Murder of James Bulger
James Bulger | |
|---|---|
 James Bulger | |
| Born | March 16, 1990 |
| Died | February 12, 1993 (aged 2) |
| Cause of death | Murdered |
James "Jamie" Patrick Bulger (16 March 1990 – 12 February 1993) was a two-year old toddler who was abducted and murdered by two 10 year-old boys, Jon Venables (born 8 August 1982) and Robert Thompson (born 23 August, 1982), in Merseyside, England. The murder of a child by two other children caused an immense public outpouring of shock, outrage and grief, particularly in Liverpool and surrounding towns. The trial judge ordered that the two boys should be detained 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 behind bars, which would have made them eligible for release in 2003.
The popular press and certain sections of the public felt that the sentence was too lenient, and the editors of The Sun newspaper handed a petition bearing 300,000 signatures to then Home Secretary Michael Howard, in a bid to increase the time spent by both boys in custody. In 1995, the two boys' minimum period to be served was increased to 15 years, a ruling which meant they would not be considered for release until 2008, by which time they would both be 26 years old.
In 1997, the Court of Appeal ruled that Howard's decision to set a 15-year tariff was unlawful, and the Home Secretary lost his power to set minimum terms for life-sentence prisoners under the age of 18 years. (In 2002, the position of Home Secretary lost its power to set minimum terms for life sentences entirely).
Thompson and Venables were released on a life licence in June 2001, after serving eight years of their life sentence (reduced for "good behaviour"), when a parole hearing concluded that public safety would not be threatened by their rehabilitation into society. An injunction was imposed, shortly after the trial, preventing the publication of details about the boys, for fear of reprisals by members of the public. The injunction remained in force, following their release, so that details of their new identities and locations could not be published.
The murder
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson had skipped school on February 12, 1993. That day, in the New Strand Shopping Centre, Bootle, they attempted to walk off with a young child. They had succeeded in luring a two-year-old boy away from his mother, and were in the process of taking him out of the shopping centre, when she noticed him missing, ran outside, and called him back. For this, the boys were later charged with attempted abduction; however, the charge was dropped when the jury failed to reach a verdict.
That same afternoon, James Bulger (often called "Jamie Bulger" in press reports), from nearby Kirkby, went on a trip with his mother Denise to a nearby shopping centre. Whilst there, at some point Mrs Bulger realised that her son had gone missing. The two boys had taken him by the hand and led him out of the precinct. This moment was captured on a CCTV camera at 15:39.
The boys took Bulger on a 2½ mile (4 km) walk. At one point, they led him to a canal, where he sustained some injuries to his head and face, after apparently being dropped to the ground. Later on in their journey, a witness reported seeing Bulger being kicked in the ribs by one of the boys, to encourage him along.
During the entire walk, the boys were seen by 38 people, some of whom noticed an injury to the child's head and later recalled that he seemed distressed. Others reported that Bulger appeared happy and was seen laughing, the boys seemingly alternating between hurting and distracting him. A few members of the public challenged the two older boys, but they claimed they were looking after their younger brother, or that he was lost and that they were taking him to the police station, and were allowed to continue on their way. They eventually led Bulger to a section of railway line near Walton, Merseyside.
From the facts disclosed at trial, 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 22 lb (10 kg) iron bar. They then placed batteries in his mouth (false reports that the batteries were placed in his rectum were spread by a chain letter [1] which also stated that Bulger's fingers were cut off using scissors, this again untrue.) Before they left him, the boys laid Bulger across the railway tracks and weighed his head down with rubble, in hopes that a passing train would hit him and make his death appear to be an accident involving a careless boy and a train. Two days later, on the Sunday of the next week, Bulger's body was discovered; a forensic pathologist later testified that he had died before his body was run over by an oncoming 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. 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). Within days, the Liverpool Echo newspaper had published 1,086 death notices for Bulger.[citation needed] The railway embankment upon which his body had been discovered was flooded with hundreds of bunches of flowers: one of these floral tributes, a single rose, was laid by Thompson. Within days, he and Venables were arrested, after an investigation led by Detective Superintendent Albert Kirby of the Merseyside Police.
Forensics tests confirmed that both boys had the same blue paint on their clothing as was found on Bulger's body. Both had blood on their shoes; blood on Venables' shoe was matched to that of Bulger through DNA tests.
LOL GUTTED @ JAMIE BULGER, WELL DONE LADS.
The trial
In the initial aftermath of their arrest, and throughout the media accounts of their trial, the boys were referred to simply as 'Child A' (Thompson) and 'Child B' (Venables). At the close of the trial, the judge ruled that their names should be released (probably because of the widely publicised nature of the murder and the public reaction to it), and they were identified by name in the account of their convictions, along with lengthy descriptions of their lives and backgrounds. Public shock at the murder was compounded by the release, after the trial was over, of mug shots taken during initial questioning by police. The pictures showed a pair of frightened children, and many found it hard to believe such a crime had been perpetrated by two people so young.
Five hundred angry 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 had to assume new identities following a series of death threats.
The full trial took place at Preston Crown Court, and was conducted as an adult trial would have been, with the accused sitting in the dock away from their parents, and with the judge and court officials dressed in full legal regalia. Each boy sat in full 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 of them on days that their families attended the trial. News stories frequently reported on the demeanour of the defendants, since they were in full view of reporters. (These aspects of the trial were later criticised by the European Court of Human Rights, who ruled that they had not received a fair trial.)
The boys, who themselves did not testify in their own defence, were found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment at a young offenders institution at Her Majesty's Pleasure. The trial judge, Mr Justice Morland, set their minimum period of incarceration to eight years. This was increased on appeal to 10 years by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor of Gosforth. Again, it was increased to 15 years by the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, on the grounds that he was "acting in the public interest". This decision was overturned in 1997 by the Law Lords. In October 2000, Lord Chief Justice Harry Woolf reduced their minimum sentence by two years for their behaviour in detention, effectively restoring the original trial judge's eight-year term.
Appeal and release
In 1999, lawyers acting for Venables and Thompson appealed to the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that the boys' trial had not been impartial, since they were too young to be able to follow the proceedings and understand the workings of an adult court. They also 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 Justice Woolf, reviewing the minimum sentence imposed. 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 of the case, the parole board ruled the boys were no longer a threat to public safety and were thus eligible for release now that the minimum tariff had expired. The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, approved the decision, and they were both released that summer. They were given new identities and moved to secret residence locations under a "witness protection"-style action. They will live out their lives on a 'life licence', which allows for their immediate re-incarceration if they break the terms of their release, that is if they are seen to be a danger to the public.
Subsequent controversies
The Manchester Evening News provoked controversy by naming the secure institutions in which the pair were housed, in possible breach of the injunction against press publicity which had been renewed early in 2001. In December of that year, the paper was found guilty of contempt of court, fined £30,000, and ordered to pay costs of £120,000.
The injunction against the press reporting on the boys' whereabouts applies only in England and Wales, and newspapers in Scotland or other countries can legally publish such information. With easy cross-border communications due to the internet, many expected their identities and whereabouts to quickly become public knowledge. Indeed, in June 2001, Venables' mother was quoted by the News of the World as saying that she expected her son to be 'dead within four weeks' of release. Her lawyers lodged a formal complaint with the Press Complaints Commission saying that Mrs Venables had said no such thing. By that time, however, the phrase had been widely re-reported. As of 2007, no publication of vigilante action has come to pass. Despite this, Bulger's mother, Denise, told how in 2004 she received an anonymous tip-off that helped her locate Thompson. She said she saw him but was 'paralysed with hatred', and did not communicate with him in any way.
More than five years after their release, stories and rumours about Venables and Thompson continue to circulate. In January 2006, The Sunday Mirror newspaper reported that Robert Thompson had fathered a child with a girlfriend who remained unaware of his past.[1] The paper also reported that Thompson had taken heroin since his release, and had been accused of shoplifting, but that he now worked "in an office" and earned "a reasonable wage". In March 2006, however, it was reported in The Sun newspaper that Thompson was in a "settled relationship" with a gay male partner who was made fully aware of his conviction, and that he had been living with the man at a "secret address" in North West England for "several months" [2].
In May 2006 it was widely rumoured that Sean Walsh, sentenced to 15 years for attempting to kill his pregnant girlfriend and her three year old daughter, was Robert Thompson. Walsh had moved to Ireland in 2001, the year the Bulger killers were released, was known to have convictions as a Juvenile in the UK and had been in regular contact with the psychiatric services in Wigan (approximately 20 miles from Liverpool) from the age of 15. At one point Walsh claimed to be Thompson but the authorities dismissed this.[3][4][5]
In June 2006, a widely circulated e-mail message claimed that Dante Arthurs, a man accused of murdering a child in Perth, Western Australia, was in fact one of James Bulger's killers living under a new identity.[6] This claim has also been denied by authorities.
In April 2007, it was reported that the Home Office has spent £13,000 on an injunction preventing a non-UK magazine from revealing the new identities of the James Bulger killers.[7]
A May 27 2007 article in The People, claimed Jon Venables has become a born again Christian. The 24 year old, now living with a new identity, reportedly attends Sunday night service, midweek prayer group and a separate Bible class. Venables has asked a ministerial team to pray for him and have his sins forgiven by God.[8] Britain's Daily Mail has reported that Venables is getting married to a girlfriend who has no idea of his criminal history. He has been advised not to say anything to her about the Bulger murder.[9]
In June 2007, a computer game based on the TV series Law & Order, entitled Law & Order: Double or Nothing (2003), was withdrawn from stores in the UK, following reports that it contained an image of Bulger. The image in question is the famous CCTV frame of Bulger being led away by his killers, Venables and Thompson. The scene in the game involves a CGI 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."[2]
See also
References
- ^ http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/bulger.asp
- ^ Boyer, Brandon (2007-06-21). "Legacy Apologises For Law And Order Crime Photo". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2007-06-21.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help)
- The Guardian (1993-2002) Special Report: The James Bulger Case, retrieved 23 April 2005.
- BBC News (24 June 2001) Bulger killers 'face danger', retrieved 23 April 2005.
- BBC News (22 June 2001) Bulger statement in full, retrieved 23 April 2005.
- ABC News (28 June 2006) Speculation that accused child rapist and murderer 'Dante Arthurs' may be Robert Thompson's assumed identity, retrieved 29 June 2006.
- Sky News (8 April 2007) Injunction On Killers' IDs, retrieved 8 April 2007.
Video violence
- 'Ten things wrong with the media effects model' article by David Gauntlett
- The British Video Standards Commission's articles on video violence
- Response from the British Board of Film Classification to the 1998 Home Office study
External links
.