protection"-style action. They will live on a 'life licence', which allows their immediate re-incarceration for an unlimited time if they are seen to be a danger to the public. As part of their conditions, they were required to end contact with each other.

Subsequent controversies

The Manchester Evening News named the secure institutions in which the pair were housed, in possible breach of the injunction against publicity which had been renewed early in 2001. In December that year, the paper was fined £30,000 for contempt of court and ordered to pay costs of £120,000.

The Guardian revealed that both boys had passed A-levels during their sentences. The paper also told how the Bulger family’s lawyers had consulted psychiatric experts in order to present the parole panel with a report which suggested that Thompson is an undiagnosed psychopath, citing his lack of remorse during his trial and arrest. The report was ultimately dismissed. However, his lack of remorse at the time, in stark contrast to Venables, lead to considerable scrutiny from the parole panel. Upon release, both Thompson and Venables had lost all trace of their Scouse accents.

No significant publication or vigilante action against Thompson or Venables has yet occurred. Despite this, Bulger's mother, Denise, told how in 2004 she received a tip-off from an anonymous well-wisher that helped her locate Thompson. Upon seeing him, she was 'paralysed with hatred' and was unable to confront him.

In 2007, it was confirmed that the Home Office had spent £13,000 on an injunction preventing a non-UK magazine from revealing the new identities of the killers.

In June 2007, a computer game based on the TV series Law & Order, titled Law & Order: Double or Nothing (made in 2003), was withdrawn from stores in the UK following reports that it contained an image of Bulger. The image in question is the CCTV frame of Bulger being led away by his killers, Venables and Thompson. The scene in the game involves a CGI (Computer-generated image) detective pointing out the picture and then asking the player to investigate the kidnapping. Bulger's family complained, along with many others, and the game was subsequently withdrawn by its UK distributor, GSP. The game’s developer, Legacy Interactive (an American company), released a statement in which it apologised for the image's inclusion in the game; according to the statement, the image’s use was 'inadvertent' and took place 'without any knowledge of the crime, which occurred in the UK and was minimally publicised in the United States'.

2008 memorial appeal

On 14 March, 2008 an appeal to set up a Red Balloon Learner Centre in Merseyside in memory of James Bulger was launched by Denise Fergus, his mother, and Esther Rantzen.

A documentary about the murder was broadcast on December 11, 2008 on ITV1.

Art and Popular Culture

In 2008, Swedish playwright Niklas Rådström used the interview transcripts from interrogations with the murderers and their families to recreate the story. His play, Monsters, opened to mixed reviews at the Arcola Theatre in London May, 2009.

See also

• Mary Bell

External links

• Article about James Bulger at Crimelibrary.com
• Murder of Jamie Bulger at Snopes.com
• James Bulger murder 1993 at MURDERUK