by Ralph Bulger
‘His release involved a challenge, and one that has impacted upon him daily ever since. In the words of the pre-sentence report, he had “a legacy life” — a complete change of identity — “he was trained by the police in countersurveillance and has had to live and hold a lie for the rest of his life. There was little doubt that if his identity became compromised his life would be at risk.” A casual search of Facebook and the internet shows the very real risk to his life . . .
‘But, throughout this time, as the pre-sentence report observes, “One of the major impacts in his life has been the inability to share his huge secret. . . he feared he would always be alone” . . .
‘The 2008 offences took the form of a hoax online conversation exchanging images obtained from file-sharing sites, which were then deleted. Jon Venables acknowledges that conduct, which came at a time when he was drinking to excess because of the pressures he was under, was crass and unthinking. It was not repeated: the very careful analysis of the computer he owned during 2009 and 2010 shows that, whilst he continued to obtain and view indecent images of children, he took no steps to show them to anyone else.
‘He puts forward no excuse for his conduct. He is genuinely ashamed, but he has and continues to express his remorse, and has come to an understanding of how children are harmed by those who have even a passing interest in such material, let alone by those who pass it on . . .
‘By pleading guilty to the charges today, Jon Venables has accepted and acknowledged the wrong he has done and the harm he has caused. He is extremely remorseful and knows that he has badly let down those who have tried to help him since his release from custody’
I’m not sure what was the most shocking part of the whole fiasco. Jon Venables had managed to escape with just two years in jail for serious child sex offences when he could have been handed down up to ten years! It simply wasn’t a long enough sentence for the crime he had committed, but it was another example of our lenient legal system letting dangerous and cunning criminals off the hook.
As for his statement of so-called remorse, the only thing Jon Venables regretted was being caught. How could he possibly say that the stress of living a lie led him to enjoy child pornography? He had admitted being aroused by these appalling images and that could only mean one thing — that he was a paedophile through and through. If he is ever freed again, he will without question reoffend because he will never be cured from the sickness in his head. This man is never going to change and I don’t know what it will take for the authorities to accept this.
It made me want to retch when I thought back to how he and Thompson had sexually defiled James. That had been their intention all along, to abuse a baby in that way. As he was still on life licence, the Parole Board had the right to keep him inside indefinitely for the murder of my son if they believed he was a danger to the public, but I held out little hope of that happening. What’s more, the secret identity he had been given when he was first released from jail had been well and truly blown apart. And so if he were to be freed again, he would have to be given another identity, costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds.
As if it were needed, further evidence of Venables’ disturbed mind at the time he killed James was now released through the newspapers in the form of a drawing that had never been seen publicly before. It was sketched shortly before he and Thompson murdered James and had been found at his father Neil’s house. It was part of a bundle of unused evidence from his trial and appeared to give some insight into the deeply troubled mind of a boy who routinely watched sick horror movies. I don’t know why it never came before the court because it was a terrifying image. It showed an attacker with enormous knives, slashing two individuals who are on the ground with blood gushing from their bodies. Venables had titled the drawing, ‘My Dad’s house’.
The words on the drawing were full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors but clearly established that he was illustrating a scene from the 1970s slasher film Halloween.
Venables wrote, ‘In my dads I saw howowen is when you a girl and this man and he Idled people especial girls and he has got a mask on that he robed knifes out the shop and the police that it was pice but it was not it was the man.’
Whatever Neil and Susan Venables believed, Jon clearly had watched horror movies at his fathers house and they had made a deep and lasting impression on him. Venables drew his ghastly picture just a few weeks before savaging James.
The whole episode sent shivers down my spine and the only relief was that Venables was back in jail where everyone agreed he deserved to be. On the night he began his new prison term, I hugged my girls extra close to me and thanked God they were all safe.
19
Parole Denied
As Venables began his two-year jail term, Jimmy and I met with Robin to discuss what we could expect in the coming months. We knew we had to be prepared well in advance because Venables would be eligible for parole within a year. We decided that we should seek the chance to put forward new victim impact statements to the Parole Board, with particular reference to what we believed to be the sexual motive for James’s murder. We had to do everything we could to prevent the board from releasing Venables halfway through his jail sentence. As ever, Robin worked like a trooper on the groundwork for any future hearings.
At the beginning of May 2011, just a few weeks before the Parole Board was due to meet in June, a photograph showing Venables just before his arrest for child porn was posted onto a website set up to campaign against child abuse offenders. Within just a few hours it had been viewed by 1.7 million people as well as being posted onto social network sites such as Facebook, ensuring people as far away as Australia and Canada viewed it. The founder of the site defended his decision to publish the photo, insisting that it was to protect the public and children from convicted paedophile Jon Venables.
We cannot name the founder of the site because of the draconian injunction that prevents the British media from revealing Venables’ and Thompsons identities, but he said at the time, ‘I have not singled out Jon Venables on my site, as I name and shame all convicted paedophiles so that the general public know who they are and can therefore protect themselves. The picture has been seen by millions across the world and I know prisoners are using their mobile phones to pass the picture on. The public deserve protection from a man who is a killer and a proven sex offender. My campaign is all about education and information and I don’t believe Jon Venables or any other sex pervert has the right to anonymity or a protected identity. It is the public that deserve protection — not the perpetrators of such crimes’
I agreed with every word this man had said. I only hoped the Parole Board would see that the public needed to be protected.
Venables’ parole hearing was set for Friday, 24 June 2011 and I was frightened and nervous about the outcome. I was prepared to do anything I could to convince the panel that Venables had to be kept locked up. Robin had helped both Jimmy and me to prepare our victim impact statements, which contained an explosive and damning indictment of James’s killer in a bid to stop him from being freed.
More than ever, I feared that my children would no longer be safe if Venables was let out. As I’ve said, I genuinely believed that the ultimate sexual thrill for him would be to abuse and kill another one of my children. Now I was convinced that when Venables was caught with child pornography, he was spiralling out of control and on a mission to abduct and torture another toddler for his own sexual gratification. It was only sheer luck that his perverted lust for children was uncovered by police before he had the chance to sexually attack another child.
My own view was that the legal system of this country should have been in the dock alongside Venables, for failing to protect innocent children. I needed the Parole Board to know how I felt because if they decided to release him, I didn’t even have the right to appeal their decision.
I was begging the board not just to consider his latest crimes but to look at the whole picture s
tretching back to James’s murder. I was convinced that there was an unmistakable and clear connection between his latest child offences and his killing of James. If the board agreed with me then his life licence should be revoked for all time, or else there was a danger he would be released and would kill again. I just wanted the board to see sense for the sake of all our children. I had to get my message to them before the panel sealed Venables’ fate
The Parole Board was sitting for their hearing in an unknown location in Leeds, and so Jimmy and I went to Liverpool Crown Court, where Robin read out our victim impact statements to the panel via video link. They could see us but we could not see them. It was a terrible and deeply distressing experience to have to relive all our suffering again for the hearing, but if it meant that Venables was kept inside, it would have been worth it.
Outside the court, Robin let rip to the waiting reporters and television crews, articulating my family’s fear, anger and pain.
He said, ‘Ten years ago this month, in June 2001, a decision was made by the Parole Board to release Jon Venables. At that time we very much wanted to make all possible representations to the Parole Board. They refused to allow us to do so. We submitted a lot of material to them. Quite astonishingly, the Parole Board have no records of what happened ten years ago. And the Ministry of Justice don’t seem to have been able to locate any of those papers. So we have had to start again.
‘It has been an extremely distressful time for Ralph. He has suffered depression, intrusive thoughts, nightmares, sleep problems and post-traumatic stress disorder. The authorities have not yet provided any support or help to deal with those issues over the years.
‘Ralph faces a daily nightmare and things have not really got any better. We explained to the Parole Board how Ralph was affected when James was abducted.
‘The whole process has transformed him into someone he doesn’t really want to be. Whereas Jon Venables . . . in a sense what they have been trying to do is transform him into somebody he really isn’t.’
Robin was on a roll and when he had finished speaking at length to the media, it was time to go. It had been an exhausting day and I was glad to get home that evening. We were told to expect a decision within ten days, and all we could do now was wait.
Just three days later, on the Monday, I was stunned to hear from Robin.
‘Ralph, I have good news for you. The Parole Board has turned down Venables’ parole,’ he said, coming straight to the point.
‘That’s brilliant, Robin, I’m made up. How long will he stay in for now?’
‘Well, no one knows yet, but he will be eligible to apply for parole again in two years, so this could be an ongoing battle. At least it’s the right result for now.’
‘Yeah, thank God they haven’t let him out. Thanks a lot, Robin. We couldn’t have done any of this without you.’
The three members of the parole team — headed by a judge — had had to decide whether Venables still posed a risk to the public and they looked at the offence that led to his recall to prison, his offending history and his progress in jail. Reports from psychologists, probation officers and prison officers were also considered, as well as my own address to the panel.
It was a great result, and the only time in almost twenty years that a decision had gone our way. We had fought tooth and nail and had no idea if our pleas had been in any way influential, but we were all just so relieved to hear the news. Finally, one of James’s killers was being kept behind bars where he belonged. It was the only legal victory we had ever tasted since they were first found guilty, and it felt amazing.
I slept easy that night for the first time in many years. Everything we had battled for had been worth every bit of sweat and tears. I have no idea what convinced the Parole Board to make that decision, because they never discuss individual cases, but for now it was enough. Perhaps they denied parole because they didn’t think they could keep his identity a secret if he was released. Perhaps they too believed he still posed a risk to children. Or maybe they finally realized that Venables is a calculating liar who had repeatedly conned the authorities into believing he was rehabilitated. He is not a young man who can be trusted, and anything that comes out of his mouth should always be treated with extreme caution.
It is clear to me that he has a personality disorder, and until the true extent of his mental state is established, he should not be considered for release. The whole episode was a huge embarrassment for the Government and the legal system. They had tried to cure’ a savage child killer and they had failed. I only hoped that lessons had been learned to safeguard the protection of all children for the future.
What also proved to be a mistake was that his probation officers had allowed Venables to live within a few miles of Liverpool after he was freed, even though one of the conditions of his licence was that he wasn’t allowed to go to Merseyside. It was foolish to think that he wouldn’t automatically drift back to the place that had once been his home. His presence in Liverpool meant that the people of this city would have been walking past him without knowing who he was, and that could have included me or my family. It was naive and highly risky to place him so close to the place where he had killed James and where we all still lived.
Even with Venables put away, it was still not over. As Robin pointed out to me on the phone, much as I would love for him to remain in jail for ever, it is highly unlikely. He will be eligible for parole hearings every two years, which means we may have to begin the fight all over again. He is likely to request parole again in 2013, and it will be the same tense and distressing process for us to keep the pressure on the authorities not to let him out. I don’t want to have to keep reliving the same nightmare over and over again, but if that is the only way to keep this man in jail then I will do whatever it takes.
I accept that this will probably be a lifetimes work now because it will never go away.
I am still subconsciously on guard all the time, steeling myself for the next battle I have to face. And I am still waiting for a knock on my door to tell me that Robert Thompson has committed another crime, the thought of which fills me with dread.
In the summer of 2012 a story was printed in the newspapers about a young man in Scotland who killed himself. His mother said that he had been bullied by people in their neighbourhood, who accused him of being the child killer Robert Thompson. She claimed that when the taunts became too much for him, he took his own life. I cannot verify the story, but if this is true, it is precisely the reason why we campaigned for the identities of James’s killers to be known. If the public knew who they were, innocent people would not be mistakenly targeted and accused in the way we have seen on several occasions over the years.
Epilogue
It has now been twenty years since that terrible day in Walton when James was murdered. He would have been twenty- two by now, approaching his twenty-third birthday. My imagination has a field day trying to picture what he would be doing. I like to think he might have had all the opportunities that I didn’t. I fantasize that he’s finished a university degree course, studying something really grand or fancy. He was such a clever little boy and bright well beyond his years.
I’m certain he would have been a handsome but caring young man, someone who didn’t toy with people’s emotions, and there is no question that he would have had a cracking sense of humour. James’s laughter really defined him. He was always smiling, grinning or cackling away at something, because he genuinely embraced life from the moment he was born.
I would give my whole world to have him here with me now, to hear his voice as a young adult and to hold him close to me one more time. I’d like to playfully ruffle his hair and draw him in tight and hug him for dear life.
I was only a young man myself when James was murdered, just two years older than James would be now. That’s a whole lifetime of grieving. I honestly don’t know how I am still standing, but I do know it was my enduring love for James that kept me going. He dominates my waking
hours and visits me in my sleep. Part of my purpose for living is to continue the quest for justice for my son. But I will not let it take over my life completely. I have to save a part of me for my other children who are still living, and that is an important lesson I have learned along the way. My love for them, their love for me, helped me survive. My three girls with Eileen have grown up fast, and my eldest, Ree, is now eighteen, a young adult herself. She is so protective, not just of her dad, but of her younger sisters too.
Like Karen and Jimmy’s girls, my kids also learned a lot about James from the Internet and from their mates at school. I have talked about our family’s suffering, but I don’t think people grasp just how much it affected not just me or Jimmy or Karen, but the children as well. But we have survived, and today I think I am in a much stronger place than I have ever been before. Writing this book has really helped me to get some of my feelings out into the open, to lay down the truth about how I feel. I hope in the future I won’t have to keep hiding behind a fake smile.
James’s murder still shocks people all these years on, and it will forever be a stain on our nation’s conscience. It still shocks me, and I live with it every single day. But in many ways the strength of feeling, the love and emotion that people from all over the world have expressed, has meant that James has never been forgotten. His angelic face, his dazzling smile, his big sparkling blue eyes and, of course, that giggle encapsulated the very vision of innocence.
I have always been reluctant to be in the public eye because I find it so difficult and uncomfortable, but there were times when I had no choice but to speak out for James and our family. The relentless media attention that this case attracted certainly intensified the pressure on all of us, but, for all those difficulties, I have to say that I am grateful for our press that battled every step of the way with me for justice for James. They expressed the moral outrage of our country, and on many occasions it was only through the newspapers that I learned about what was going on. The media was gagged to protect these child killers and that was wrong. A free press is vital in a world where politicians seek to hide the truth from society to protect their own backsides. The media has also always treated my family with great compassion and sensitivity, and I will for ever be so thankful for that. As much as I often wished the attention would go away, I remain glad that the newspapers and television channels never forgot James.