When the fisticuffs ended, impressed by each other's performance, they made friends. I dont think she saw a very happy future., The author says there was no contact with the Venables family after the trial as Mrs Thompson focused, her energy on supporting her son, refusing to accept he was a monster. Jon was slim in build and taller than Robert, just over five feet. They have never come out of hiding. What doing well means is anybodys guess. I remember watching her then on TV, her sobbing plea for information and thinking how much guts it must have taken to get up that day and face a roomful of journalists and photographers. "Throughout the conduct of the case there have been a number of issues that have been swept under the carpet. Susan Venable: 141 records - CVs, addresses, photos, cars - uFind.name Ultimately, wanting to escape the havoc, most of the boys opted to leave home, and some were placed into voluntary care at Dysons Hall, a childrens home just outside of Liverpool. xf fy. A day later she would face much worse. sp. Usually, they were slung out. has prompted a public outcry for an investigation into issues surrounding the case. Pictures; Inside the Guardian; Guardian Weekly . ', The closest either boy came to offering an explanation was when Jon was asked by police why he had taken James's shoe off by the railway tracks. Last November he was arrested and recalled to jail on suspicion of possession of images of child sex abuse. 'I think it has something to do with a hatred of vulnerability and babyness in themselves which they projected on to this toddler.'. Superintendent Albert Kirby, who headed the investigation, doesn't believe in the under-belly of Liverpool nonsense or stuff about the disintegration of modern society, the collapse of the nineties cities. Susan Venables has blamed weakness for her sons role in the killing of James Bulger, claiming that he got involved with the wrong person. and things like that is that he was frightened. After they became friends he initiated Jon into the delights of climbing into people's back gardens and the consequent thrill of being chased out by the owners. Mr Venables said it had never crossed their minds that the video pictures from the security cameras in the shopping centre from which James went missing showed their own son. Their seats were just below the raised dock where their sons would sit for the next three weeks, listening to a prosecution which aimed to prove not only that they killed James Bulger, but that they planned to, and that when they did they knew it to be wrong. 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. Little Bobby went to visit his brothers every so often, eager to show them the latest playthings he had robbed from the assorted shops nearby. Still, despite being clearly intimidated by him, Roberts brother appeared to share a strangely intimate bond with him. I wish we could turn the clocks back,' Mrs Venables, 36, said. James Bulgers mother Denise claims that she managed to track down Thompson six years ago, planning to confront him but instead stared at him from the opposite side of the street, full of rage but unable to act. He has had his holidays like everyone else. Meanwhile Robert Thompson always regarded as the ringleader and the most likely of the murderous duo to fall by the wayside is said to be doing well. Their faces affected me deeply. As a grim portrait of abuse, drunkenness and neglect emerged, the hatred and loathing for Robert Thompson and Jon Venables was also turned on their parents. Susan Venables is on Facebook. The James Bulger murder View gallery Venables was born on August 12, 1982. It was the kind of family neighbours compare themselves against and then feel better. After a while the 10-year-olds began to charge - a tenner an interview. 'I don't know,' he replied. Born on August 13th, 1982, Jon was the middle child of Neil and Susan Venables. 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. He once came to me crying saying the other boys were picking on him, trying to steal his bike.'. The government will be required to respond within 14 days if as the petition achieves more than 100,000 signatures. The trial though didnt, and was never designed to, shed light on how two such young children could be guilty of such sustained barbarity. She would arrive at the secure unit with food parcels and is said to be proud of his achievements since the crime. 'I was the softie,' Neil Venables said. There is, like, a little paint factory. She remained very frightened and felt that she and her son were the most hated people in the country. While, on the face of it, there doesnt appear to be as much external devastation present in Jons family history as in Roberts, his outlandish behavior suggested that internally, Jon was in a state of extreme emotional upset. James smith (16 March 1990 [2] - 12 February 1993) was a two-year-old boy from Kirkby, Merseyside, England, who was abducted, tortured, and murdered by two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson (born 23 August 1982) and Jon Venables (born 13 August 1982), on 12 February 1993. But just as he was entering the school gates he met Jon and they decided to sag off together for the fourth - and final - time. I would get him something like a cartoon.". Venables, who was said to have been subjected to regular beatings by his mother Susan, titled the drawing 'My Dads house'. Both were banned from ever returning to Liverpool and given new identities at a reported cost of 1.5million. Their age was hard to gauge from the CCTV images, so just when you imagined you couldnt be more shocked by this story, it emerged the two accused were just 10-years-old. "My heart really goes out to them. Why Alex Murdaugh was spared the death penalty, Why Trudeau is facing calls for a public inquiry, The shocking legacy of the Dutch 'Hunger Winter', Why half of India's urban women stay at home. They did. Jon Venables said the class teacher tried to entice Robert by offering him a prize for a week's continual attendance - he did, but the prize never came. Denise Fergus remains convinced both will always be a danger to children. "I think my son's concentration wasn't the way it should have been, but he wasn't slow. the street. MOST of the boys were bright. Jon lived in terror of losing his mother's love, yet he was also terrified of her. "Youngsters are usually tried in a youth court, [Thompson and Venables] were tried in an adult court. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. EXCLUSIVE: 20 Years On, The Suzanne Capper Case - Confidentials He was fearful, he was weak and he was provoked. I am providing this page for those who are interested in learning more about the lives of these boys prior to their offense. He had left her to bring up six children alone. And there were rewards for breaking rules. 'If, in their own lives, they have had it extremely tough and been bullied and neglected and abused then they end up rapidly having to prove themselves to be extremely tough and invulnerable - a bit like Arnold Shwarzenegger in The Terminator. "We are committed to driving sustainability in the leather industry, through the commitment of. INSIDE the court sat the two boys, dwarfed by the weight and majesty of the place. Mrs Venables said: 'I think it was because the class group was too big for them to go in . He said that on the day James was killed, when he went to the school in the afternoon to collect Jon he was told his son was missing. His father, thin and balding, had a much gentler edge. Not their punishmentand exclusion from society for the rest of their childhood. A video still of James Bulger, aged 2 years old, being led away in the 'New Strand' shopping centre. Susan was known as the town " whore". He's quite bright and clever. However, given that the tension in the household was persistent throughout the most crucial of Jons formative years, the belief that he had moved through the ordeal entirely unaffected is questionable. She couldn't. I have lost my son as well. His parents say he is 'broken-hearted'. This would have put Jon in a particularly arduous position, as the couples only excelling child, and as author Gitta Sereny observed from her time spent with the Venables in 1994, forcing this middle child, Jon, for a long time, perhaps unconsciously, to compensate his mother for her two problem children, put an enormous weight of responsibility on this child virtually from the time he was born., As Susan struggled to manage her two disadvantaged children day to day, Neil was the familys breadwinner, working as a forklift driver. He didn't want to hurt James. Left to his own devices Jon liked to spend his playtime in fairly sedentary ways. . Recently, I dug out my old notebooks of the trial and my handwriting during the verdicts says it all. IN their interviews with the two boys, psychiatrists could find no clues to why the boys acted so violently. So he came home. Twenty-five years on, Im still prone to hot tears at the memory of it all and I do question the trial. 'I think about little James and what he must have gone through, how they must feel. Kids fantasise about such things. On Monday night's documentary, Robert Thompson's solicitor Dominic Lloyd said: "Many years after the trial a juror said 'we found them guilty of murder but we didn't have the option to find them guilty of being two very bewildered and frightened little boys who made an awful mistake and need a lot of help'.". With Neil seldom in contact with Susan or the children during this time, Susan was forced to contend with Jons escalating troubles alone, sometimes taking her own frustrations out on the children. It is not known whether the boy watched any of his father's adult movies. "The age of criminal responsibility in this country is 10 that's too low. Im bringing them up on my own, but if I went round and screwed every warehouse, my kids would have everything, too. Even so, while Roberts community was rough, his home life was perhaps worse, and could hardly be considered a refuge for the boy. 'It's always our family that gets the blame,' Robert said to police after he was arrested for James's murder. Less thanfive hours laterthe verdicts were in. Spidery and messy. It was their sons picked up by detectives. Constantly fighting and battering one another, and possibly, too, being hit by their emotionally drained mother, the Thompson brothers often looked scruffy, and, on more than one occasion, were seen bearing bruises and bite marks. These are the words of an officer who was in the police station when DCI Geoff MacDonald of Merseyside Police broke the news to Denise that James was dead. It emerged that the Venables family had suffered the same fate in another area. CCTV images revealed how James had been lured away by Thompson and Venables, who was also aged 10. Among the list were several horror films, including one video in which the police took special interest: Child's Play 3, a film which carries the line 'Children are consumer trainees'. So, when he first began his association with classmate Jon Venables, in September 1992, Robert was happy to have finally befriended a boy like Jon, who could almost always be persuaded to follow in his lead. and things like that is that he was frightened. 'We have never really been apart,' Mrs Venables said. They passed 36 people, with one recalling how they urged the boys to take their 'little brother' home because he was 'crying for his mummy'. Who were their parents? It is just heartbreaking.". He has had more love and attention than a lot of children I know. Just something to do.'. They knew what they were doing," another wrote. Jon Venables is demonstrably no such thing. That was in September 1991, 17 months before they killed James Bulger. For me, though, it is Susan and Neil Venables who stay most in my memory of that day. But then, the whole of Robert's family was a bit like that - shunned, outcast, the butt of local criticism, and very well known to police. A newspaper man from Detroit said it was because 'Liverpool is the Beatles and love, love, love. James mother Denise Fergus has been saying this for a long time, but still we hoped that the boy who savaged a tiny child to death could become a man safe to be in our midst. For his parents, the fact they were children was actually a cause for hope at that point. As a new documentary is set to air on ITV, the haunting words of Jon Venables' parents have resurfaced. Scores more watched proceedings from a neighbouring office block which, for the duration of the trial, came under court jurisdiction. The two had an aberrant relationship with one another, in the sense that it was almost as though they had never divorced. He started with Liverpool, but by the time of the murder he had switched to Blackburn Rovers. Mr Venables ran out of the car and grabbed him, while Robert ran off down the street laughing and shouting: 'You can't catch me.'. 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. She was prone to hysteria and hailed from a 'strict and disciplined' background. And in Lower Lane police station when he was being questioned about the murder she had to be told that her harsh words were inhibiting him from confessing. Jobs were few and far between. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected. wo. everyone blamed Thompson and. Why would I want to kill him? he said, referring to the slain toddler. The reaction prompted James' mum Denise Fergus to let supporters know she had nothing to do with the programme. 'Provided you have no court orders for debts already,' the man on the phone would add helpfully. Birds. He is an old-fashioned crime and punishment man. Both Ann and the children knew well the sting of palm against flesh, and Bobby often used these beatings to ensure that his wife and children conformed. I cant believe people find excuses for these murderers. It was high- lighted by the trial judge Mr Justice Morland who said they must take moral responsibility for the terrible actions of the young killers. Whatever problems she had in her own life, she was always there. It has already been reported that Jon Venables real identity has been exposed in prison, where he is said to be receiving 24-hour protection. eb. At Preston Crown Court Thompsons mother Ann and Venables parents Neil and Sue sat side by side. 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. Child Killer - Thompson & Venables - Murder in the Uk Resentful of her husbands lack of involvement with the children, Susan conceded that the couple fought constantly, especially throughout 1983, but maintained that Neil had never been aggressive towards her, nor had she hit him. I know how I feel as a mother. Robert said 'If you tell anybody I'll get my big brother to batter you up'. When the court was played Jon's taped descriptions of how they had truanted they simultaneously smiled. It is here, of course, that Jon met and made friends with fellow eccentric, Robert Thompson. He was given a new name, a job and a flat on his release to try to ensure his security . 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. Born 10 days apart in August 1982 in Liverpool. She also had to stay strong for the remaining children. Ironically, the relationship between mother and son improved when he, was behind bars. The Crown Prosecution Service released a statement in January confirming Venables had been charged. The attitude when you live where we live is that you have to be tough or else you dont survive, she said. Online Marketing For Your Business He stayed away from school so often the local police called him a professional truant. Were they to blame? He has been educated. 'I can't read hard words,' he said. But that is the common lot of thousands of 10-year-olds who have not turned into murderers. We still think the same of him as we always have. James Bulger murder: Shelagh Fogarty remembers the trial sons, were settled in council houses within easy reach of the institutions where their sons were being held. Most of the fun revolved around shoplifting - sweets, trolls, pepperami, tins of modelling paint, drinks, candles; anything, really. Now we waited. School had no hold on him - there was no corporal punishment or other form of penalty that touched him.