Robert Thompson and Jon Venables murdered a little boy that shook the world. According to court documents Robert and Jon who were both ten at the time, lured two year old James Bulger away from his mother. The two pre teen killers would torture the child before murdering him by dropping a heavy metal bar on the toddlers head.
When they were arrested it became the courts problem on how to deal with two ten year old children who murdered another child. In the end they would both be sentenced to eight years however a petition came around that demanded a much higher sentence and the minimum term was moved from eight years to fifteen years. Again there was problems with this sentence and in the end the two boys would serve eight years in custody before they would be released.
Robert Thompson since his release has basically disappeared with a new identity however Jon Venables has been arrested since his release for child pornography on two occasions and has revealed his identity multiple times.
Robert Thompson and Jon Venables Other News
The murder of two-year-old James Bulger shocked Britain.
In 1993, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables abducted, tortured and murdered the toddler after leading him away from a shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside.
The child murderers were sent to a young offenders’ institute, where they stayed until their release at the age of 18 in 2001.
They were both given new identities on the understanding that they had been rehabilitated and did not break the law again.
Bulger’s parents have said the senseless murder devastated their family, and have spoken frankly about how they struggled to keep going after the loss, and the huge public interest in their family.
What happened to Jon Venables?
The child murderer was born 13 August 1982, making him ten-years-old when he abducted Bulger from the New Strand Shopping Centre.
He was found guilty, alongside Thompson, on 24 November 1993 – when the pair became the youngest people convicted of murder in English history.
Venables was given extensive rehabilitation during his time in a young offenders’ institute and was issued with a new identity after leaving.
His identity has been changed twice since, after he compromised his identity and told friends he was a convicted murderer.
His current identity faced a legal threat in February 2018, 25 years after the murder, when Bulger’s father launched High Court proceedings to try and remove Venables’ entitlement to anonymity.
The lawyer representing Bulger’s father and uncle argued that the right to anonymity had only been granted on the understanding Venables did not re-offend.
As Venables has been convicted of crimes since, they wanted his lifelong privacy revoked. Bulger’s mother, however, disagreed and argued that the anonymity should be maintained to avoid vigilante justice.
The father lost his legal challenge and the Attorney General’s office concluded the injunction was still necessary and justified.
Has Jon Venables committed other crimes?
In 2008, seven years after being released from prison, Venables was arrested after a drunken fight and was given a formal warning by the probation service. He was also given a caution for being in possession of Class A drug cocaine.
Two years later he was sent back to prison after he was found with images of child sexual abuse.
The Parole Board recommended his release in 2013. However, in 2017 he was arrested again for possessing child abuse images, and sentenced to 40 months behind bars in February 2018, almost 25 years to the day after he murdered Bulger.
In August 2019, his father warned that Venables will soon be on parole from his most recent period behind bars.
A parole hearing is expected to be held in October, half way through his prison sentence for the most recent offence.
Mr Bulger said: “Venables is up for parole any time now, and if it is granted he will be released into the community under a fake name and secret new identity.
“He is a dangerous, predatory child abuser and killer, and I am terrified he will strike again and harm another child like my James.”
What happened to Robert Thompson?
Thompson’s new identity is protect by an unprecedented injunction, which applies around the world, meaning that even searching for his address could lead to a prison sentence.
He has not re-offended since being released, and in 2010 it was reported he was in a long-term relationship with a man who knows his true identity.
Thompson’s father left the family home five years before the attack in 1993, and his mother was an alcoholic and had depression.
He had no history of violence prior to the murder.
Police believe that Thompson was the ringleader behind the attack, who urged Venables to follow him.
Detective Phil Roberts, from the local force’s serious crime squad, received the call in 1993 notifying him of a missing boy.
“As far as I’m concerned that day — 20 years ago — I stared evil in the face,” he has said.
“I think Thompson was in charge, but they both attacked James.
A surveillance camera shows the abduction of two-year-old James Bulger from the Bootle Strand shopping mall February 12 1993 at 3:42pm near Liverpool. (Getty Images)
“They were a match made in hell. A freak of nature. They went out that day to kill — I truly believe that. And if they hadn’t been caught I fear they would have struck again.