Britain: A murderous child, a broken justice system

It was “one of the most barbaric crimes in the history of this country,” said David Wilson in the Daily Mail. In 1993, two 10-year-old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, lured 2-year-old James Bulger, a stranger to them, away from a shopping mall and to a railroad track. There they “horribly abused the infant before killing him.” The image of the two leading the trusting toddler by the hand was caught on the mall’s surveillance camera and played over and over on British television, as a horrified public asked itself how young children could commit such “monstrous perversion.” We now have to ask ourselves why we ever let them out of prison. The “deeply disturbed” and “vicious” boys lived in a juvenile facility until age 19, when they were released. But evidently at least one of them was not reformed. Last week, Venables, now 27, was sentenced to two years in prison for possession of child pornography.

“Two piddling years?” asked Carole Malone in the News of the World. This is a man who already tortured and murdered one child and has now been caught downloading images of children being raped. The judge could have given him 10 years. With this absurdly lenient sentence, Britain has become “a nation that puts the welfare of child killers above the welfare of children.” All our children could be at risk, said The Sun in an editorial. When Venables was released, in 2001, he was given a new identity, complete with a fake birth certificate, at great taxpayer expense. Newspapers were barred from revealing his new name or publishing his photograph, and social workers were deployed to get him a job and an apartment. Despite this second chance, Venables has committed another “sickening” offense, yet his new identity remains protected. This “monster” could soon “be living on your street” and you’ll never know it.

It’s unfair to write off Venables as “irredeemably evil,” said Blake Morrison in The Guardian. At the time of the 1993 murder, Venables was a “volatile and damaged” child from an abusive home. From the age of 10, he was locked up in an institution, where he wept and clung to his stuffed animals. Eventually, after extensive work with psychologists, he came to terms with his terrible crime and expressed remorse. But the outside world was still baying for his blood. Venables was forced to live a lie, always denying who he really was. The “constant concealment and fear of vigilante revenge” would wear anyone down. At his sentencing last week on child pornography charges, he looked relieved to be returning to prison. “He’s a disturbed young man in need of further therapy.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

So why didn’t he get it? asked The Times. “Venables did a truly evil thing,” and “the fury and the fear he inspires is completely comprehensible.” Upon his release from prison, he was obviously given far too little supervision. He had several run-ins with the law for cocaine possession and brawling, yet was not arrested or even put in mandatory counseling. Next time Venables gets out, the public deserves to know he’s being kept under “constant monitoring.”