On 12 February 1993, two-year-old James Bulger from Kirkby, near Liverpool, disappeared whilst on a shopping trip with his mother at a local shopping mall.
His mutilated body was found on a railway line nearby the following day.
I recall the horror of the story well. My own baby girl was just a year younger than little James and was thinking about taking her first steps. The idea of losing her on a shopping trip was bad enough. But, as the full details unfolded, it became so much worse.
CCTV cameras showed the toddler wandering off with two older boys. Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were ten years old at the time. We are not party to what went contributed to their decision to remove the boy from the shopping centre but, once they had done so, their subsequent behaviour goes beyond what any normal person could understand.
I won’t dwell on the details which shocked a nation, but little James was abducted, tortured and then killed by the two boys, who became the youngest children to be convicted of murder in modern English history. They were sentenced to be detained until they reached the age of 18 and, despite a public furore about the decision to allow them anonymity and freedom because of fears that they might be able to repeat their offence, they were released on what is known as ‘life-long licence’ with new identities in June 2001.
Last week the whispers started about Jon Venables. Each day a little more information was released in the newspapers and news reports on television and radio. He had been detained by the police. He was being held on serious charges. He had been returned to prison. The charges related to indecent images of children.
Leading politicians have gone on record as saying that the media is at serious risk of criminal charges because their continual drip feed of information may be prejudicial to any future court proceedings and this is why no one in authority is confirming or denying anything.
It’s little James’s mother that I feel for. To have what must be the worst pain any parent could ever endure prodded and poked on a regular basis as she is manipulated for a reaction by unscrupulous journalists determined to sell newspapers.
And now to find out that at least one of the perpetrators of the most horrendous crime against her child was not rehabilitated by his years of treatment and imprisonment.
What can be done to alter the mindset of people with these unnatural desires? Counselling? Drugs? Physical castration? Or is permanent incarceration in the care of trained professionals the only answer?
When this sickness affects such young people, what on earth can we do to protect the innocents whilst allowing for the growth and treatment of the youngsters who are affected, which morality says should be our duty as a civilised society?
To follow up with previous comments. If the murderer is put to death, then every parent knows that their child cannot be harmed by this one monster. Death does not have any potential for escape (prison does – even the best security there is the possibility). I don’t think it is a bad thing for innocent children to be provided a world they can safely live in. I don’t think it is a bad thing for parents to know that something permanent has been done to protect their children from such monsters. Thus I do not think the death penalty is a bad concept. I do think turning it into a circus is a bad thing though.
But what if it is children who perpetrate the crime?
I tend to agree with SteelHorsman. This was such a horrible story and what indeed do you do with monsters like that, juvenile or not. Psychopaths do what psychopaths do, and there is no cure. Permanent incarceration definitely but, as suggested, perhaps something more permanent to deal with the truly unconsionable.
Are there chemical cures to redirect that type of behaviour?
Kid who kill at such a young age, especially two of them together, you have to ask how they became this way.
I don’t believe at that young age two deviants met up at such a young age.
They have to be a product of their environment and if that be the case, how many more out there.
Releasing them because they turned eighteen is not a reason to release them but should have been released only if they were rehabilitated.
Then they should be monitored for years to come.
To those who believe that they should execute children for their crimes are the cause of such behavior.
They rather erase any evidence of their own cruel tendencies.
The blatant use of death to solve a problem only proves how cold our species truly is
I think the fact that they were released so soon is definitely a concern. I agree that anonymity was the right thing to give them a chance of a new life and that the refusal of those in authority to confirm or deny any of the charges relates to the chances of getting a fair trial. I also believe that you have a point when you assert that some of their behaviour must have been influenced by events in their young lives.
What happened to James Bulger was truly tragic. How anyone could have done this, let alone children, is just mystifying. A bad upbringing, if this was the case, surely cannot be solely to blame?