My James: The Heartrending Story of James Bulger by His Father

by Ralph Bulger

  The Ministry of Justice released very few details that day, just a short, terse statement. It read: ‘We can confirm that Jon Venables has been recalled to custody following a breach of licence conditions’

  I was wracked with torment because I didn’t know what this man had done. I thought about James and the torture the ten-year-old Venables had inflicted on him; I shuddered to think what he was now capable of as a twenty-seven- year-old man. I was also furious with the Government for trying to keep the reason for his return to prison secret. How dare they? The public had a right to know. We don’t live in a police state where information is concealed from ordinary people.

  As the hours ticked by, public indignation began to gather pace. This was one of the few occasions when I felt compelled to speak out publicly and I blasted the Government for throwing a veil of secrecy around Venables once again. Politicians were not even prepared to say whether he had committed another crime or had been recalled for breaching one of the conditions of his licence, such as the ban on him returning to Merseyside. The only hint that he had carried out a crime was when the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, said that he expected criminal justice proceedings to follow.

  For days we continued to receive mixed messages from the Government. While Mr Johnson came out and said he believed the public had a right to know, Jack Straw, who by now was the Justice Secretary, kept insisting that the reason for Venables’ return would not be divulged because he believed it was not in the public interest. It was a shocking turn of events.

  In a press release to the media, I let rip at the Government: ‘I always said that the judges and politicians who let these two boys out had James’s blood on their hands because they just didn’t care enough about the precious life of my little boy.

  ‘Venables might be back inside but his other killer is still roaming free and no one knows who he is because of the anonymity they were both granted. Knowing that one of them is behind bars again is little comfort when they won’t even tell us what he has done. And why did it take a week to let me know what had happened? Is James’s family really so unimportant? Jack Straw protected these boys years ago and now he is doing it again. He is saying it is not in the public interest to reveal why Venables has been jailed, but once again he is wrong. What have the Government got to hide over this? We all have a right to know the truth, and how dare the Government try to cover it up?

  ‘What these boys did was so horrific it is beyond belief they were ever let out. When we fought to keep them in prison we were told they would never reoffend because of their so-called rehabilitation. The Government got it wrong then and now they should hang their heads in shame. If we are to be told that Venables is back in prison, then we should also be told the reasons why. Our legal system danced on the grave of my innocent son without a hint of shame or compassion by letting his killers go free. Now their actions have come back to haunt them. Venables is back where he belongs but he should never have been let out in the first place. If he has reoffended then he should now be stripped of his anonymity. As far as I am concerned, once evil, always evil.

  ‘Now is the time for our Government to stand up and give us the justice we have never had for our baby James. No more hand-wringing and looking the other way. God knows our family has waited long enough for justice. We have had seventeen years of hell because of these bastards and we must be told what Venables has now done. He should not only be punished for his recent crimes but he must now pay as an adult for what he did to James and any other poor souls who have had the misery to cross paths with him. He was offered the chance of rehabilitation and freedom, but he has blown it. It is only a matter of time before Thompson is caught reoffending too.’

  Such was the secrecy surrounding Venables that we were not even allowed to know which jail he had been sent to because of the injunction that still remained in place. There was just one seed of hope: Venables was now serving time in an adult prison, and I prayed he would remain there for a very long time.

  My head was full of all sorts of anxiety about what Venables had done. I was certain it would have to be something serious and, as the days dragged on, Mr Straw continued to drip-feed the public information, finally confirming that Venables had committed a very serious offence and would be appearing before a Parole Board panel before the end of the month.

  Almost a week after we learned that Venables was in jail, another bombshell was dropped on us. The newspapers began to report that James’s killer had been recalled to prison for child sex offences. The Sun newspaper revealed that Venables had hoarded a stash of vile child pornography on his laptop.

  I admit that I was stunned. I shouldn’t have been shocked, but it was such a revolting revelation that I felt sick. How many children had been preyed on by perverts so this evil man could satisfy his sick urges? I took no pleasure in being proved right that Venables was, and always would be, a predatory paedophile and a danger to children. My heart sank when I heard the news and all I could think about were the children like James who had been harmed by Venables and other warped men like him.

  The laptop had been seized by police from Venables’ home and when they examined the computer they discovered child porn images rated at category four on an official scale of one to five, with five being the worst. Mike Hames, former head of Scotland Yard’s paedophile unit, said at the time, ‘All child pornography is serious, but category four images are particularly vile. They are among the most serious and depraved images of child pornography it is possible to possess and involve an element of sexual violence against children. Given this individual’s background, that must clearly be a huge concern to the authorities’

  Venables had not changed one bit.

  Jack Straw and the rest of the Government were facing embarrassment over the recall. In an about-turn, he invited Denise and me to meet with him to discuss what had happened, but I was so incensed that I refused. Denise did go, but I don’t know the outcome of that meeting. For me it was all too little, too late, and once again we had only found out the truth from the newspapers. Mr Straw had been forced into a corner, and I viewed his invitation as a damage-limitation exercise and a cheap publicity stunt to save face. I had been in this position before, back in 2001, when we met with Mr Blunkett as we tried to prevent James’s killers being released. He said all the right things and sympathized — but then let them out anyway. I wasn’t about to face a second humiliation by going all the way to London to be told absolutely nothing.

  It also began to be claimed in newspaper reports that Venables had been dangerously out of control during his years of freedom, and on several occasions had almost been recalled to jail even before the child pornography offences. His probation officers had been concerned about his daily abuse of drugs and alcohol and he had become involved in a string of violations, including two brawls, during one of which he was stabbed.

  Despite being banned from ever visiting Merseyside as one of the conditions of his release, Venables flouted the rules and regularly snorted cocaine on nights out at Liverpool nightclubs, receiving a police caution in 2008 for possessing the drug. Reports claimed he had downed cider and cocktails and taken cocaine and ecstasy in a number of bars across the city. He also visited The Cavern Club, where the Beatles started their careers, and watched Everton Football Club play at their ground at Goodison Park in Liverpool.

  He repeatedly ignored his licence conditions, despite the fact that he was supposed to be under constant state supervision. In short, his so-called rehabilitation had been a disaster. The whole thing was laughable and our politicians had some serious questions to answer.

  It had been nine years since he was released from detention and only now were we beginning to uncover what Venables was really like. He was reported to have a raging temper, just as he had when he unleashed his fury on my son’s body. Sources close to Venables insisted he was snorting up to a gram of cocaine a week and was a regular visitor to the V Festival and Glastonbury, where he was said to get ‘wasted’ f
or several days on end. He also worked as a nightclub bouncer and had a reputation for being aggressive and confrontational.

  In another incident outside a nightclub, he got into a fight with the boyfriend of a young woman. He was punched in the face by the girl’s angry lover and Venables spent the night in police custody. All these shocking revelations had been known to his probation officers, but still he was not recalled to jail until the child pornography images were uncovered.

  How could our Government have got things so wrong? The warning signs had been there. Once again, they had chosen to ignore them.

  But it wasn’t just Venables who was in the spotlight again. A week after Venables’ arrest, a social worker who had supervised Thompson for eight years in detention came forward and gave a startling account of what the killer was really like in an interview with the Mail on Sunday. Reporters Ian Gallagher and Andrew Chapman described how Thompson had been treated with kid gloves while in detention, was cunning, knew how to ‘work the system’ and showed no remorse for the killing of James.

  The social worker was quoted as saying, ‘He was monosyllabic and sullen when we were first introduced, like all the children when they first arrive. But then it became apparent that he was a typical “care kid” — even though he had never been in care. These children are cocky and streetwise, know the system and know their rights and what they can get away with.

  ‘He’d say things like, “I want a drink. Get me one now. You’ve got to get me one.”

  ‘From the outset he was a star prisoner — and played up to it. There were frequent visits from Home Office officials who were always fussing over him, checking with him and the staff that he was all right. He was treated with kid gloves and underpinning it all was this fear that something might happen to him, that something might go wrong.’

  The newspaper article confirmed everything that my family had always suspected, and in some respects it was worse than we had thought. He was not only pampered inside, but treated almost like a celebrity prisoner. The article was really important to us and it must have made uncomfortable reading for the politicians and lawmakers. The social worker went on to describe how he took Thompson on many days out to shopping centres, parks, swimming pools and restaurants, and that his room was decorated with Lowry paintings and others by a Russian abstract artist. It didn’t add up to much punishment to me, but then this was what we had always insisted. I think what the article really highlighted was how much power Thompson had over his carers and guards, and that was frightening.

  The social worker gave a good example of this when he described a bust-up in Thompsons unit. He said, ‘Once, he was involved in a confrontation with another youth, and he was really angry, but in a controlled sulky way. He stood rooted to the spot in the lounge area. It was bedtime, but he wouldn’t go to his room. I said to the other staff that we should take him back to his room and take away his TV or some other privilege, which was the procedure. But they were against it.

  ‘It was a good forty minutes before he eventually went to his room. It was ridiculous. I made a representation to my superiors that he was being treated differently from the others but it was shrugged off. He was extremely persuasive, and used this to extract what he wanted from senior staff. In fact, after this incident, he even secured himself a later bedtime. When the others went to bed, he’d stay up for a further twenty minutes watching television. He was also close to the manager at the unit and they’d sit talking and laughing together. The manager would even send someone to get them a cup of tea while they chatted . . . no one wanted to upset him because they were afraid of what the consequences might be.’

  A lot of information about the treatment of Thompson and Venables in detention came out a good many years after they had been released, and this report was no exception, but it did show up very specific privileges the boys were treated to. Their routines and luxuries were more than I could ever have afforded to give my son and my other children. For example, they were given around £60 a month spending money and clothing allowance and received £25 on their birthdays. At Christmas time they gave present lists to their social workers who would go out and buy the gifts. Details also emerged that when he was sixteen, guards allowed Thompson to form a relationship with a red-headed girl who had a troubled past and had been placed in secure detention for persistent thieving.

  Amazingly, the social worker finished his graphic account by recalling how he saw Thompson after he had been released working as a steward showing people into a major stadium.

  To me, this was one of the most factual articles that we had seen on James’s killers, and it was from a source who had actually been there. It really hammered home how privileged he had been. Venables received very similar treatment, but it had not stopped him from reoffending.

  On 21 June 2010, Venables was finally charged with downloading child pornography and was facing up to ten years in prison. He was accused of downloading fifty-seven indecent images of children from the Internet and distributing seven images to other paedophiles. The first court hearing was held in private at the Old Bailey in London, but the judge, Mr Justice Bean, lifted reporting restrictions and allowed the charges to be printed in the interests of open justice. It was alleged that Venables amassed the indecent pictures between February 2009 and 2010.

  Mr Gavin Millar QC, prosecuting, said, ‘The first count, the making of indecent photographs, covers downloading onto his own computer. Count two covers the distribution through the Internet of indecent images. The Crowns case is that fifty-seven images were downloaded by Venables between the 1st and 27th February 2010, but he used and had available peer-to-peer software on his computer. This made it possible for other Internet users who searched for photos to download them.’

  I was so relieved that Venables had been charged, but my biggest concern was that he would somehow get away with this too and wriggle out of trouble again. In the runup to his trial, Venables was kept in complete isolation in prison, where his true identity was thought to have become known to other inmates. Prison governors confirmed that his status was ‘high-risk’. It was some of the most unsettling and disturbing times we had ever endured, because the outcome of his pending trial was on all of our minds the whole time. I couldn’t bring myself even to think that Venables might one day be back on our streets, and I prayed that finally this might be the one thing that kept him locked up for good. fie came to trial on 23 July 2010. The hearing was held at the Old Bailey again, but Venables would only appear before the judge via video link from prison. The judge was the only person to see the defendant on a TV monitor placed directly in front of him.

  This was to be Venables’ first court appearance since he appeared in the dock back in 1993, when he and Robert Thompson were on trial for James’s murder. He pleaded guilty to all the charges laid against him but the details that emerged of his seedy life were truly sickening. The court was told that some of the pictures he had stored on his computer involved children as young as two — the same age as James when he was abducted and killed. Videos he had watched showed eight-year-old girls being raped and forced to perform sex acts.

  Prosecutors outlined how Venables had an extensive history of searching for and downloading child porn, but the details of how he posed as a young mum who was prepared to allow her own daughter to be abused by another paedophile in return for cash left everyone reeling. In 2008 he wooed fellow perverts in Internet chat rooms by pretending to be a thirty-five-year-old mother called Dawn from Liverpool with an eight-year-old daughter. He begged for photos of parents abusing their own children. ‘Dawn told one man that she and her husband abused their daughter and the paedophile responded by saying he would like to meet the daughter and abuse her himself. He then gave ‘Dawn’ a telephone number on which he could be contacted. Venables kept the conversation going so he could keep receiving indecent images and he struck up negotiations to agree a price for abusing the young girl. Venables admitted that he was sexually aroused by the indecent
images, but broke off contact with the paedophile when he asked to meet with the girl.

  Venables was only caught for his sickening crimes after he panicked that his true identity had been uncovered in February 2010. Terrified for his own safety, he rang his probation officer who told him to pack his things and get ready to flee to a new home. When the officer arrived to pick him up, Venables was found trying to destroy the images on his computer by hacking into the hard drive with a tin opener. A detective inspector arrived at the premises and Venables and his laptop were taken away to the police station, where the pornographic images were discovered. After his arrest he had bragged that he considered his behaviour to be ‘breaking the last taboo’.

  Venables’ lawyer, Mr Edward Fitzgerald QC, told the hearing that his actions could be partly blamed on his ‘abnormal’ situation of living under an assumed name and with the very real and prolonged fear of reprisals. His isolation, he said, had led him into a downward spiral of drink and drugs and he had become addicted to cocaine and mephedrone. His lawyer said that Venables had tried to live as normal a life as possible, but was forced to lie to friends about his true identity and was unable to form any close relationships with women.

  Judge Mr Justice Bean jailed Venables for two years for his offences and banned him from owning a computer with Internet access for five years. He was also banned from ever working with children and was told he would have to register with police as a sex offender for ten years. The Ministry of Justice announced they had launched a probe into his reoffending and whether he should have been recalled to prison earlier. No public inquiry was ever launched and I’ve certainly never been told of the outcome of any investigations by the ministry, and probably never will.

  The final sting in the tail was a statement that Venables released after his trial through his solicitor, John Gibson. He claimed that he thought about the killing of my son every day and said he was sorry for his crimes. I didn’t believe a word he said; this was just his pathetic attempt to excuse his unforgivable depravity. His statement went on to try to explain why he had become a paeodophile.