by Ralph Bulger
He continued to tell the programme about his visits to see Venables and their growing friendship and how he had received many letters and cards from the boy and, in return, Loflin sent him mementos of his favourite baseball team, the Durham Bulls. When Jon was twelve, he made Loflin a ceramic mascot of the baseball team.
‘Jon has a lot of creative artistic talent. He has a wonderful sense of humour, a really great sense of humour. He is a lot of fun to be with when you’re with him. Each time I visited I could see he had made progress’
I think when I found out about Loflin I was more shocked than anything that a lawyer from another country would take it upon himself to fly over to England and start interfering in a case that I felt that had nothing to do with him.
It was during this period that he had been working with Thompson and Venables’ lawyers to prepare a case to take to the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg.
In March 1999, the first of two European rulings on the case was made. The European Commission of Human Rights concluded that the trial for James’s murder had been held in a ‘highly charged’ atmosphere, which led to an unfair judgement. As a result, the trial had been a breach of the human rights of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Then, in December of the same year, the European Court of Human Rights echoed the findings of the Commission, ruling that James’s killers had not received a fair trial.
Under the Children and Young Person’s Act 1933, the age of criminal responsibility is ten, but a child aged between ten and fourteen can only be found guilty of an offence if it is proved by the prosecution that the offender knew what he or she was doing was seriously wrong. As far as I was aware, this had been done at the trial, but the age of criminal responsibility in this country is lower than in most European countries, and I wonder to what extent this had a bearing on the Strasbourg ruling, which also reinforced the earlier High Court ruling that the now former Home Secretary Michael Howard was wrong to intervene in the sentencing of the two killers.
Their solicitors argued at the Strasbourg hearing that Thompson and Venables were distressed and frightened at their trial. Judges agreed with counsel for the killers that the pair did not receive a fair trial because it was held in public, and subject to intensive press coverage. However, they did say that the killers had not been treated in an inhuman or degrading way. They accepted that special measures were taken in view of their youth, for example, the trial procedure was explained to them, they were taken to see the courtroom in advance and the hearing times were shortened. But they felt that the formality and ritual of events in a court must at times have seemed incomprehensible and intimidating to the eleven-year-old children.
Part of their verdict said that some of the modifications to the courtroom — particularly the raised dock so that the boys could see what was going on — had actually increased their discomfort as it made them feel more exposed to scrutiny. The judges concluded that although their legal representatives were seated within whispering distance, it was highly unlikely that either applicant would have felt sufficiently uninhibited in the tense courtroom and under public scrutiny to have consulted with them during the trial. And that they were too disturbed and immature to cooperate with their defence outside of the courtroom.
It was a damning report on our UK legal system and our Government, and my heart sank when I heard the ruling. My first fear was that the two boys would have to be retried under a different system and that would mean the same agony all over again. Surely they couldn’t force English courts to hold another trial? It was one small mercy that it never came to that, as the pair had already served six years in detention centres, but it did have huge implications for the way in which juveniles would be tried in the future.
Not only were we floored by the ruling, but our whole family was livid at the way we felt an American had interfered and influenced the way this case was being handled. Tom Loflin should spend just one day walking in my shoes and he might then learn about the consequences of what they had done. Jack Straw was the Home Secretary at the time of the ruling and he insisted that James’s killers would not be released early as a result of the hearing, adding, ‘The real agony is felt by James’s parents. They have to endure, and will continue to endure, the profound grief of losing their son.’
The whole issue was totally sickening for me. Once again, it seemed those in charge had treated James’s killers with kid gloves and sucked up to their so-called human rights when they were the ones who had committed the crime and denied James his whole life. Why did we let a European court start dictating what is right or wrong in British law? It felt like our system had lost its backbone and turned into a whipping boy for anyone who wanted to stick their noses into our business. I couldn’t get over the argument that Thompson and Venables were distressed and frightened during their trial. I was at the trial and have not forgotten how I watched the boys shuffle and lark about together as the most terrible evidence was laid before the jury. I didn’t see one bit of remorse or fear. This felt like just one more way in which the system benefited the cause of two ruthless and wicked young murderers.
The high regard that I’d once had for our legal system was totally gone. The idea that victims in this country get justice is nothing more than a pathetic joke to me. Over the years, I have met many people through a support group called MAMAA — Mothers Against Murder and Aggression — which was set up as a direct result of James’s murder. After he was killed, three members of the public, Lyn Costello, her husband Roger, and Dee Warner, came together in a desperate bid to do something, and the result was the formation of this amazing charity. It helps people who lose a loved one to murder or manslaughter when they feel there is nowhere else to turn, just listening if that is what you need, or offering practical help and advice. Through this group I have heard some horror stories from bereaved relatives who, almost without exception, have said that their treatment at the hands of the legal system has been a disgrace and that, in many cases, the experience of going to court or trying to punish the guilty was almost as traumatic as losing their loved ones in the first place. Victims’ families came away humiliated and in despair at their treatment.
The fact is that our legal system is currently heavily weighted in favour of the rights of criminals, and is willfully neglectful and dismissive of the rights of victims. In these days of political correctness, we have a system that is petrified of its own shadow and heavily influenced by the European Court of Human Rights. We have become too scared to stick up for ourselves as a nation and defend what we think is right for Britain. Instead we allow foreign judges in a faraway state in Europe to dictate how we should punish our own citizens.
At the time of James’s murder, then Prime Minister John Major responded to the crime by saying, ‘It is time for us to put the victim before the criminal. We must condemn a little more and understand a little less.’ It was so desperately sad that his words were ignored.
I had no choice but to soldier on even though we had been hammered by the European rulings. Some days I just felt like giving up. It didn’t seem to matter what we did or how we felt; the legal system, both at home and abroad, was against us. I am not a legal expert, although I have learned much over the years about the way the system really works, but it was more than apparent to me that common sense just didn’t enter into things. It feels to me like the system is controlled by a powerful few who privately strike deals that the public will never know about. I was extremely bitter at the way the law had continually let James down, and his murder hardly ever came into the equation any more. It was always about Thompson and Venables — their treatment, their recovery, their progress, their education and their human rights. I think that, morally speaking, they gave up their human rights the day they battered and murdered my son. They had been given a fair trial and in my mind they should have received a far higher tariff than the fifteen years set by Michael Howard.
Why is punishment in our country seen as such a dirty word? We are not a cru
el or barbaric country, and so any punishment of these boys would have been fair and humane, but instead they were treated as victims who had to be fixed in some way.
Liberals argue that it was enough punishment for these boys to lose their liberty, but I believe both Thompson and Venables were happier in detention than they ever were at home. They were safe and warm, cared for and educated, and they weren’t even locked up all the time. Many years later, newspaper reports claimed to reveal details of a regime that seemed pretty soft to me. Punishment is supposed to act as a deterrent, to be something that offenders don’t wish to go through again, but reportedly James’s killers didn’t even want to leave their detention centres when the time came.
After this kind of setback I would feel an overwhelming need to talk to James, mainly to say sorry to him once again. I went to visit his grave soon after the ruling and I sat beside him and began chatting with him in my normal way.
I must have stayed for at least a couple of hours that evening. It was dark and still and I felt comforted to be next to him. It was days like this that I felt the fight just go out of me, but I knew that I would bounce back and pick up the challenge once more. It was the very least that I owed to James.
I couldn’t get to sleep that night even though I was exhausted. As I lay down and closed my eyes all I could see were the faces of Thompson and Venables smirking and laughing with cold, cruel eyes. Was I the only one who could see this? When I compared their faces to the wide-eyed innocence of James, it was as if they had been born on different planets. These boys were getting away with a coldblooded murder that was evil beyond belief and there was absolutely nothing I could do to change that.
I thought back to the time of James’s murder when we had received such amazing support from the public, from complete strangers who shared our grief and shock with us. Over 1,000 death notices had been placed in the city’s local newspaper, the Liverpool Echo, and then there were the donations in their thousands, many of which went to Liverpool’s Alder Hey Hospital — the largest children’s hospital in western Europe. I tried to console myself as I lay in the dark that people did care about James and the horrific ordeal he went through, even if the legal system in this country was proving to be unaware of our suffering.
There has to come a time when the victims of crime and their families get put before the rights of the criminals. Failure to do so makes a laughing stock of justice and a system that should be working for the people who need it the most. I passionately believe that punishment must come first, before rehabilitation and reform. But from what I have seen, we are a very, very long way from achieving that.
13
The Fight Back
The European ruling in December 1999 came at the same time as the birth of my third daughter with Eileen. We nicknamed her Naigs, and she was as gorgeous as all my other kids. How lucky was I, to have this brood of lovely children to look after despite all the bitter blows I had faced elsewhere. They certainly kept me on my toes and there was never a dull moment in our house!
The best way I can describe it is that my kids became like the light against the dark. I only had to look at them and realize that I had many good things in my life. This didn’t remove my obsession to fight for justice; it just made the journey a little easier.
Michael had started school and was as happy as could be, while Ree became leader of the pack among her sisters. She and Bobbi were right little tomboys in their early years, and they would rough and tumble with each other all the time. They never meant each other any harm but occasionally I had to step in to break them up when things were getting out of hand. Eileen and I tried to bring them up well, but we did spoil them sometimes too. We loved them so much that we couldn’t help it, but we tried to keep a balance by teaching them manners and discipline, just as my mum and dad had done with me and my brothers and sisters.
Ree was as bright as a button and quieter than Bobbi, who was so noisy it was untrue! Bobbi was ear-splittingly loud but very funny. It was hard to get cross with her, even though earplugs would have come in handy on some days. I’d take our girls up to Jimmy and Karens house, and they’d play for hours on end with their cousins. Jimmy’s three girls were all a few years older than mine and so they would look after Ree and Bobbi. They would play dressing up and Karen’s make-up bag took a real battering every time they all got together. I’ll never forget the time that Bobbi yelled the place down when she got her foot stuck in Jimmy’s tiny pond. You would have thought her world was coming to an end, but of course all the other girls couldn’t stop laughing at her, which I think made her scream even louder.
What was missing was the parties we once threw for all the kids’ birthdays and different events throughout the year, like Easter and the Halloween party James had enjoyed just a few months before he died. As much as the adults tried to keep things jolly for the kids, none of us felt comfortable throwing parties. It’s hard to explain why, but it didn’t feel right. We had all changed from those rowdy, happy days when we would pile into Jimmy and Karen’s and have a blast. What’s more, Jimmy and Karen shared my sense of fear for the safety of their kids and shielded and protected them beyond what was normal. I guess it was a natural response to what had happened to James, but it meant that Jimmy’s girls were never allowed out. It made them stand out from their mates and they hated it. They didn’t know why they couldn’t go beyond the garden path or stay out later with their pals. But it was drummed into them that they weren’t allowed to do it.
Jimmy’s youngest daughter, who was born in September 1993, the same year James died, rebelled against such tight discipline and earned herself the nickname of ‘the great escape artist’. The background was certainly no laughing matter, but her antics in trying to beat the rules were hilarious. The youngster caused Karen’s heart to miss a beat many times when she went missing. She would hide around the house or try to burrow through the back garden fence to get out. Once Karen thought she had gone out the front door when she couldn’t find her, and ran down the road in blind panic even though her daughter was only hiding out in the back garden, probably plotting her next big escape.
Naigs was still a baby at this stage, but I would also take the girls to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal and they were always delighted with the little toys they got. They weren’t demanding girls at all, but they wore me out nonetheless. Their energy was full-on, but that is just the way it should have been at their age. I could have done with some of that same energy for what I was about to face next.
The new millennium was coming and for many it was seen as a significant time of hope and a brand-new era. But for me, I couldn’t see beyond the immediate future, which meant more uphill battles with the legal establishment. The Strasbourg rulings were just the start of a new wave of complicated legal and political decisions that would affect everyone, from my family to Thompson and Venables. It was such a minefield; thank God we had Robin Makin by our side. He believed in fairness, real justice and a transparency that we had so far been denied. I will always be grateful to Robin for what he did for us but also, most importantly, for what he tried to do for James.
The issue of the minimum tariff the killers had to serve had been a political hot potato ever since the boys’ original conviction, and the goalposts kept being moved at every juncture. After Mr Howard’s tariff was quashed, no new one had been put in place, as politicians and lawyers waited to see the outcome of the European rulings. When the Home Office was defeated, it had fallen to Jack Straw to refer the case back to the newly appointed Lord Chief Justice for England and Wales, Lord Woolf, who had inherited the final decision on how long Thompson and Venables would remain behind bars. The outcome was solely in his hands.
In the summer of 2000, Lord Woolf publicly announced that he would consider the opinions of James’s family on how long we thought the murderers should stay in jail. Our views were already firmly recorded in the public domain, but the fact he’d said this meant at least the door had not been totally slamm
ed in our faces, even though we had already had earlier indicators, as I have said, that Lord Woolf had thought Venables was making great progress, which he might take into account when making his next decision.
He said, ‘I think it is very important that all those involved should have an opportunity to have an input into the process in this decision.
‘I am waiting for representation from the Director of Public Prosecutions, who will be taking the views of the victims and, in the case where someone has been killed, that means their family.
‘The family are going to express their views to the Director, and the Director is going to be the method of communication to the courts of their views’
As ever, Robin was like a Rottweiler in his approach to representing our family’s views. We were unequivocal: don’t ever release these boys because they will reoffend and another family will have to go through what we have suffered. That had been our message from the beginning and nothing had changed. Those feelings were submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions and then forwarded to the Lord Chief Justice, and now all we could do was wait until he had made his decision. Denise and her new family felt the same way.
Thompson and Venables were approaching the age of eighteen and this was a crucial factor. If their tariff was to extend beyond their birthdays, then they would have to be transferred to a young offenders’ institution and begin serving a real jail sentence, instead of living in the detention centres they had become used to.
In October 2000 my worst fears came true. After all the legal posturing, and despite our hopes that our views would have a decisive impact, the Lord Chief Justice reinstated the original minimum eight-year tariff that had been set by the trial judge. We were back to square one, but even worse, the killers’ tariff expired immediately, paving the way for their release back into society.