On November 1st, 1993, two eleven year olds, tried as adults for the murder of a two year old boy, were brought before the court. Nine months earlier, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, known only as Child A and Child B throughout the proceedings, had abducted James Bulger from a shopping mall in Bootle and beat him to death on a railway track in Walton. The boys, born ten days apart, were ten years old at the time of the offense. The trial of the boys lasted three weeks, and was overseen by Judge Michael Morland, who called the boys’ crime “an act of unparalleled evil and barbarity.” For eighteen days, the boys sat quietly in the dock, which, in accordance with their height, had to be raised significantly in order for them to see over the brass railings. Regrettably, this also made for better viewing for the legions of news reporters and public spectators in attendance. “It was good for the people, it was good for the Bulger family,” Detective Sergeant Phil Roberts, one of the two officers present during Robert Thompson’s interviews, commented afterwards. “And the fact that they could see who were the two boys that had taken Jamie’s life; I thought it was excellent for that. For the boys themselves?” The officer appeared indifferent. “They must have felt… threatened,” he said after a brief pause.
Child A, Robert Thompson, a cheeky boy with closely cropped brown hair and a broad hairline, was thought to be the inciter of the string of events that transpired the night James was murdered. All during the police interrogations, Thompson had blatantly lied and continuously placed blame on his accessory, Jon Venables. During the trial he was described as “the cool one,” rarely showing emotion, except in the presence of his distraught mother. “I sometimes feel like crying up there,” he said to her once during an intermission, but remained fairly impassive throughout much of the grueling court process.
Child B, Jon Venables, reacted differently from his co-accused; however, in some ways, his behavior came across equally as disturbing. Below the court, he would have violent outbursts of temper (much like those his school teachers and the interviewing officers at Lower Lane had witnessed in the months before), banging his head repeatedly on the walls or tables. Those who were present at the time Jon displayed this behavior described it as “alarming.” He would show up to court red-eyed and puffy-faced, and cry frequently, burying his face in the shoulder of his social worker, or hiding his head within his blazer. Throughout the trial, he routinely sought his parents’ eye, and, on one such occasion, called out “Daddy” to his father, who responded with a reassuring stare. Jon’s mother, on the contrary, came across as cold and distant, apart from the times when she appeared to be offering solace to her distraught husband. Psychiatric consultant, Dr. Arnon Bentovim, who met with Jon Venables both before and after the trial, said that Jon had felt “a sense of shock” at the massive amount of people inside the courtroom. “He had been terrified of being looked at in court, and had frequently found himself worrying what people were thinking about him,” he disclosed, in a 1995 report. “Most of the time he could not participate in the proceedings and had spent time counting in his head or making shapes with his shoes.”
The taped interviews with the boys back in February could be heard booming throughout the courtroom, tiny voices spilling their confessions of murder and misplay. While there was virtually no sympathy in circulation for either boy, Jon’s incredible distress, evident both in court and in his taped interviews with the police all those months earlier, earned him a little more pity than Robert, who people looked upon with sheer hatred and repulsion. During the interviews, Jon had literally trembled with fear, crying uncontrollably, “I want to go home… I’ve already told youse what I know. Ooh… you’re going to put me in jail.” His desperate denials during the interviews made many of the people who heard them played in court uncomfortable. “There was the most terrible wailing,” recalled Lawrence Lee, who, at the time, was acting as Jon’s solicitor. “He screamed, and then wailed, ‘Yes, I was at the Strand, but I never grabbed a kid.’” At that point, Lee confessed to feeling physically ill at the realization of what he sensed was about to unfold: “I just thought ‘Oh, my God.’ I just knew.” During times of particularly extreme distress, Jon would jump up from his chair, and hug one of the two interviewing officers in a tight embrace. At one point, towards the last of the interviews, with the questioning having grown increasingly intense, he began sobbing inconsolably for his mother.
Robert, in contrast, was, for the most part, remarkably composed. He lied with ease, and it was apparent to everybody who heard the tapes. “You don’t know for cer…exact,” he told the officers. He challenged his interrogators whenever possible, quarreled with them continuously over minor details, and boasted, “I was there, and you weren’t.” His naivety came through only during rare instances. On one such occasion, when the officers told him that the body of James Bulger had been taken to the hospital for assessment, Robert responded, “They’ve taken him to try and get him alive again?” His lack of emotion throughout the procedures, especially in correlation with his dramatic weight gain and freshly cropped hair, was hugely detrimental to his image and led many spectators to label him as dangerously unfeeling, like a “mini-Charles Manson,” as one reporter called him. In reality, it is far more likely that Robert had developed this steely edge as a means of survival, in order to protect himself from the affects of the brutal environment to which he had become conditioned. “The newspapers wrote, he didn’t seem to feel anything,” Ann Thompson later recalled: “But they don’t know: his tension showed itself in breathing. He has asthma anyway, and sometimes I could hear him wheeze from where I sat.”
In addition to the interviews, security footage of the abduction and several pictures of the crime scene were admitted into evidence, along with the mustard-colored coat Jon wore that day, and the twenty-two pound fish plate that the boys had rendered James unconscious with at some point during the assault. The passersby who had seen James came forth, many of them in a state of clear torment at their failure to intervene, each of them sharing similar accounts of their encounters with the three boys that evening. “How many more witnesses are there, Mr. Walsh?” Jon whispered to his defense attorney. As the witnesses took to the box, Bobby’s pokerfaced exterior remained unaltered, but his hands were tirelessly in motion. He rolled and unrolled the sleeves of his oversized dress-shirt, stuck his fingers in his ears, sucked his thumb, and, perhaps, as author Blake Morrison suggested, remembering the grievous injuries James had suffered to his mouth, pulled out his lower lip. He tore bits of tissue up and piled them in front of him in heaps and, more curiously, was constantly sucking on his fingers, and moving them around inside his mouth, stopping only on occasion to wipe them on his trousers. He repeated this ritual almost rhythmically throughout the trial. At times, he seemed to be intently listening to the witnesses’ testimony.
On November 24, 1993, the jury returned with unanimous guilty verdicts for both boys. When the verdict was announced, Neil Venables, crumbling in anguish at the horror of the unfolding events, wept aloud, placing his head in his hands. Susan, too, was distraught and began sobbing. Jon quickly became hysterical, and later, referring to the Bulgers, asked his solicitor: “Would you please tell them I’m sorry?” Robert, apart from appearing slightly taken aback at first, was emotionless as the pair was led to respective detention quarters to await word of the judge’s final address. Ann Thompson was not present for the verdict and was waiting for Robert downstairs. Once he was shown to his mother, Robert became increasingly anxious and began hyperventilating. Back in the courtroom, his eyes were raw, and his face twisted as if he were going to cry. For the first time since the beginning of the trial, he appeared small and vulnerable.
In sentencing the boys, Judge Morland recommended that each serve a period of eight years minimum in separate secure units for youthful offenders. The basis for this judgment, he said, was that “While at the time of the offense they were children, in eight years time, they will be young men.” The boys looked briefly at each other, both of their faces betraying their fear. Robert went white and began breathing rapidly again, sucking in huge gulps of air. Tears welled up in his eyes and fell in spite of his obvious efforts to contain them. Earlier, a policewoman had comforted Jon, who had sobbed piteously at the verdict, but nobody touched Robert. As they were taken from the courtroom, a shout echoed from the Bulger gallery: “How do you feel now, you little bastards?” The tortured remark had come from James’s uncle, Ray Matthews.
“It will never go away,” Sue Venables said, in an interview sometime after her son’s confinement. “You feel a bit guilty if you laugh or something like that and you say ‘What am I laughing at?’ and people say you have to laugh or you will never go on.”
The Incarceration Period
Both boys had undergone a series of psychological evaluations before the trial began, although none of them were used in a way which reflected upon either boy’s background before the offense, and the affect that that may have had on their psyche at the time of the murder. It was not until after the trial had ended that the boys were given therapy. Said Dr. Eileen Vizard, the psychiatrist who examined Robert Thompson prior to the start of the trial: “I believe that the jury wanted more information about the boys and their backgrounds than they got. Arguably, all that the experts were put in the witness-box for was to ascertain whether they knew the difference between right and wrong – but the laws of evidence are far too narrow. It’s essential that expert witnesses be allowed to disclose the full nature of their assessment.”
Boy A: Robert Thompson
After the trial’s end, the boys were taken to respective secure units, where they would serve out their sentences and undergo intensive psychological treatment. Robert was taken to Barton Moss, a secure facility for youth offenders, just outside of Eccles. At ten years old, he was the youngest person to be housed there, and there was the initial question among the staff over how best to approach the situation. “Part of the work done at Barton Moss was putting these routines in place that were lacking in a lot of these kids’ lives…” Dominic Lloyd, Robert’s solicitor, later explained. “There were a lot of difficulties in his early days establishing routines for him…”
Having first arrived at the unit profoundly damaged and distrusting of any form of authority, Robert was described as disruptive and noncompliant—often destructive—getting into verbal and physical fights with other residents, and behaving caustically towards the staff. Adapting to this highly restricted, therapy-based setting proved particularly strenuous for a child with virtually no sense of structure, and it took the staff at Barton Moss a long time before they were finally able to fully gain the boy's trust. Yet, early conflictions aside, Lloyd believes Robert responded extremely well to the thoughtful and consistent atmosphere provided at Barton Moss, and said during the aforementioned interview, “I have a lot of respect for the way the place was run. They would make people face what they had done and deal with the consequences of their actions. . .”
Robert was made to use his real name within the unit for the duration of his stay there, and occasionally received flack from the other detainees over his unsavory reputation. Terrified of his sudden, widespread infamy, he seldom went outside unless prodded by staff members, convinced that the media or an irate member of the public would be waiting to take vengeance. He was besieged by frightening afterimages of a brutalized James, and suffered from an array of symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder, including incessant thoughts of the crime, flashbacks to the murder scene, psychosomatic conditions (namely chronic skin inflammation and stomach upsets), and evasion of any discussion pertaining to the offense. When asked his feelings about what had happened, Robert sobbed, “How does it help to make it all come back? I don’t want to do it.” He had the most trouble at nighttime, rarely sleeping for fear that the nightmares which plagued him would return. He also experienced marked detachment, and the staff was concerned by his dogged refusal to acknowledge any responsibility whatsoever for his offense, not only to them, but to himself. “He swears blind he hasn’t done it,” Ann said of her son during a candid interview with journalist Gitta Sereny in 1994. For several years thereafter, Robert found it extraordinarily difficult to speak about the offense, rejected any psychiatric professionals who tried to initiate talk of the offense, and reportedly claimed to “have no feelings” at all. When he did speak to therapists, he wanted very little information concerning their sessions disclosed to the staff, and it took him until 1999, six years later, before he was finally able to admit to equally partaking in the killing of James.
Despite his early difficulties, however, Robert apparently made great therapeutic and educational progress during his incarceration. He was described by those who worked closest with him as an entirely different person from the scarcely literate, boldly defiant ten-year-old boy who first entered the unit in 1993. He did “extremely well” in his education, completing five GCSEs (general certificate of secondary education), and excelling especially in home economics and needlecraft, once designing and sewing an intricate wedding dress entirely by hand. David James Smith later wrote in his article “Killers Grow Up,” published in the Waikato Times in 1999, that the dress was intended to reflect Robert’s idea of “an object of beauty.” Perhaps ironically, Robert was also said to be “protective of younger inmates,” and in an article written for the Daily Post by journalist Mark Thomas, Leon McEwan, one of the teenagers housed with Robert at Barton Moss, confirmed this, saying: “He got into a big fight once after he caught one of the lads bullying a young boy in there. I thought it was weird, considering what he did to James, but he always looked out for the younger boys in there.” Members of the staff reported that they were proud of Thompson’s accomplishments, and McEwan, who Robert wrote notes to often in an attempt to build a friendship, later said in a televised interview with the Panorama in 2001 that Robert “used to just love the staff, and the staff used to love him, really.”
Nonetheless, notwithstanding the efforts of the professionals who devoted themselves to cultivating him as an individual, Robert’s ensuing actions will always be cause for speculation in the tabloids and across Britain. In 2000, there was some concern when the Sunday People newspaper published an article that suggested that Robert Thompson could still be a threat if released. The article claimed that Thompson, then seventeen years old, had attempted to throttle another boy after a heated argument. Upon further investigation, the article was proved to be based on fabricated documentations, but Robert’s character took another lasting blow. “In my experience, they’re not true,” said Dominic Lloyd, in an interview with Panorama’s Jane Corbin, regarding the allegations that his client remained unreformed and hostile. “That’s my experience and my personal opinion. The difficulty is that these allegations are often made on very flimsy evidence which there has been no opportunity whatsoever to test.”
After extensive consideration by the parole board, Robert Thompson was released from Barton Moss in June 2001 after serving eight years there for the murder of James Bulger. Those who have witnessed Robert’s maturation say that he has now come to terms with his role in the killing, and is “full of remorse.” Robert himself, according to a recent report done by David James Smith, had told the parole board of the guilt, shame, and disgust over the killing that he feels daily. He now resides somewhere in Britain and is living under an assumed identity. In late 2005, however, several newspapers claimed that Denise Fergus, mother of the murdered toddler, had reported seeing Thompson on the street, but had been “paralyzed with hatred” and did not act. With bizarre rumors as to his whereabouts and activity since his release from custody five years ago continuing to circulate, Robert continues to receive the brunt of the bad press, although none of the rumors have been authenticated.
In a 2003 article co-written by Mark Thomas for the Liverpool Echo, Dominic Lloyd said of his client, “I don’t find him to be evil or a monster. I have always been unhappy with irredeemable concepts like that… My insight into the case includes some of what was going through his mind on the day, but that is really confidential and I cannot talk about it.” With respect to the case as a whole, Lloyd added, “I have no regrets getting involved with it. It was rewarding, but also very challenging professionally.” In a separate interview with the Guardian’s Libby Brooks that same year, he maintained that Robert wanted only to live a “useful and quiet life,” and that “A lot of rehabilitation work has been done with him and it would be a shame to see that go to waste.” Robert was released on life-license, which means that he risks being remanded back into custody at any time should he ever violate the conditions of his parole.
Boy B: Jon Venables
Jon Venables, like Robert Thompson, was sent to a therapy-based secure unit in England to serve out his sentence. He was housed at Red Bank, the secure unit that had first become well-known after housing the infamous child killer, eleven-year-old Mary Flora Bell, who was convicted of manslaughter for the strangulation deaths of two small boys in Newcastle twenty-five years prior. While more is known about Robert’s post-trial treatment, the philosophies of the two unites where the boys were housed appear to be very similar with regard to their approaches to young offenders, which would suggest that Jon was dealt with in much the same manner as Robert had been at Barton Moss. Unlike Robert, however, Jon was given a separate identity to use within the unit during the days of the trial, and was not made to disclose the actual offense for which he was being held at Red Bank until later in his stay. This was thought by some involved with the case to be an obstructive measure in relation to Jon’s rehabilitation, as it would have only enabled his unwillingness to face up to the crime. In any case, by all outside appearances, Jon’s trauma was much more evident than Robert’s, and he experienced enormous guilt and horror over his role in the murder from the onset.
Therapists revealed that early on, Jon would physically reenact the murder and fantasize about going back in time and saving James or “growing a new baby James inside him for rebirth,” as journalist David James Smith later described. Although he responded to therapy fairly early, getting him to talk about what had happened was often excruciatingly difficult, because of his huge emotional distress. In response to psychiatrists’ questioning, he would say only “I’m sorry,” but refused to speak about the offense beyond that, and would shut off entirely and “dissolve into a flood of tears” if pressured any further. At nighttime, Susan had reported observing her son’s collection of teddy bears and other stuffed animals, carefully positioned around his bed, which she said he had put there to protect him while he slept. “The psychiatrists say there is extreme trauma,” Lawrence Lee, Jon’s solicitor, explained in a 1993 interview. “We don’t know if it is because of what happened or if it existed before. He is a very emotional boy, shy and timid.”
In the beginning, he would ask regularly to go home, but eventually stopped. Mr. Lee said that he had become accustomed to life within his unit, and, in his state of emotional trauma, had come to view it “as his sanctuary.” Red Bank, although strikingly anonymous looking, was highly restrictive and intensely guarded. “Most prisons I’ve visited didn’t have as much door locking,” Lee recalled, in a 2002 article for the Liverpool Echo. “Every time you went through a door, it was immediately locked behind you before the next one was opened…They had Jon on what they called three-to-one mobility, which meant whenever he went out he had three people guarding him. If he went into the playing fields at the back it was worse than man to man marking. He couldn’t run around like a little 10-year-old should.” Notwithstanding Lee’s concerns, however, the excessive security measures only gave comfort to Jon, who, like Robert, was “petrified” of the threat of retribution.
For the first few years, having been conclusively diagnosed by a clinical psychologist as emotionally immature and affected by ADHD, Jon’s behavior remained reckless and unpredictable, and at times the staff was faced with having to calm his explosive outbursts. His therapy sessions revealed a boy who was hugely distraught, still heavily in denial, and who was unable to fully comprehend the events surrounding the killing. Like Robert, he suffered from the enduring affects of post-traumatic stress disorder, smelling James’s scent on him, and experiencing disturbingly vivid flashbacks of James’s broken body lying on the railway line with blood coming from his mouth, that would not go away. Because he had been so deeply impacted by the murder and the resulting trial, it took Jon at least two years to finally open up about it at length. “It would all happen differently now,” Lawrence Lee assured, in an interview for the Guardian’s article “Ten Years On,” marking the tenth anniversary of James Bulger’s death. “In the first place, one priority would be a psychiatric nurse for the two of them. Because it was just policemen and lawyers, they bottled up before they got to court. I never got the full story,” he said, speaking in relation to what Jon had said happened that night on the railway line: “I don’t think any of the lawyers did.”
Nonetheless, as Jon aged, the number of violent temper tantrums he experienced reduced dramatically, and Jon’s behavior was later described by the staff as “exemplary.” He became more sociable, enjoyed participating in sports, and was a devoted fan of the Manchester United football team. Perhaps most noteworthy, however, was Jon’s commitment to his studies. During his stay at Red Bank, much of the focus was on Jon’s education, with regular class sessions occurring from the early morning until mid-afternoon. Once described by his grade school teachers as an “underachiever,” Jon is said to have made remarkable educational strides during his incarceration. He excelled in math, science, and computers, and did well in art, once creating a detailed bust of basketball star Dennis Rodman for the wife of the U.S. attorney, Tom Loflin, who befriended the Venables family early on and supported the boys’ lawyers’ crusade for their release. By 2001, he was working to pass his A-level exams.
On the other end of the spectrum, psychiatrists reported that Jon had responded extraordinarily well to the therapeutic process, and had moved through all the essential stages involved in coming to terms with his offense. He had come to recognize the true enormity of his offense, and had spoken about it openly, with great remorse which he would undoubtedly carry with him forever. According to both psychiatrists and the staff at Red Bank, Venables no longer posed a threat to society and was, by their analysis, a suitable candidate for release. In June 2001, the parole board met with Jon Venables at an undisclosed location to review his case, and after an exhaustive evaluation, came to a decision: Jon Venables was released on life license (life-long parole) after serving eight years at Red Bank secure unit for the murder of James Bulger. Like Robert Thompson, Jon Venables now resides somewhere in Britain and is living under an assumed identity.
In a subsequent interview, Jon’s former solicitor, Lawrence Lee, recognized that despite his freedom Venables’ “life will never be the same again. His youth and formative years have gone. He’ll be mentally scarred forever – he’ll have to have a new identity, he’ll be hunted down and will always be looking over his shoulder.” In his interview with the Guardian ten years on, he reflected on the case and on his former client, saying, “Venables…he was in some ways a likeable little boy. And, God, yes, if I met him now, I’d sit down for three days, for a week to try and find out why. If he knew of course. Sometimes I doubt either of them will know why. And nor, of course, will we,” he added, regretfully, “The climate has been made such that they can never speak, never explain, never let anyone know who they are.”
Ever mindful of the tragic loss the Bulgers endured all those years ago, both Lawrence Lee and Robert Thompson’s solicitor, Dominic Lloyd, stressed in their interviews their infinite compassion for the family, and especially the parents of James. “My heart has always gone out to them,” said Lee. Dominic Lloyd, speaking of his own two sons, said there are “times when you come home and see your own kids and think, what an awful thing to have happened.”
Commenting on the decision to release the boys, Lord Woolf, Chief Justice of England and Wales, stood by the ruling, saying: “Having become reasonable young men, they will have to live with, and will be marked by, what they did when children of 10. They will be liable to be recalled to custody for the rest of their lives if they do not comply with the terms of their license… It is hoped that this does not prevent them from leading full and useful lives. So far as this is possible, it is in the interest of the public that they should now do so.”
In accordance with the conditions of both boys’ parole, neither is permitted to return to Merseyside, contact the family of James Bulger, or contact one another. Both boys will have constant contact with parole officers for the rest of their lives. They have not spoken to one another since the day they both murdered James Bulger on the Walton railway line, and have not seen each other since they exchanged fearful glances in court on November 24th, 1993, shortly before being remanded into custody.
