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Jon Venables Only Has Himself To Blame: There Is No Whitewash

by | 24th, November 2010

JON Venables is back in the news. The investigation into how one of James Bulger’s killers was able to download child porn has cleared officials of any wrongdoing.

Justice Secretary Ken Clarke says Jon Venables “was properly supervised“. The Sun says this has sparked “fury”. But it hasn’t.

Still, the Sun likes to confuse the crime with the system and ads that it has “emerged Mr Clarke has refused to see James’s mum Denise Fergus again”.

Why should he meet with Denise Fergus, James Bulger’s mother? Whatever the reasons, the Sun does not make the same error. Denise Fergus is the voice of the woman whose son was taken was murdered. So, if we want reason, who better to turn to than the young victim’s mother? Says she:

He is making a big mistake by trying to brush this under the carpet… Ken Clarke wants to wash his hands of me. He wrote earlier in the year say he will no longer deal with me direct and I must go through the probation service. I feel betrayed. This report is a classic cover- up. But he should think it through.”

Says Clarke:

Sir David has concluded Venables was properly supervised. He also concluded that Venables alone is responsible for his further offence, and it could not have been prevented or predicted by any reasonable supervision.

Could Venables have been stopped?

Omand said probation officers could only have stopped Venables looking at child porn by watching him round the clock.

The Liverpool Echo blames the system:

JON Venables became a perfect product of the system that tried to give him his freedom back. Schooled in how to lie in a bid to protect himself after the murder of toddler James Bulger, he used the techniques he learnt to ultimately deceive those who taught him.

Jon Venables never knew how to misbehave before he was placed in the system? Here’s another question: were the probation staff and therapists too optimistic?

Sir David added: “Officials had invested a great deal in Jon Venables. They wanted him to succeed, they knew of his very real fear of exposure, and they may have therefore perhaps unconsciously been unwilling at times to accept that he could actually be letting them down in such a fundamental was as he did.”

Another section of the report said: “With hindsight, officials were too optimistic about his growing maturity”.

We learn:

In 2008, when he was arrested for a drunken fracas outside a pub and again, separately, for possessing a wrap of cocaine.

At neither time was he recalled. Says Denise Fergus:

They have bent over backwards to support Venables and featherbed him with a new life and the best of everything. I was promised that Venables and Thompson would be back behind bars if they re-offended while on parole, but Venables was involved in a punch-up and was caught with cocaine. These were breaches of his parole and he should have been put back behind bars for them. The probation officers were more keen on protecting him than protecting the public from him.”

Aren’t we all, ultimately, responsible for our actions?

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Posted: 24th, November 2010 | In: Reviews Comments (21) | TrackBack | Permalink