Invasive surgery – squint (strabismus/”lazy eye”) operations in particular – are well-known to trauma experts to sometimes trigger devastating PTSD symptoms in children (and even some adults) who undergo them. For scared children, the body experiences the invasive surgery as a kind of rape. (See Peter A. Levine’s books for in-depth discussion of this topic.)

It’s perfectly possible – though not yet known – that Venables suffered PTSD in the wake of his operation. Couple this with abuse and neglect at home, as well as bullying and humiliation at school and around the neighbourhood, and there more than sufficient conditions in his life to trigger a full-blown panic-rage attack.

In other words: you don’t have to “want” or “plan” to kill a person in order to kill them. All you have to be is simmering with untreated PTSD, and have no proper outlet and nobody to help you. (Denial and indifference seem to have been the modus operandi of his parents and teachers alike.)

When pitchfork-waving morons and subliterate ignoramuses declare that they will never “forgive” Venables for his “monstrous,” “sadistic” crime, this sounds suspiciously to me like saying they can’t forgive him for belonging to the animal kingdom, born with all the same instincts, drives, and survival mechanisms (the product of millions of years of evolution) as any other animal. They are vilifying – and fantasising about torturing him to death – for the “crime” of being an organism.

There is, it goes without saying, no actual proof that he sexually abused James, or that the murder was premeditated, and saying that he sadistically “tortured” James is a bit like saying the grizzly bear that killed Timothy Treadwell in Werner Herzog’s GRIZZLY MAN consciously “plotted” to “torture” him as well. It’s a lazy misuse of language to keep claiming that Bulger was “tortured” – he was only “tortured” in the same sense Treadwell was “tortured” – that is, fierce and brutal instinctual violence was inflicted upon him. The infliction of such violence is horrific, but it doesn’t prove Venables a psychopath any more than it proves wild animals (bears, lions, tigers, wolves) to be “psychopaths.”

The crime was so severe that an original sentence of life without parole was given. This was overturned (like Howard’s extension of the Bulger sentence, it was declared unlawful). In fact, the prosecutors were so horrified by the judge’s sentence that they helped the defence in the appeal!

His sentence in the very punitive USA? 1 year house arrest, 10 years probation (so not even custody).

Even the discovery of a knife in his possession during the time he was supposed to be on probation didn’t get him sent back to prison.

However, he violated the probation through an armed robbery and was given a 30 year sentence later. This (despite the apparent severity) is likely to be nothing like 30 years and he will likely only serve 10 years (probably less) – like the UK, 50% of a finite sentence is the norm in the US but unlike the UK, a convict can get even more off that with good behaviour.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/29/world/two-boys-sentenced-for-killing-5-year-old.html

Not only were they given the MAXIMUM of ten years with the possibility of being released earlier; but like Thompson and Venables, they were sentenced to secure care homes rather than prison with rehabilitation, not punishment being the aim.

UNLIKE Thompson and Venables, their names were never released to the media.

That doesn’t surprise me about Kirby. I don’t know what to make of him. After watching the Venables documentary that aired a few weeks ago, I find it strange and terrible that after all these years after the event, he still maintains that they were ‘born evil’ and other magical nonsense words. So he still hasn’t changed his tune since 1993, even with the amount of information that’s been gathered about their backgrounds and other circumstances. No excusing them, and he’s entitled to hate them as most people do, especially after what he saw first-hand, but using such archaic, obsolete explanations comes off as unprofessional. Especially a man with his authority, as he’s now risen up the ranks.

I think it is this one (about Thompson, not Venables):

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article42689.ece

The reason I think this is because of the following quote:

“He had to tell his partner of the murder to meet the strict conditions of his release, which force him to be honest about his past if he forms close relationships.”

This was a condition the general public did not know of before (indeed, much of the nonsense in the tabloids concerned how terrible it was that the young men could date and marry and their respective partners have no idea who they were or what they had done). There was no reason to believe this report over any others until Jon Venables’ barrister gave the statement last year outside the court using practically the same phrase:

‘But he had to lie to friends about his true identity and was unable to form a close relationship with a woman, as he would have to disclose his true identity as a condition of his licence’.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/jon-venables-jailed-for-two-years-over-child-porn-2033788.html

Also, there was speculation about Robert Thompson’s sexuality way before this report.

If it is true, it would go some way to explaining why Thompson has been more successful – he has managed to form a positive relationship with someone he can be truthful with.

I also think Venables was diagnosed with ADHD – something which would have made him hyperactive and lacking consequential thinking.

If you go into the average prison, you find very few ‘evil geniuses’. You find people at the bottom of the pile – both socially and culturally. People who are illiterate, with learning difficulties, mental health problems etc.

I’ve always believed the common assumption that Thompson led, Venables followed to be simplistic. This opinion was formed by the police officers largely (Kirby and Roberts) and Kirby has all but admitted now it may have been prejudice on their part because of their past dealings with the Thompson family and how Thompson behaved under questionning compared to Venables (Thompson calm and cocky; Venables hysterical – wailing like a banshee and not being able to sit still).

I also agree, Ann, about Norma Bell. Certainly today, she would be considered part of a joint enterprise and would have received some sentence – even if it was being sectionned under a care order.

It’s interesting that the ardent ‘they should have been hanged at 10′ lot were always insistent that they had better lives than had they not killed a child. The Omand report paints a very different picture – there is no doubt Jon Venables life was utterly miserable and that he didn’t posess any coping skills whasoever. Or even basic life skills for that matter.

And yes, what the hell were social services doing with the Thompsons? At least two kids were taken into care; Anne’s mental health problems (including suicide attempts) and dependency issues (tranquillisers and alcohol) were well known. There were suspicions that one of the brothers was involved in the abuse of boys (one of the victims, it is now believed was Robert himself) and social workers knew that the household was one of almost daily violence and neglect. Apparently their house burning down was considered an accident but given that one of the brothers was a known arsonist, it does make you wonder. Ironically, before the crime, Robert didn’t have the reputation for violence that his brothers’ had. He was also, despite his low attainment at school owing to absence; intelligent and I think this probably contributed to his better outcome on release as much as anything else.

And when I read the Omand report, it became crystal clear that how Venables was to have a sexual life wasn’t even considered when he was being released – all they considered was potential physical risk to the public. I’m guessing then that there was absolutely no help/therapy in this area despite the fact that his entire adolescence (and one would think sexual development) would have been negatively affected by institutionalisation.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/43766244/Venables-Omand-Review

‘ well, except of course when he was drunk. God knows what he’d do then’

Wasn’t Robert Thompson Senior drunk most of the time? And IIRC he once beat Anne so severely that she ended up having a miscarriage. Apparently one of Robert’s first memories is of his mother lying bleeding on the floor and unable to go to her because of his terror of his father. It seems the response is another of Anne’s attempts to brush her situation under the carpet and minimise the effect both parents were having on their children.

And I believe he (Robert Thompson Snr) was one imprisoned for quite a serious violent offence himself.

For Anne, though, I believe eventually she engaged very positively with intensive family therapy (probably one of the first examples of multi-systemic therapy in the UK which was still quite new then) and no doubt her support of her son was invaluable to him when he was incarcerated.

These places are run for profit and yet are put in charge of some of the most disturbed and vulnerable young people in the country.

Grendon is a brilliant prison although it has suffered somewhat in reducing its criteria for entry (even unofficially) over the past few years.

I don’t want to turn this discussion into a ‘prison works/fails’ debate, but there is proof the HMPS CAN get it right. A shining example is HMP Grendon, which ‘specialises’ in sex offender rehabilitation. This makes for an interesting read: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/is-this-britains-most-successful-prison-1637479.html
I think prisons such as this, as well as the probation service as we’ve all said, should be the Government’s aims. I hate this ‘quick-fix’ mentality they seem to have; preventing re-offending has no immediate solution, and ignoring this creates problems which lie dormant, perhaps for years before maifesting themself, as Venables showed.

Ken Clarke’s plans to reduce the prison population are laudable but they must be accompanied with investment into the probation service. Cutting everything will cost more in the long term.

My point remains about Richard Keith who served all his sentence in a secure children’s home (8 years) and was released just two years before the Bulger killers with virtually no fuss. (Ironically, his victim was also called James). But then James Campbell’s family never had a PR agent to peddle rage to the gutter press. The fact that his parents were already dead (in a fire) also probably served to ensure that his death wasn’t such a national event.

He also wasn’t convicted of murder by the way but the Scottish lesser offence of ‘culpable homicide’. I agree with The Times article on the murder of two year old George Burgess by two schoolchildren in 1861:

‘why it should have been absurd and monstrous that these two children should have been treated like murderers?… As far as it went [their conscience] was a sound and a genuine a conscience as that of a grown man: it told them that what they were doing was wrong . . . [But] conscience, like other natural faculties, admits of degrees: it is weak, and has not arrived at its proper growth in children, though it has a real existence and a voice within them; it does not speak with that force and seriousness which justifies us in treating the child as a legally responsible being’

That was in 1861. The Times newspaper saying that although children of that age knew right from wrong; they could not be held as accountable for their actions as an adult because they lacked sufficient moral awareness and understanding of consequences. Just 133 years later and we descended and regressed to press reports of ‘freaks of nature’, ‘devil children’, ‘evil beyond belief’; etc. Who says society always progresses?

She carried out the remainder in open prisons, yes, but Styal had so institutionalised her that she resented these more lax environments. I would therefore argue that she had a far more punitive experience than T & V, and they had the good luck not to be placed in adult institutions, perhaps from lessons learned from her case. They could have had it worse. (Not that I think that would have been constructive.)

In Scotland just a couple of years before James Bulger was killed, there was also another virtually identical case (although only involving one perpetrator) – 11 year old Richard Keith who took a toddler he didn’t know beat him with bricks and sticks and eventually drowned him. Like the Bulger case and the Stockport case in 1861, the killing was apparently motiveless.

The difference – there was no hysterical media response; there was no involvement from the victim’s family in the tabloid press (although they did try to block the killer’s release). The child (while named) never had to change his name because there were never any overt death threats. He never had to live under an assumed identity.

What sentence did he receive? EXACTLY the same as the Bulger killers – 8 years in a secure children’s home. He was released in 1999 and has (insofar as we know) never reoffended.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1999/jan/14/gerardseenan

The other example we have of course is Mary Bell – 12 years for killing two toddlers (and grotesquely mutilating one of them). Half spent in a secure children’s home (Red Bank where Venables was kept) half in a very lax open prison where she went out to work daily. She has never given any cause for concern in her adult life and ended up becoming a good mother/grandmother.

People saying they should have been locked up for life aren’t looking at the precedents. Had they been locked up for life (or even the 15 year tariff that Michael Howard unlawfully slapped on), they would have had good cause to claim that the sentence was excessive in English case law.

Sometimes children who kill DO go on to reoffend (like Jon Venables). However, they very rarely kill again as adults (in fact, I can’t think of a single case).