James Bulger murder

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James Patrick Bulger (born March 16, 1990 in Liverpool , † February 12, 1993 in Walton) was a toddler who was murdered by two ten-year-old boys in Bootle , England. This murder caused anger and horror in the UK and attracted worldwide attention.

Sequence of events

Jon Venables and Robert Thompson skipped school on February 12, 1993. They tried to kidnap a toddler at Bootle Strand Mall. They were able to lure a little boy away from his mother and were about to lead him out of the mall when his mother noticed her child's absence, ran out and called him back. For this, the boys were later charged with attempted kidnapping. The lawsuit was dropped as a judgment could not be reached.

That same afternoon James Bulger from nearby Kirkby was with his mother in the mall. She was distracted by shopping at the meat counter when, within minutes, the two boys were leading James by the hand out of the pedestrian area. This process was recorded by a surveillance camera at 3:42 pm.

The two walked a kilometer from the mall with James Bulger. Among other things, they led him to a canal. The original plan was to throw the toddler into the water and drown it. For this James should see his own reflection in the water, but he was afraid and refused to lean forward over the water. He was then thrown on the floor, causing injuries to his head and face. Later, a witness observed, James was kicked in the ribs by one of the two perpetrators to force him to move on.

During their “walk” (James kept screaming for his mother) the two boys and James were seen by 38 people, some of whom remembered the injuries to the toddler's head and the fact that the little one looked very desperate. Others reported that James looked happy and laughed. The kidnappers probably alternated between distraction and violence. Some passers-by confronted the two older people. However, these claimed that they were only taking care of their younger brother and were able to continue on their way. They took their victim to a railroad near Walton.

There one of the boys threw blue model paint on the toddler's face. They kicked him in the face and head, pelted him with bricks and hit him several times with an iron bar weighing ten kilograms. To make it look like an accident, they laid James across the railroad tracks and covered his head with stones. Two days later, on Valentine's Day, the boy's body was discovered. The pathological findings showed that death had occurred before the body was cut up by a freight train. The boy's lower body (who had been completely undressed by Jon and Robert) was dragged along with the freight train for a few meters. James sustained 42 different head and face injuries in the attack, including ten skull fractures alone. The head injuries were so severe that the pathologist could not tell which injury was fatal. All injuries were inflicted while he was still alive. It was later determined that the attack lasted from 5:30 p.m. to 6:45 p.m.

When the circumstances of the murder became known, the tabloids compared the two killers to Myra Hindley . They denounced the people who had seen Bulger but did not recognize his plight as the 38 from Liverpool . In a few days the Liverpool Echo newspaper published 1,086 obituaries for James Bulger. The embankment where James' body was found was covered with hundreds of thousands of bouquets of flowers. One of these floral greetings was put down by Robert Thompson. He and Venables were caught just days later.

Investigations confirmed that they both had the same blue color on their clothing found on James' body. Both had blood on their shoes. The blood on Jon Venables 'shoe was identified as James ' by DNA testing .

Court hearing

In the aftermath of their arrest, the two were only named Child A (Thompson) and Child B (Venables). The high level of awareness of this murder case, however, ensured that their names also became known. The publication of the criminal photos taken during the first questioning shocked the public. The pictures showed two scared children. Many found it difficult to believe that such a crime was committed by two such young perpetrators.

500 angry protesters gathered outside South Senfton Magistrates Court during the first hearing . The defendants' parents went into hiding in various parts of the country because of a series of death threats and had to assume new identities.

The main hearing took place at Preston Crown Court . The trial was conducted like an adult trial. The defendants sat apart from their parents in the dock. Judges and civil servants appeared in full regalia . Both boys and their social workers sat on elevated chairs (so that they could see over the dock, which was too high for them) in front of the court, clearly visible. The news reported very often about their behavior and behavior, as they were very visible in the press. This aspect of the trial was later criticized by the European Court of Human Rights , which condemned the trial as inappropriate.

The boys did not provide any evidence to exonerate them and were found guilty. Their sentence, for life, should be served in a juvenile detention center. The judge at that trial, Mortland, ruled that they should spend at least eight years behind bars.

Over 300,000 people signed a petition calling for then Home Secretary Michael Howard to further increase the sentence. In response to this public outcry, Howard increased the sentence to 15 years in prison. This last decision was criticized from many quarters because Howard apparently wanted to take advantage of the case for his political career. In 1997 this decision was revised by the House of Lords and repealed as unlawful .

In October 2000, the minimum sentence for the two perpetrators was again reduced to eight years for good conduct, restoring the original sentence of eight years.

Revision and dismissal

In 1999, Venables and Thompson's lawyers filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights: The trial was not objective because the two boys were too young to understand what was going on in an adult trial. They also alleged that Howard's intervention "heated up the mood" and made a fair trial impossible. The court ruled in favor of the two boys.

This decision by the European Court of Justice resulted in the newly appointed Lord Chief Justice , Lord Woolf , again reducing the pair's sentence to the minimum. In October 2000, he advocated reducing the sentence from ten to eight years, adding that juvenile detention centers had an extremely bad influence on young people.

In June 2001, after six months of revision negotiations, the parole board decided that the boys were no longer a threat to society and could now be released after serving the minimum sentence. This decision was confirmed by Home Secretary David Blunkett and the two were released. Both were still under life licenses , which would allow their immediate re-imprisonment if they were seen as a threat to the public.

The Manchester Evening News published the names of the prisons the two were incarcerated in, sparking heated discussions. It may also be a violation of the 2001 renewed injunction against disclosure of details of this case. In December, the newspaper was found guilty of "disregard for the court" and fined £ 30,000 and paid court costs of £ 120,000.

However, this injunction only applies in England and Wales . Newspapers from Scotland or other countries can legally report the whereabouts of the boys. It was expected that their identities and whereabouts would soon be revealed through the Internet. In June 2001, Venable's mother was quoted as saying that she expected her son to die a few weeks after his release. Her lawyers alleged Mrs. Venables never made such a statement and filed a formal complaint with the Press Complaints Office. By then, your alleged statement had already spread in the press. However, several people were subsequently actually suspected of being Jon Venables and received death threats. In early August 2012, a 36-year-old British man hanged himself after rumors circulated that he was Robert Thompson.

Whereabouts

In 2006, it was revealed that Thompson had a girlfriend who knew nothing of his story and was expecting a child from him. This sparked a scandal, as many believed that the young woman had the right to be informed about her boyfriend's past.

At the beginning of March 2010, Jon Venables, now 27, was arrested again and his life probation revoked. Despite the contrary view of Home Secretary Alan Johnson , then Attorney General Jack Straw refused to provide any information about the reasons for the new arrest. On June 22, 2010, now under the government of David Cameron , it became known that Venables had been arrested for possession of child pornography . He is said to have downloaded 57 relevant images from the Internet and distributed them via a file-sharing network. In July 2010 he was sentenced to two years in prison for possession and distribution of child pornography. A parole application was denied in June 2011. In November 2011 it was announced that Venables would remain in preventive detention and that no second new identity would be given. According to the Daily Mail, this is done for his own protection, since past experiences have shown that he is not trusted to keep his identity a secret.

In July 2013, the decision to release Jon Venables from custody was announced. James Bulger's parents were appalled at the news.

In February 2018, Venables was sentenced by a UK court to three years and four months in prison for repossession and distribution of child pornography. He admitted having owned more than a thousand child pornography pictures and instructions on child abuse. The judge called the pictures showing the abuse of young boys heartbreaking for any common person.

In June 2019, it became known that the UK government was considering expelling Venables from the UK and deporting them to another country; Canada , Australia and New Zealand are under discussion . The reason for this is that, due to the high level of awareness of the crime in Great Britain, it is increasingly difficult to keep one's identity secret; by then the UK government had already spent £ 65,000 in legal and legal fees protecting Venables' identity. The New Zealand Prime Minister immediately protested against Britain's plans.

Possible explanations

Violent Videos

One aspect of this case attracted a lot of media attention: the question of whether Venables and Thompson had watched violent films in the weeks and months before the murder, and whether the films contributed to their perpetration. The judge mentioned that one father owned a huge collection of such violent videos and that the two of them may have had access to these videos. The Sun newspaper claimed they saw the movie Chucky 3 and put a full-page picture of the murderous doll from that series on their front page. However, no evidence was presented to the jury during the trial that the children had seen such films. Nonetheless, the case sparked a nationwide debate over whether the media violence could still be tolerated. Although no film was banned as a result of this discussion, some video rental chains voluntarily removed Chucky 3 and the other titles The Sun had named from their programs. In Germany, the pay-TV exploitation of Chucky 3 occurred in the immediate aftermath of the murder. The discussion about a relationship went here so much that the youth protection officer of Premiere justified the premiere in a short statement before the start of the film.

In early 1994, MP David Alton commissioned a study on violent videos and the protection of minors to back up his proposal to amend the Criminal Justice Bill . The study, carried out by Elizabeth Newson, drew heavily on other studies from around the world, and concluded that there is a close link between violence in videos and real violence. She noted that this correlation does not generally suggest that such videos are also the trigger of violence, but in this particular case the triggering nature of the videos is given, Newson wrote. The method of this study came under heavy fire from Alton's opponents.

Social and family situation

Others saw the cause of Venables and Thompson's behavior in their family or life circumstances. The two lived in one of the most run down parts of England. The Liverpool Echo described the city at the time of the murder as "a bled-out city [...] The region's economy was shattered and unemployment skyrocketed". A study by the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (OFSTED) on the schools of Liverpool noted that "the city of Liverpool is the poorest in the whole country".

After the murder, the two boys' mothers - Susan Venables and Ann Thompson - were repeatedly assaulted on the street and vilified in the press.

Thompson's father had left his wife and five children; a year later the family home burned down. Ann Thompson suffered from severe alcohol addiction and was overwhelmed with supervising her children. Minutes from a NSPCC conference describe the family situation as "appalling". The children “bit, beat and tortured each other”. Another incident listed in this report was that Philip (the third of the children) had threatened his older brother Ian with a knife. Ian then wanted to be admitted to a children's home. When he had to return to his family, he tried to kill himself with pain medication. Even Ann and Robert had previously attempted suicide to commit.

Jon Venables' family, on the other hand, was far less broken. His parents had split up too, but they didn't live far from each other. Jon lived with his father two days a week. His older brother and younger sister both suffered from learning disabilities that were so severe that they had to attend special schools. Jon himself was hyperactive and had tried to strangle another boy in a scuffle at school. In 1987 the police were called to Susan Venables' home for leaving her children (then three, five and seven years old) alone in the house for three hours. Police records of this incident describe Susan's "severe depression " and suicidal tendencies.

Interplay of various causes

Another study on violent videos was published in 1998, commissioned by the Home Office in 1995 in response to growing fear since the Bulger murder. The editors of this study, Dr. Kevin Browne and Amanda Pennell, from the University of Birmingham , highlighted the link between a violent home and abnormal behavior:

Our research fails to prove that violent videos cause crime. However, they underline the great influence that the family situation and one's own personality have on the assessment of the effects of violence in films.

The study suggests that people from a violent home have a tendency to become violent themselves and are very likely to prefer violent films and actors. A distorted perception of violent acts, poor empathy, and poor moral development encourage the adoption of violent behavior patterns and a preference for violent films.

Aftermath

Commemoration

  • The Sacred Heart Primary School in Kirkby opened a memorial garden for James Bulger. He would have attended this school if he hadn't been killed.

Films and novels

  • The 2007 film Boy A has several parallels to the James Bulger murder case.
  • In 2010 the crime novel Who Doomed by the American writer Elizabeth George was published . The killing of the two-year-old toddler John Dresser by three eleven- to twelve-year-old children depicted in this novel contains many parallels to the murder of James Bulger.
  • The Oscar-nominated Irish short film In Custody from 2018 recreates the interrogations of the two perpetrators using real-life protocols.

music

  • The 3rd movement ( Elegia ) of the flute concerto by the American composer Christopher Rouse , which premiered in 1994, is dedicated to James Bulger.
  • Irish band The Cranberries wrote The Icicle Melts, a song about the James Bulger case.
  • The Scottish singer Amy Macdonald released Spark on the album A Curious Thing, a song written from the perspective of Bulger, who speaks to his parents from the grave and wants to tell them that he is fine.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andrew Hough: Jon Venables: man wrongly accused of being James Bulger killer 'living in fear of vigilantes' telegraph.co.uk, March 10, 2010
  2. ↑ Larisa Brown: Grieving mother blames mob for suicide of her son after rumors he was one of James Bulger's killers in hiding. Daily Mail , August 26, 2012, accessed September 16, 2012
  3. ↑ Andrew Gardner: Devil Dad. Bulger Killer to be a father. Sunday Mirror. January 1, 2006
  4. ^ Alan Travis: Pressure grows for answer to why Jon Venables is behind bars. Guardian, March 3, 2010
  5. ↑ Bulger killer Jon Venables faces child porn charges. BBC , June 22, 2010
  6. ↑ Child murderer convicted of possession of child porn. Die Welt of July 23, 2010
  7. ↑ Helen Carter: Bulger killer Jon Venables denied parole. guardian.co.uk, June 27, 2011, accessed June 30, 2012
  8. ↑ Paul Sims: Jon Venables the big-mouth 'cannot be given another new identity' ... because he can't be trusted to keep it a secret. Daily Mail, November 9, 2011, accessed September 16, 2012
  9. ↑ Europe's youngest murderer is released from prison. Die Welt, July 5, 2013
  10. ↑ Roxanne Escobales: James Bulger killer Jon Venables granted parole. The Guardian, July 5, 2013
  11. ^ Excitement in Great Britain. Child murderer leaves prison. n-tv.de, July 5, 2013
  12. ↑ James Bulger killer Jon Venables jailed over indecent images. In: BBC News , February 7, 2018.
  13. ^ "Youngest murderer in Europe" condemned again. In: Spiegel Online. February 7, 2018, accessed February 7, 2018 .
  14. ^ Emily Pennink, Press Association: Killer Jon Venables apologises to James Bulger's family as he is jailed. In: men. February 7, 2018, accessed February 7, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Child killer of 2-year-old James Bulger, Jon Venables, might be sent to New Zealand - New Zealand Herald
  16. ↑ Jacinda Ardern on UK child-killer Jon Venables' possible relocation to NZ - 'Don't bother applying' - New Zealand Herald
  17. ↑ Christopher Rouse: Flute Concerto. Program Note by the Composer. (Notes on the flute concerto)