Shed never been back but she clearly missed Liverpool and had tried to recreate the city in her new home, he recalls. He was jailed for two years before being granted parole again in July 2013.. DAVID James Smith, who visited Mrs Thompson at one of her secret homes, reveals that it was a sad existence. Robert's mother agreed with her son's assessment: 'Name one family in the area who would have a good word for us.'. If I wanted to kill a baby, Id kill Id kill me own, wouldnt I?. In Jon's case, 'hyperactivity' went beyond mere fidgeting into outbursts of sudden anger and violence. The petition, that now has 14,682 signatures, reads: "We want a Public Inquiry into the James Bulger murder case. Such pleasantries were not for Robbie. The primary concern among the faculty was Roberts growing amount of absences. 'They would say 'take your son home'. ', They sagged off in the afternoon and walked around the shops in County Road, near Walton. He has had security with loving parents and a loving brother and sister.". Meanwhile, A petition demanding a public inquiry into James Bulger's murder case has got nearly 15,000 signatures in one day. The experience gave Jon renewed confidence, and the second time they sagged off together he suggested it. The shock in the city was plain to see, but it wasn't just in Liverpool that people stared at the CCTV pictures of the boy holding James' hand, while another led the way to the exit of the shopping centre where a frantic Denise Bulger would have been desperately looking for her child. Less thanfive hours laterthe verdicts were in. He was fearful of the other boy. His parents say he is 'broken-hearted'. Venables, who was released on licence in 2001 after serving eight years for the murder of two-year-old James, was returned to prison last November after he was caught with the pictures. Keep them apart or he'll get into trouble, they said. Get out and get into Dyson Hall children's centre, the only residential care school in the country just outside Liverpool. As his killers began their sentences, such was the revulsion that it was already clear their families could not. "One mystery surrounding the murder of James Bulger case is why the 'experts' insisted that Jon Venables was rehabilitated. It was a sign of such restlessness that he was unable to hang on to a football team for long - he kept shifting his allegiance like a floating voter. . Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both 10, murdered him in cold blood. ", 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.". Anne Thompson could hold her drink and no one ever saw her staggering home. Since his 14-year-old brother, Phillip , had already tried to stab him, the social services agreed. "He is easily led. Fiction Writing. Hope. Given the Venables family history, it was later suggested that Jon could arguably have been affected by an undiagnosed disorder at the time, and was clearly emotionally underdeveloped. IN A letter to her son written soon after he was sentenced, Ann Thompson wrote: no matter what you did or didnt do, Im your mother and I will stay with you no matter what happens.. 'I don't know,' he replied. But. I just burst into tears because you just knew what that meanther heart was broken. "Just to let you know that even though footage was used of me on the CH4 programme, I had no part in it," she tweeted. Please review our, You need to be a subscriber to join the conversation. I wish we could turn the clocks back,' Mrs Venables, 36, said. His response couldn't have been more different as he sank into the oversized blazer he was wearing. She said that Jon was always "loving, caring, thoughtful and considerate . 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. Susan Venables Facebook: susan.venables.9 Lives in Mellor, Blackburn With Darwen, . Thompson, who gained five GCSEs and A-levels in design and technology, is said to have developed an interest in theatre. He was too scared to be naughty on his own. There was a pattern of bullying, with the older boys picking on their younger brothers down the line. Its beyond me," one viewer tweeted. Recently, I dug out my old notebooks of the trial and my handwriting during the verdicts says it all. The pattern of bullying among the brothers, which had been noted by the Head mistress of the boys school, appeared to descend down the line, with the eldest Thompson brother beating the one just below him in age, and that brother beating the brother below him, in turn. Susan Venables, mother of Jon - referred to throughout the trial as Boy B - blamed her son's 'weakness' for the murder of James Bulger, . It was their sons picked up by detectives. He was fearful of the other boy. Read about our approach to external linking. Read about our approach to external linking. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Parents of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson talk about their sons, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. "What he's done is wrong so he needs to be punished. Seeing at first hand the pain of a family who have lost a toddler to an act of brutal violence is almost unbearably moving. In quest of companionship, he occasionally bullied his younger brother into truanting with him, and, in an effort to impress his peers, frequently boasted of his late-night exploits on the railway line, but failed to attract much attention. A police officer remembered Venables being so small that his legs didn't touch the floor as he sat in the custody office after his arrest. 'It was very dark and I shouted down, shouted his name. This story has no borders,' NBC correspondent Denis Murphy said. The other shops in the area were also armoured with mesh, including the Red Garden chipper where Robert used to pop in with his brothers most nights for a 25p bag of chips. Denise Bulger believes her son's murderers - men now - should be in prison for ever. 'When the fisticuffs ended, they made friends.' The prosecution, led by Richard Henriques QC, made its case quite simply really, using the journey they took James on to tell the story. . The only sign he was discomforted by hearing it was a near constant pulling of his tongue in his hands. We feel so sorry for him because he must be going through so much torment. The trial though didnt, and was never designed to, shed light on how two such young children could be guilty of such sustained barbarity. Those who knew him well said he was a very emotional child, prone to mood swings. 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. In the business world, too many people think it's all about being hard, tough, ambitious, or having grit. That seems the very least they could face for what they did. Behind them eyes bore into them - from everyone on all sides, journalists, their parents, members of the public, and of course, theBulgerfamily. But his comment sparked anger from viewers. Yes, these things are important, but trust. Mrs Venables described how she searched for Jon. Put bluntly, Jon Venables still gets a kick out of seeing small children suffer. From the start, Jon was drawn and repulsed by Robbie like opposite and equal poles of a magnet. Click here to find personal data about Susan Venables including phone numbers, addresses, directorships, electoral roll information, related property prices and other useful information. Get the biggest TV headlines, recaps and insider knowledge straight to your inbox. One investigating police officer said: 'You could look into the eyes of Robert and knew you were looking at evil.' He was always getting prizes for maths at school. The most agonising thing about the whole case was that so many people had stopped them and questioned them. The couple fought frequently as to their eldest sons troubles, which they later learned included mild learning difficulties, and Susan, at times becoming so exasperated by the situation, began to resent her sons presence. Between January and the day of the murder Robert had absconded 37 half days out of a possible 60 . Lock him in it.'. A newspaper man from Detroit said it was because 'Liverpool is the Beatles and love, love, love. Susan opted to remove him from the school then, and some months later, she reenrolled him in St. Marys in Walton. More press conferences, terrible details beginning to emerge about the state James was found in, and the chilling prospect, soon confirmed, that indeed it was children who had done this. She claimed, however, that she was completely unaware of Jons erratic behaviors at school, had never seen any evidence to support them (such as cuts on his arms or holes in his socks), and dismissed the possibility that many of the occurrences cited by the teacher had ever taken place. The bird was taken to the vets where they are nursing it back to health. 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. This time, curiosity took the upper hand: 'I wanted to see what it was like,' he said. NEIL Venables was warned by friends not to let his son play with the other boy. It should certainly be moved up to 12; in some European countries it is 14," she said. Express. Natural Landmarks. The attitude when you live where we live is that you have to be tough or else you dont survive, she said. Who knows. He would call people names and get them to chase him. A heartstopping moment came when the playing of the tapes in court was paused. The questioning was calm, steady, even playful at the beginning to try to get a sense the two boys really did know the difference between right and wrong. Any anxiety or animosity he might have felt was manifested largely through his school-aged thumb-sucking, a habit which elicited titters and taunts from the neighborhood children. We are proud to endorse the COP27 Leather Manifesto. Security launched a search for James inside the centre and James' family searched for their son overnight. More often, he would pinch them from local shops. He has had more love and attention than a lot of children I know. however, as the incident in the playground shows, the ever-present threat of discovery cast a constant shadow over anyone related to the two murderers. The abduction and brutal murder of this two-year-old by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who were just 10 at the time, prompted a conversation in Britain that we are still having today. That's the thing that upsets me because obviously, where I was standing poor little James must have been not far . The Liverpool Echo boasted that their man had one of 'just 34 seats' allocated to the international press. We use your sign-up to provide content in the ways you've consented to and improve our understanding of you. When the court was played Jon's taped descriptions of how they had truanted they simultaneously smiled. In 2010, Meggie Atkinson, then children's commissioner for England, called for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised to 12 in light of the trial. The four who drove Suzanne to Romiley - Jean Powell (now Jean Gillespie), Bernadette McNeilly, Glyn Powell, and Anthony Dudson - were all found guilty of murder. The Radio Merseyside newsroom, where I was working at the time, was full and everyone was on this story one way or another. When the fisticuffs ended, impressed by each other's performance, they made friends. The taunts upset Jons already volatile temper, and he began coming home in increasingly low spirits and crying. It emerged that the Venables family had suffered the same fate in another area. They didnt kill him in an accident it was premeditated and they tortured that poor baby. Ann denied the physical abuse, but later admitted to being cruel to the boys at times. It seems likely that he was bullied. . 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. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (second left) and Scottish Secretary Alister Jack (second right) during a visit to the Port of Cromarty Firth, Invergordon, during a two day visit to Scotland to highlight the benefits of remaining in the United Kingdom as he seeks to counter Nicola Sturgeon's push for independence, King Charles reacts as he visits the Aboyne and Mid Deeside Community Shed in Scotland, There are only a handful of images of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, 'Jon was weak and was provoked': Parents of Jamie Bulger killers speak, Extra 20% off selected fashion and sportswear at Very, Up to 20% off & extra perks with Booking.com Genius Membership, $6 off a $50+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 10% off selected orders over 100 - eBay discount code, Compare broadband packages side by side to find the best deal for you, Compare cheap broadband deals from providers with fastest speed in your area, All you need to know about fibre broadband, Best Apple iPhone Deals in the UK March 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this March, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. But he liked collecting trolls, little doll-like creatures with ugly faces and spiky fluorescent hair. ', A psychoanalyst and child psychotherapist comes up with yet another possible explanation. I am not sure if in fact he was seen by the school psychologist, but I did complete a form for him.. He had left her to bring up six children alone. Lady Penelope was his favourite character because she was rich, followed by Brains with the glasses.