A pair of troubled but not considered delinquents 10-year-olds abducted, tortured and ruthlessly killed a toddler in 1993 Liverpool, becoming the youngest convicted murderers of the 20th century.
In the early afternoon of Friday February 12, 1993, young mother Denise Bulger decided to accompany her brother's girlfriend Nicola to shop at the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Merseyside, England, bringing her almost 3-year-old son James, as she always did. That day, James was full of energy and his mother tried her best to keep him quiet despite of his efforts to get free and play around. Until they reached their final stop of their shopping day: the butcher's shop. She got distracted just for a minute while paying the butcher and James was gone. Denise panicked and went to the security office seeking help to find her son, whose name and description were announced over the loudspeakers... all in vain. She called the police and the search for James Bulger began..
James's disappearance made the evening news and after one report that he was spotted by the Liverpool canal, investigators planned to drag its waters, meanwhile authorities watched the security videos taken at the shopping centre, hoping to catch a glimpse of James's abductor. They found what they were looking for, but they realized with disbelief that they were not dealing with an adult. The low-resolution CCTV footage showed two young boys taking James by the hand and leading him out of the shopping centre at 3:42 pm. Hoping that someone would recognize them, the police released the video stills of the boys to the media to be shown on television and in the papers. More searches were organized both in the canal and on land for the following two days, until the gruesome discovery.
Four boys who went up to the Walton railroad to look for footballs on Sunday afternoon found on the tracks what at first they thought was a cat, then a doll, torn into two by the train. It was James's corpse. He had been laid by the waist onto the rail, with his upper body on the inside of the tracks, hidden within the coat. The lower half, completely undressed, had been carried further down the tracks. James had been severely tortured and beaten around the head and possibly sexually assaulted, since investigators suspected that some AA batteries found close to the body were inserted into his anus and the pathologist later reported that his foreskin had been forcibly retracted. On one cheek, a patterned bruise appeared, which indicated the imprint from a shoe. The toddler suffered so many injuries that none could be isolated as the fatal blow. It was concluded that he was still alive when left on the tracks, but already dead when the train hit him. More evidence found nearby the crime scene included a tin of blue paint, a heavy iron bar with bloodstains on it, bricks and stones, also covered in blood.
The police held press conferences showing some of the evidence to find witnesses and checked Friday's absentee lists from schools, convinced that the two young abductors captured on the CCTV cameras were teenagers. Many parents called the station to report their own kids as suspects until police received a call from an anonymous woman, reporting that her neighbour's son, who resembled one of the boys in the video, had blue paint on his jacket sleeve and had skipped school on Friday with his friend.
These two suspects from Merseyside, who were brought in for questioning, were Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, both aged 10.
Jon, the second of three children, had been showing signs of anti-social behaviour for years, morbidly seeking the attention of his parents, who were too focused on his siblings as they both required special care due to developmental problems. At school he was hyper and easily distracted, victim of bullies because of his predisposition for violent outbursts, and grew increasingly dangerous, first to himself, then to others, to the extent that he had to be transferred to another school. There he met Robert Thompson, with whom he felt tough and they became bullies not to feel outcasts anymore.
Robert, the fifth of six brothers, came from a much more disturbed family background. His father mercilessly beat his mother in front of their sons and she became violent and an alcoholic too, with the result that the boys were left to watch out for one other, even if truth was that they needed protection from one another. The oldest ones abused the youngest and almost all of them ended up having criminal records or attempting suicide at some point. The police and social workers knew the Thompson boys well.
Their teachers felt sympathy for Jon, since it was clear he was pleading for help, and described Robert as shy and quiet, yet manipulative of others and a liar. They noticed how they seemed to bring out the worst in each other and made efforts to keep them apart, although they had no control on them when they skipped school, which happened on regular basis.
Upon police questioning, it was proved that Jon and Robert were indeed playing truant for the nth time on that Friday February 12. They had decided to go the shopping centre to mess around and pocket whatever was in reach, like batteries, enamel paint, pens and pencils, a troll doll (which Robert collected), candy and other stuff. Until they got so bored that they decided to "get a kid", presumably Robert's idea. They planned to find a child to abduct, lead him to the busy road alongside the mall, and push him into the path of oncoming traffic. They tried to lure a two-year-old boy into following them at the TJ Hughes store, but were prevented by his mother. Then they spotted James Bulger by the butcher's shop door, Jon took him by the hand and within 2 minutes the three of them were outside the mall.
Jon, Robert and James wandered on busy roads from the Strand to Walton for a few hours. The two older boys sometimes protecting the little one from the traffic, sometimes kicking and punching him to have fun or to stop his cries for his mother. It was at the Liverpool canal that they first hurt James, picking him up and dropped him on his head. They were about to leave him there crying, but later decided to take him again. Many people noticed them, some even approached them asking if they needed help, but basically did nothing to rescue James, since everyone assumed they were older brothers walking around with their baby brother. These witnesses would later be called by the papers the "Liverpool 38" and shamed them for turning the other way.
They arrived at the Walton railway at approximately 5.30 pm. It was there that Jon and Robert started viciously attacking James. They flung the blue paint on his face into the left eye, threw stones at him, kicked him and beat him with bricks. They pulled off his shoes and pants, perhaps sexually assaulting him, and hit him with an iron bar. They finally laid his body, still alive, on the railroad tracks, hoping that the community would think it was an accident, and came back to their daily lives.
At first, when arrested and separately interviewed in the presence of their parents on Thursday February 18, Robert played the part of the tough one and denied his involvement in the murder, while Jon did nothing but cry and sink deep into remorse, finally admitting that he "did kill him". In spite of Jon's confession, investigators were sure that Robert participated somehow. The boy kept on insisting to blame Jon and lost it when he was asked if they removed James's pants and underwear and inserted the AA batteries into his rectum, starting to cry and saying "I'm not a pervert". Jon became hysterical as well because of that question.
On Saturday February 20, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were charged with the abduction and murder of James Bulger and detained until their trial, which opened at Preston Crown Court on November 1, 1993, conducted as an adult trial. The judge ruled that the boys be known as Child A (Robert) and Child B (Jon).
While Jon won some sympathy with the court observers, since he seemed more contrite, anxious and "in thrall of Robert", this latter showed little emotion and was assumed to be the "guilty one". The both of them were indignant to listen as they accused each other of the murder when the court played the recorded police interviews. Especially Robert when he heard Jon claiming that he was like a girl because he played with dolls.
After the witnesses of Jon and Robert's teachers and the psychiatrists who examined them, the prosecution portrayed the two boys as equally liable, as they knew the severity of their crime. The evidence clearly indicated their guilt: the Strand security videos, blood-splattered bricks, stones, clothing, a tin of blue paint and a heavy bar; also, the imprint on James's cheek was conclusively linked to a bloody shoe belonging to Robert.
The defense countered that it was only a mischievous prank gone out of control, since they didn't intended to kill James at the time of the abduction or while walked him around Liverpool.
Jon and Robert were found guilty on Wednesday, November 24. The judge declared that the killing of James Bulger was "an act of unparalleled evil and barbarity", sentenced them to be detained "for very, very many years" and allowed the media to publish their names.
After the trial, Robert was held at the Barton Moss Secure Care Centre in Manchester and Jon was detained in a Red Bank secure unit in St. Helens on Merseyside (the same facility where Mary Bell was incarcerated 25 years before). The both of them received education and rehabilitation, even if they suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.
They were both released after serving their minimum tariff of eight years on February 2001, at the age of 19, were given new identities and moved to secret locations; also, an injunction prevented the media to publish details about them, because, as the Home Secretary stated, "there was a real and strong possibility that their lives would be at risk if their identities became known". The terms of their release included that they were not allowed to contact each other or the Bulger family.
While Robert is thought to have stuck to the terms of the license, Jon violated one and was returned to prison on March 7, 2010 to be charged with possession and distribution of child pornography images, after a number of more arrests for possession of cocaine. He was given a new identity and freed on parole on September 3, 2013.
For the second time since his release, Jon was put back in jail again after being caught with child porn, even using online dating websites in search of single mothers, in November 2017.
Reportedly, Jon is keeping on with his felonies because he feels untouchable. "He has had secret identities, costing ridiculous amounts of money and all at the cost of the taxpayer, and thinks he will continue to be protected" a source said. "And the sad thing is, he's probably correct".
On February 2018, a judge stated on court that Jon is a "continued high risk to children" and condemned him to a 40-month term sentence for possessing over 1.000 child abuse images and even a paedophile manual. He was moved to a new prison after fellow inmates discovered his identity and wanted to attack him.
In December 2023, he was denied parole.
James's mother Denise, who had always been sure that Jon would have re-offended, accused the probation service of 'covering up' for him and didn't accept Jon's apologise during this trial. As to James's father, Ralph, he told in an interview that he believes Jon could kill again, that "you can't rewire evil and that is what he is".