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I have cried for JamesBulgermany times, so God only knows the tears his parents and family have shed. 'We have never really been apart,' Mrs Venables said. The Radio Merseyside newsroom, where I was working at the time, was full and everyone was on this story one way or another. But they shouldn't have been tried in an adult court because they were still children. 'Just mad. Ms Truss has written a 4,000-word essay in todays Sunday Telegraph in which she stood by her plans to boost economic growth during her short tenure in No 10, Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker fails to stop team-mate Joel Matip (not pictured) from scoring an own goal during the Premier League match at Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton, A member of the public lines the road into St Michaels on Wyre, Lancashire, with missing posters of Nicola Bulley, 45, as police continue their search for the missing woman who was last seen on the morning of Friday January 27, when she was spotted walking her dog on a footpath by the nearby River Wyre, Not your usual prisoner! His body, defiled and broken in two by a train, two miles from where hed been taken, was foundtwo days later. Why would I want to kill him? he said, referring to the slain toddler. He said he was frightened of Robert's older brother. How could two small boys savage and leave a toddler for dead? The days James was abducted, February 12 1993, I was a young reporter in my home city of Liverpool. He is an old-fashioned crime and punishment man. He had that odd combination of obsession with and disdain for possessions that is characteristic of children who have never enjoyed any of their own. Express. Denise Bulger believes her son's murderers - men now - should be in prison for ever. His parents say he is 'broken-hearted'. He was given a new name, a job and a flat on his release to try to ensure his security . Jon Venables arrived at Walton St. Marys Church of England School a disrupted and attention-seeking boy, whose behavior was so bizarre at times that one of his teachers considered him to be emotionally unstable. During that time, Susan felt as if she was trapped and overburdened, often taking her frustrations out on her husband, who believed it was her responsibility to take care of the children, and offered her little support in the way of childrearing. Venables and Thompson were seen on CCTV calmly leading the toddler out of the shopping centre by his hand. Superintendent Albert Kirby, who headed the investigation, doesn't believe in the under-belly of Liverpool nonsense or stuff about the disintegration of modern society, the collapse of the nineties cities. One time they sagged off with Robert's younger brother, which went disastrously wrong. She was paranoid about being discovered. From their point of view it makes perfect sense. Keep them apart or he'll get into trouble, they said. Susan Venables has blamed weakness for her sons role in the killing of James Bulger, claiming that he got involved with the wrong person. It is claimed that taxpayers could have to fork out another 250,000 to provide a new life when he is eventually released. "My heart really goes out to them. Find out more, The latest offers and discount codes from popular brands on Telegraph Voucher Codes, As James Bulger killer Jon Venables is sent back to prison, Shelagh Fogarty writes about her experiences as a young reporter on the case at the time, James Bulger, aged 2 years old, being led away in the New Strand shopping centre in the Bootle area of Liverpool, Denise Bulger arrives at Preston Crown Couty on November 24 1993, Shelagh Fogarty was a young reporter at the time of the murder, The police van carrying Venables and Thompson arrives at Preston Crown Court, Sarah Ferguson exclusive: Meghan has made Harry very happy, 32 best gifts for her: top present ideas to buy for mother's day in 2023, Midlife women are being told to sit down and shut up and not just by men, Imogen Stubbs: Its become less and less acceptable to age, Cost of HRT set to be slashed in new prescription scheme, Magic Mike and the naked truth about male strippers, Inside the James Bulger files 25 years on. He has had Christmas presents. Good people asked the boys if they were lost or urged them to take "their baby brother" home as he cried for his mummy. One could draw some parallels between the film's plot and James Bulger's death. He's a good reader if he's interested in it. Thompson admitted nothing. I have lost my son as well. Mrs Venables said: "He mentions James, not all the time. . What a horror it all was. When Jon's parents gave a recent press interview, it was Mrs Venables who did most of the talking; the father just sat and cried. But talking in 1993, his mother tried to explain how her child turned into a murderer. In court, he hid his face again. The press were gobbling it up. Instead, she was involved in an ITV documentary with Sir Trevor McDonald that will air on Thursday. "On the other hand, you are looking at him and you are saying 'Well, I know why - because he is so weak'. By now, Robert had also stepped comfortably into the role of the aggressor, and, following in the footsteps of his elder brothers, began tormenting his eight-year-old brother on a daily basis. "It is hard to take in really. The boys lived off chips. She was a woman as large in personality and physique as the burdens she carried. Jon lived in terror of losing his mother's love, yet he was also terrified of her. 'I walked round for a couple of hours trying to find them. Two boys who forged a friendship out of breaking the rules. portrayed him as the leader and evil one, says James Smith. Nature. Kids fantasise about such things. The living versions on the floor of the court looked equally wrinkled and austere. Few had the patience to be friends with him, only his younger brother and a couple of lads who lived nearby. Finally, in 1988, while on a family vacation, the breaking point came, when Big Bobby, then thirty-four, began an adulterous relationship with a friend and neighbor in her fifties. But I still kept him in if he was naughty or anything like that.'. After a while the boys became used to it. The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. After a while the 10-year-olds began to charge - a tenner an interview. On Sundays he used to watch Thunderbirds. The sunrises through the sea mist over the sculpture The Couple by Sean Henry at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea on the Northumberland coast. Once Robert shared with him a tin of Roses chocolates which he had poured surreptitiously into his coat pocket. It has already been reported that Jon Venables real identity has been exposed in prison, where he is said to be receiving 24-hour protection. Financially, the couple appeared to be functioning, but meanwhile, Susan was at the end of her rope with her eldest son, who, having become increasingly frustrated at his inability to communicate, had grown terribly unhappy and was having temper tantrums regularly. There is, like, a little paint factory. The fathers of both Robert and Jon were without work. Her warnings arent being heeded, but 25 years on, I think she is probably right. Last week the author Angela Phillips spoke of how the gentle son of the female friend of hers turned into a fascist skinhead: 'The boy his mother wanted him to become was not man enough for the world he was forced to inhabit. This time we came together in shock and disbelief. Join Facebook to connect with Susan Venables and others you may know. I'm bringing up on my own but if I went round and screwed every warehouse my children would have everything too.'. Her husband came back to Walton now and again to see his mother, but he never came to see the boys. There is hatred and envy directed at the baby - a wish to see it suffer in the way they have suffered. On one occasion one of Anns sons let his real name slip at school and they had to move almost at once, says. His mother was not so keen on the idea - they cost pounds 35 each. . Ann Thompson and Susan and Neil Venables didn't need to imagine. 'It was very dark and I shouted down, shouted his name. On November 24, 1993, the two boys, by then aged 11, became the youngest defendants to be sentenced for murder in a British court. Mrs Venables said: 'I think it was because the class group was too big for them to go in . I know how I feel as a mother. They went on family outings together, slept together, and when Susan did find a place, virtually coexisted between the two homes. So much happened whilst I was there involving Jon. We will never be able to do the fun things any more . Robert always wanted to stay out late and encouraged Jon to join him. Im bringing them up on my own, but if I went round and screwed every warehouse, my kids would have everything, too. Even so, while Roberts community was rough, his home life was perhaps worse, and could hardly be considered a refuge for the boy. They passed 36 people, with one recalling how they urged the boys to take their 'little brother' home because he was 'crying for his mummy'. But his outbursts of anger grew worse and he was suspended for trying to throttle a boy with a ruler. You know, we just try and help him as best we can to try to come to terms with things. On the walls hung oil paintings of local judges and magistrates, their surfaces crinkled with age. Trauma? Grainy CCTV footage later showed the innocent toddler being led away by Venables and Thompson, who marched the little boy through the streets of Bootle for two miles - a walk that would have taken hours given his size. Robert said 'If you tell anybody I'll get my big brother to batter you up'. I came back and then (Mrs Venables) went out. He caused me such anxiety, the teacher later recalled of Jon in a statement given to the Merseyside police. He was fearful of the other boy. They rejected suggestions that he could have watched Child's Play Three, a film that his father had rented three weeks before James's death, which, it has been claimed, included scenes similar to those of the attack on the two-year-old. - a grey heron in Asawn, Southern Egypt. re bz. His former wife would send their boys up the street to give their father the fingers through the bay windows of his mother's house. IN their interviews with the two boys, psychiatrists could find no clues to why the boys acted so violently. Lock him in it.'. Last November he was arrested and recalled to jail on suspicion of possession of images of child sex abuse. He wanted a Rovers strip for his birthday present. We are proud to endorse the COP27 Leather Manifesto. In the first press conference she gave the day after her son was taken, this 25-year-old woman struck me as a girl, a desperate, grief stricken girl whose tired swollen eyes told their own story. I used to get them for myself at night time. Their seats were just below the raised dock where their sons would sit for the next three weeks, listening to a prosecution which aimed to prove not only that they killed James Bulger, but that they planned to, and that when they did they knew it to be wrong. S. Susan venables. His mother gave him pocket money to buy them. From a distance Robert looked a sweet child. 'It's always our family that gets the blame,' Robert said to police after he was arrested for James's murder. One of the new works by Banksy, appears to show a 1950s housewife, wearing a classic blue pinny and yellow washing up gloves, with a swollen eye and a missing tooth seemingly shoving her male partner into a chest freezer, the piece is set on a white wall backdrop in Kent. At night, for instance, the two boys would lie in bed together and suck each others thumbs. ", Her husband, Neil, said: "If you had a league table of children, you would put him at the bottom of the list for anything like this.". They have never come out of hiding. Venables on the other hand was becoming increasingly agitated in the police interviews. The family was already exhaustingly overextended, and Robert, being the fifth edition, was quick to pick up on the coping mechanisms needed to survive in a life of unremitting chaos and enmity. He has been educated. Self pity? Little Bobby went to visit his brothers every so often, eager to show them the latest playthings he had robbed from the assorted shops nearby. Recently, I dug out my old notebooks of the trial and my handwriting during the verdicts says it all. Seeing at first hand the pain of a family who have lost a toddler to an act of brutal violence is almost unbearably moving. His mother especially has been a tower of strength, says the source. That means he is currently 35-years-old. Since the murder Robert has been in a state of post-traumatic shock, hounded by nightmares and flashbacks from the railway tracks. After they became friends he initiated Jon into the delights of climbing into people's back gardens and the consequent thrill of being chased out by the owners. Superintendent Kirby is a religious man. Tweet. qu fy. When social workers came round, they did so to see his sister and his brother, who had learning difficulties and was receiving special education. Fiction Writing. He gets upset. Not really?. 'The attitude when you live where we live is that you have to be tough or else you don't survive,' she said. The first Susan Venables knew they had stayed away from school was when she saw one of Jon's classmates on her way home with the gerbils. Real bottom of the gut stuff, like an animal. David Sharrock, Maggie O'Kane, and Edward Pilkington look at the lives of the rebels who turned to killing, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. He would throw things at other children, cut himself deliberately with scissors and stick paper all over his face. He was too scared to be naughty on his own. A day later she would face much worse. Venables was a different creature. Susan Venabless bent body shrank deeper into itself. Will you tell his mum I'm sorry?". This would have made little Robert the target of the fourth Thompson brother, who, in less than a years time, had confessed to arson, tried to stab his elder brother in a fit of rage, and had allegedly committed a lewd act against two small children (this incident was overlooked due to lack of evidence; however, because it was always considered a likely possibility that little Robert had been the victim of sexual abuse himself, and since Robert reportedly confirmed this years later, this occurrence involving his elder brother might be thought particularly revealing). Susan Venables, mother of Jon, blamed her son's "weakness" for the killing and said he was "fearful" and "provoked" by his accomplice Robert Thompson. Just as Venables's confession convicted him, a shoe print belonging to Robert Thompson, found on James cheekbone, confirmed his guilt, too. as he was known in court - Jon Venables. Their kids have got everything. 'I think about little James and what he must have gone through, how they must feel. He believes these were evil boys. She said that Jon was always "loving, caring, thoughtful and considerate . Get out and get into Dyson Hall children's centre, the only residential care school in the country just outside Liverpool. He disliked Thunderbirds because of the puppets' 'stringy thingies'. In the last few years she stopped drinking in the Top House and tried to keep things together. "I think about little James and what he must have gone through, how they must feel. But his comment sparked anger from viewers. Architect Shahed Saleem in the Ramadan Pavilion 2023 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. "Just TV programmes and little things remind me of the good times we had together . Most people would regard such sentiments as having come rather late in the day and certainly too late to save poor James. It should certainly be moved up to 12; in some European countries it is 14," she said. A maudlin ballad about Liverpool was playing in the back- ground and she was cooking the dish known as Scouse. Hes your son., Unhappily, it was during this critical time that Ann became pregnant with her seventh child, the product of another failed relationship. He didn't want to hurt James. It would be a week before we heard their voices, in hours of taped police interviews, They stopped us all in our tracks. Those who knew him well said he was a very emotional child, prone to mood swings. . I remember watching her then on TV, her sobbing plea for information and thinking how much guts it must have taken to get up that day and face a roomful of journalists and photographers. Once they went into a home decoration shop and hid under a pile of carpets. The details of Jamess death were sickening. A sudden pause in the tapes and one of the officers appeared in person to describe how he asked Neil and Susan Venables to leave the room because he thought Jon wanted to tell him something. Guilty of abducting and murdering James PatrickBulger. She was a happy baby, much happier than her eldest brother had been, but as she grew older, Susan began noticing that she, too, appeared lazy, and was not as advanced as Jon. His response couldn't have been more different as he sank into the oversized blazer he was wearing. Jon's parents, who sat in court for most of the trial, said they grieved for the Bulgers. THE first time the boys set eyes on each other after they were arrested was in Preston crown court 3 1/2 weeks ago. We have found 88 people in the UK with the name Susan Venables. I am not sure if in fact he was seen by the school psychologist, but I did complete a form for him.. ", Children accused of a crime are usually granted anonymity, but at the end of the trial the judge allowed both to be named, "because the public interest overrode the interest of the defendants.". A torrent of questions erupted from the moment the grim news came out that James Bulger's body had been found on a railway line in Liverpool and the last people seen with him were two ten-year-olds, captured on grainy CCTV footage. It was to be an adult trial, both boys appearing every day in the full gaze of whoever was in that room, but neither giving evidence directly to the court. Both boys had been held back a year, and they were put in the same class. The distress of one woman who had come agonisingly close to taking James by the hand herself to a police station, only to be hoodwinked by Thompson and Venables that they were doing just that. The detective explained how, before she left, she soothed him, told him his parents would love him whatever he told the police, reminding him that Denise neededto know what had happened to her baby. Susan Venables, now 53, suffered from severe depres-sion and struggled with her two other children, an older son and younger daughter, who suffered learning difficulties. Thompson was inscrutable in the dock as we heard his voice for the first time. "In order that justice can be done, no further details are being released at this stage and the proceedings are subject to reporting restrictions.". When Robert was asked what his hobby was he did not say trolls but 'skipping school'. Many of us had dined together most nights throughout the trial, mulling it all over but distracting ourselves, too. View the profiles of people named Susan Venables. "An awful mistake for 10 year olds is shoplifting not murdering a 2 year old FFS," another angry viewer tweeted. Reporters from around the world ended up in the drab streets of Walton, cadging interviews off any 10-year-old boys hanging around in the streets. Jon's first year after he was moved was relatively successful. Teachers later reported that whereas the boys were manageable when separated, together their behavior worsened dramatically. At Radio City in Liverpool the calls were coming through from Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Extraordinarily, she even shouted up to the railway tracks at Walton where she knew Robert had a den. the street. Sorry, we are unable to accept comments about this article at the moment. March 10, 2021 - 20:29 GMT Eve Crosbie. Were they to blame? One woman asked how James had injured his forehead. They did. Forlorn hope, though. Susan seemed happy with the arrangement, although, for the children, this type of relationship would have been just one more confusing anomaly to cope with in the wake of an already confusing time in their young lives. this weekend for breaching the terms of his early release, the parents of both the Bulger killers continue to stand by them. Heck, we don't even have murderers that young in New York.'. Meanwhile Robert Thompson always regarded as the ringleader and the most likely of the murderous duo to fall by the wayside is said to be doing well. Both had a need to attract attention, which they achieved through a host of petty rebellions. In the business world, too many people think it's all about being hard, tough, ambitious, or having grit. Neither gave evidence to the court, but were found guilty after an officer told how Venables admitted the murder, saying, "We did it. . sp. Susan Venables is on Facebook. She couldn't. When the court was played Jon's taped descriptions of how they had truanted they simultaneously smiled. His mother, Anne Marie Thompson, who is 39, got the house from the local housing trust after her husband, Robert, ran off with a woman from Stockport five years ago. On November 24, 1993, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables became the youngest persons to be convicted of murder in Britain in almost 250 years, when the pair, both eleven, was found guilty of the abduction and murder of two-year-old James Patrick Bulger. The family was put up in a hostel temporarily and later relocated by the social services. 'I was the softie,' Neil Venables said. As their sweet voices rang around the courtroom, Venables hid his face in his oversized blazer and cried. Among the list were several horror films, including one video in which the police took special interest: Child's Play 3, a film which carries the line 'Children are consumer trainees'. Pictures; Inside the Guardian; Guardian Weekly . gl. The couples first child, a son, had been born with a cleft pallet, and when Jon was born, much of the Venables focus was on getting their eldest son into speech therapy. UK news in pictures 15 February 2023. It was their sons picked up by detectives. Aged 10, he was barely literate. As a result of the incident, Jon's mother decided to move him to another school. They looked, moved, fidgeted, scratched, cried - even sucked their thumbs - just like any 11-year-olds. According to the teacher, Jon would rock back and forth in his desk, making strange noises (this behavior was later speculated to be Jons jealous attempt to emulate his elder brother, in order to receive the same special attention), bang his head on the desk or walls repeatedly, glue bits of paper all over his face, wedge himself in between desks, throw himself on the ground, throw chairs across the corridor, rip projects off the classroom walls, cut holes in his socks, and intentionally cut himself with scissors. But apart from his brother, Robert struggled to build friendships. Robert's feelings towards his half-brother also appear to have been ambivalent - he told police he would not have murdered James Bulger because 'if I wanted to kill a baby, I'd kill my own, wouldn't I?'. The street in which Robert lived was not untypical: a row of terraced bay windowed houses that stretched from the railway line back towards the city.