Jon Venables: Ralph Bulger’s new book sheds light on James Bulger’s killer
THE murder of James Bulger is still news. Ralph Bulger, father of the two-year-old murdered by twn-year-olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, has written a book. My James by Ralph Bulger and Rosie Dunn centres on the events of February 12, 1993. The parts about he and wife Denise Ferguson’s unbearable pain are horrible, like being invited to look at survivors’ slides from a fatal car crash. The parts about the child’s body and wounds are grim. They offer nothing new. What is interesting is the story of the criminal case, particularly how Jon Venables comes across:
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‘Is that you on that video, son?’ Ann Thompson demanded. ‘Nah, it’s got nothing to do with me,’ he replied. As if to prove his point, Robert went to a makeshift memorial near the railway in Walton and later took some flowers. When he got home he said to his mother: ‘Why would I take flowers to the baby if I had killed him?’ At another home nearby, Jon Venables told his mother, Susan: ‘If I’d seen them kids hurting the baby, I’d have kicked their heads in.’
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Jon’s father, meanwhile, asked his son about the blue paint that was splattered on his mustard-coloured coat. He said that his friend Robert Thompson had thrown it at him.
I later learned that on the Wednesday evening an anonymous woman went to Marsh Lane Police Station. She said she was a friend of the Venables family and knew that the son, a boy called Jon, had skipped school with a friend called Robert Thompson on the Friday that James went missing. He had returned home with blue paint on his jacket.
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Jon was having lunch when his mother held her son in a tight embrace and said: ‘I love you, Jon. I want you to tell the truth, whatever it might be.’ He started to cry, and just blurted out: ‘I did kill him.’ The boy looked across the room at the detectives and said: ‘What about his mum? Will you tell her I’m sorry.’ Jon continued to blame everything on Robert. He said they found James outside the butcher’s shop. He said it was his idea to take him, but it was Robert’s idea to kill him. They took him to the canal, where Robert planned to throw him in. James would not kneel down to look at his reflection in the water as they wanted, so Robert picked him up and threw him on the ground. This was how James had first injured his head. He said that James kept crying: ‘I want my mummy.’
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‘He wanted him dead, probably,’ he responded. ‘Robert was probably doing it for fun because he was laughing his head off.’ For his part, though, Robert refused to admit any involvement in the attack. ‘He never actually told me the truth in the end – far from it,’ said DS Roberts. ‘He lied from the minute we started to interview him.’ ‘When he was charged, he had no problem with it. I suppose he knew that if he was found guilty he would have a better life than he would outside. I thought to myself, “This boy has caused so much misery and evil.” I didn’t look for the three sixes on the back of his head, but at that moment I thought he was the devil.’
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It may oversimplify the arguments, but that to my mind makes them evil beyond belief.
You never do hear much of Robert Thompson…
Posted: 3rd, February 2013 | In: Books, News Comments (12) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
April 29th, 2013 at 3:54 pm
@EDEEN you are a fucking idiot. James will never suffer as much as they did? Do you even know the extent of what they did to that defenceless toddler? Having disadvantaged childhood does not equate being taken away from your mother and being subjected to the kind of violence that little jamie had. They were not the only ones from hard families and not all behave like animal so the ones do shall not labelled as victims. And judging by the fact that you are defending and covering up Thompson I think you are his family, relative or acquaintance.
April 1st, 2013 at 9:13 pm
Nobody is born evil.What do you expect from Robert Thompson?He was abused all the f****** time.Venables was a child with mental problems,which are never proved,but please he was strangling other child in school,he never had piece.
I hate society.One innocent life was taken cause nobody didn’t saved Thompson who will probably be normal if he wasn’t in that retardic family.And Venables should go to some doctor when he was young,cause i think he needed someone to talk.And they just got 8 years…But people they were never be free.Never.Thompson maybe has normal life,and seems cold,but something will always chase him.And Jamie had beautiful life before,and believe my,they beat him up,but Jamie NEVER,NEVER suffered as they did.I am not saying that it’s good what happened,noo,but i wanna prove you that how many years they get they will never be free.Specially Thompson.Mby he seems cold,but something will always chase him.
RIP JAMES
February 7th, 2013 at 9:07 am
I see Albert Kirby (who once damned Thompson as the devil while showing sympathy to Venables and is now retracting like a pathetic, cornered defendant) has also once again given us his ‘expert’ view in the Liverpool Post. So we’ve had Ralph Bulger, Albert Kirby, Laurence Lee and the reporter who covered the case for the Echo all getting the shilling for given no new information on the twentieth anniversary. No doubt there will be more to come.
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This case continues to be a money spinner for plenty of people.
February 7th, 2013 at 3:58 am
Emma & Jeremy,
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You should have a look at this piece, posted online by what appears to be a cousin or other relative of Jon Venables. I’d read it before – even borrowed a phrase from it – “mask of sanctity” – to describe Denise Fergus, but it’s worth reading by anyone interested in the case. It certainly sounds legit – if real, it’s one of the few people who knew Venables in childhood having his say directly and unmediated:
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http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1358541
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The key part that caught my eye is this:
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“Robert came from an abusive family, his father was a scumbag who left the family, he was beaten by his mum and brothers, he was sexually molested by one of his older brothers, he was forced to look after Ryan and their baby brother, and he was often bullied at school, so you can guess how he ended up.”
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“Jon also came from a broken but less violent family and he obviously had behavioural problems, influenced by the extra attention given to his brother and sister, the precarious relationship with his mum and the continual absence of his dad. He was also bullied at school and around the neighborhood, often worse than Robert. Despite his problems, he was a creative and chatty kid and he was definitely fun to be around with. He was also good at games and although he was a very emotional kid, he was also smart, he just didn’t like school all that much. He liked doing exciting and fun things but he would never do anything risky by himself. Unfortunately he also had a volatile temper, he was easily provoked and easily manipulated and he sometimes acted impulsively and cheekily. He was definitely the most affected out of the two, and he was crushed by what he had done. I mostly blame his mum for the way she abused and neglected Jon but I can also blame Jon for not letting go and getting over it.”
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So Venables came from a LESS violent family than Thompson, not a NON-violent one. But this relative of Jon’s states clearly that Venables’ mum DID “abuse” and “neglect” him, just not as severely as Robert’s horrendous dad abused him. This squares with Smith’s depiction: Venables’ background comes off as a good deal less violent than Thompson’s, but still plenty violent and definitely a broken home. A far cry from the supportive, healthy, normal, middle-class background Laurence Lee envisions.
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Perhaps the most interesting sentence is this:
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“The days before [the murder], Jon had been extremely restless and was acting as if something was bothering him.”
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This again supports David James Smith’s belief that Venables was the main perpetrator: if he’d already been noticeably agitated for several days previous to the killing, what was behind that? Why did nobody ever find out what the “something” was that was “bothering” him so much?
February 6th, 2013 at 11:57 am
I think the main problem is the adversarial system simply isn’t set up for cases like this. The police don’t really care what happens at trial – their responsibility ends once a suspect is charged. From then it is up to the prosecution/defence to battle it out. The adversarial system benefits adult defendants because it grants them centre stage in their own defence. However, when you are talking about two traumatised ten year olds who are utterly bewildered by the process and unable to instruct counsel, the process fails (and in my opinion fails everyone – including the victims). The two defendants in this case were unable to take the stand and at least one (Thompson) had been diagnosed with severe post traumatic stress disorder. There is no doubt the trial was unfair under any real analysis. Juvenile cases should run along a more
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The police don’t ask ‘why’ – it is insignificant. They made some really dumb errors in the questioning – really basic stuff like assuming that because the boys were telling some lies, everything was a lie. But then it was highly unusual and not one single person would have experienced anything like it. Mistakes were made mainly because it is such a rare thing to have to deal with.
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As for the judgement of the two families. Susan Venables was apparently very good at making things look normal. Laurence Lee sounds too stupid to be a lawyer (not to mention too free with his opinions – what happened to client/attorney privilege?) and in fact I believe he was sacked (or at least left by mutual consent) shortly after the trial and Jon Venables’s case put into the hands of the much more competant (and much more discreet) John Dickinson (who still represents him). It is telling that Thompson has retained the same solicitor from the first police interview up to the present day.
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And yes – by most civilised countries’ standards, Thompson and Venables were treated very harshly. Put through adult proceedings at just 10 years old, incarcerated until they were 18 (half their lives) and given a life sentence (which they continue to serve even if released on license). Indeed, even in Iran they would not have faced criminal proceedings. Even in most states in the US (which people seem to think is the bastion of harsh justice), it is likely they would have been put through the juvenile courts rather than an adult one and given a much more leniant sentence than 8 years (some killers that young in the US have been sentenced to house arrest or intensive foster care rather than detention). They also would never have been subjected to a life license.
February 6th, 2013 at 5:11 am
“Phil Roberts (the police officer who interviewed Thompson) showed a ridiculous level of stupidity, ignorance and downright unprofessionalism in his moronic judgement of a child.”
Equally moronic statements have been made by Michael Morland, the awful and inept judge overseeing the trial (who made the crucial and foolish decision to allow T and V’s true names and faces to be made public), Laurence Lee, Venables’ idiotic solicitor, Albert Kirby, and countless journalists and columnists. The Bulger case will go down in history as one of the most ridiculous moral panics and instances of mass hysteria since the Satanic witchcraft scare that spread throughout U.K. and the U.S. in the 1980s. The one common denominator is that all of these individuals – Kirby, Roberts etc. – seem to lack basic critical thinking skills – and to derive all their ideas about childhood evil and crime from schlock like THE EXORCIST, THE OMEN, THE BAD SEED and bad television soap operas.
There’s simply nothing to indicate Thompson would’ve behaved violently at all if he’d not been in Venables’ company – despite attempts to portray him as diabolical ringleader and Pied Piper – and likewise, nothing to indicate Venables would’ve behaved so violently if a single responsible adult – parent, social worker, schoolteacher, administrator – had lifted a finger to come to the aid of an obviously traumatized and disturbed child. This was not a psychopathic crime (Venables is hardly the second coming of Graham Young) – it was not a unique crime – it was not at all an unforeseeable or unpreventable crime.
The Bulger case was an all-around disgrace and travesty of justice – but not for any of the reasons Roberts, Morland, Lee, Denise Fergus, or Ralph Bulger think.
February 6th, 2013 at 2:58 am
“the lack of support shown by the government”
Oh please… enough with this old canard! Are you aware that the large majority of nation states have a higher age of criminal responsibility, which necessarily means that Venables and Thompson couldn’t have been prosecuted under their laws? Enough with this nonsense about a “lack of support by the government.” On the contrary, politicians quite callously exploited the Bulger case for their own ends.
There aren’t many countries in the world these two boys would’ve gotten a harsher sentence than the one they did receive – and in most places, they wouldn’t even have been prosecuted at all. So the complaints about lack of government support are really just stemming from ignorance not just of English law, but of law the world over.
February 6th, 2013 at 2:22 am
It actually goes deeper than that, Jeremy. David James Smith didn’t just think Venables committed the lion’s share of the violence, he also always maintained that Venables’ family was not the normal, respectable, idyllic family a lot of people thought they were (including Venables’ harebrained solicitor Laurence Lee, who in a new interview, still maintains that Venables’ mum and dad were a “lovely,” totally “respectable” couple who were unfailingly supportive of their wicked, awful, inexplicably violent son).
Does Lee not know how to read? It is simply impossible to read Smith’s book THE SLEEP OF REASON and come to anything like that conclusion. Lee also insists that Thompson was the Pied Piper who led Venables astray. Yet Smith shows that it Venables, not Thompson, who manifested violence long before he killed James – he was into self-harming and tried to throttle a classmate with a ruler, and had to be pried off him. And when offered – free of charge – therapy and counselling for their obviously disturbed and damaged son, Venables’ parents turned it down! What the hell is so “normal” and “lovely” about parents who stubbornly, sickeningly, refuse to avail themselves of available resources and treatments for their damaged child even after being informed they won’t have to pay for it themselves? Furthermore, Smith claims that relatives of Susan Venables took him aside and recounted some “hair-raising” stories of the “carnage” that could result from family get-togethers. Violence WAS a part of the family dynamic: so much for Lee’s hare-brained understanding of the case (no wonder his defence of Venables was so incompetent – the guy seems cut from the same thick plank of wood as Albert Kirby).
Furthermore, Thompson’s version of events always maintained a lot of internal consistency, no matter how many times he retold it. His version always maintains the violence started when Venables flicked paint which landed in James Bulger’s eye, and James started screaming and crying. In response to James’ crying, Venables seemed to go berserk at this point. When Smith reproduces Venables’ account, on the other hand, it’s harder to visualize what happened – and at one point Venables even says in response to a question – “How do I know? I see double vision” – which is a very peculiar statement: sounds like the statement of somebody reversing roles in his imagination, blaming on Thompson the actions that he himself committed.
Unless the reference to “double vision” has some connection to his squint and the surgery performed on it (Venables had an eye operation for his squint shortly before he killed James – such operations are now known to trauma experts to frequently trigger severe PTSD and attendant rage/violence reactions – and are even positively indicated when the child comes from a dysfunctional family background!). Did the death of James have some connection to Venables’ own panic and terror when he went under the knife? Did the paint landing in James’ eye, and James screaming, trigger a flashback to his own earlier traumas involving his lazy eye? These are questions that deserve further investigation.
The death of James Bulger was a very preventable tragedy. If we want to know why it wasn’t prevented, we need look no further than Venables’ ostensibly “lovely” parents, whose modus operandi was denial, denial, denial that any problem with their child existed – even after he throttled a classmate! “It’s nothing, it’s just his diet, we’ll change his diet a little.” And contra Laurence Lee, there is nothing “lovely” or “respectable” about such abdication of one’s parental duties.
February 5th, 2013 at 2:02 pm
Do you not think that the book has been written to acknowledge the unjust that this family has been shown by those who have supported and protected those vile evil murderers?
I highly doubt that this book has been written for profit, this is the first time that Ralph has spoken about how the actions of those murderers and the lack of support shown by the government has impacted him an his family, it gives the father a voice and is a fitting tribute to their little boy!
February 4th, 2013 at 2:16 pm
all the profits in the world won’t bring the child back – he’s dead.
however, the book keeps his name alive and not forgotten – even if you can forget, I am sure his parents can’t, same as the McCanns – and they don’t even have a body to get some sort of closure.
February 4th, 2013 at 9:06 am
20 years on from the murder and what a surprise. There’s a book out. As you say, says nothing new but I’m sure it will be profitable. James Bulger must be the most exploited murdered child in history – by tabloid editors, publishers, politicians (remember the vomitous speeches of both John Major and Tony Blair) and yes – even his own parents.
February 3rd, 2013 at 11:08 am
The idea that Robert Thompson may have initially shown less remorse than Venables because he may have felt he had less to be remorseful about doesn’t appear to have occurred to anyone (remember he was only 10). David James Smith always said he felt Venables carried out the majority of the violence (and Venables was very telling during the police interview with the words ‘I killed him’ – he did not say ‘we’).
Phil Roberts (the police officer who interviewed Thompson) showed a ridiculous level of stupidity, ignorance and downright unprofessionalism in his moronic judgement of a child.
The police officer in charge of the investigation (Albert Kirby) now openly admits that their view of Thompson was wrong and probably an injustice.