Jon spent Sunday to Thursday with his mum and the rest of every week with his dad. 'When the fisticuffs ended, they made friends.' God knows how they must be feeling now.. Grey seal pups on the beach at Horsey in Norfolk, as the pupping season draws to a close at one the UK's most important sites for the mammals. eb. To widespread dismay and condemnation from the Bulger family, the killers were given new identities, courtesy of the taxpayer. David Sharrock, Maggie O'Kane, and Edward Pilkington look at the lives of the rebels who turned to killing, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. I wonder how many parents looked at their sons of a similar age that week, sure in the knowledge their own children could never be so wicked, but asked themselves anyway "what would I do if?". Such pleasantries were not for Robbie. The experience gave Jon renewed confidence, and the second time they sagged off together he suggested it. si fs. A newsroom reporter who was not working on the case fended off transatlantic interview demands, saying that it was not enough that he had a Liverpool accent. Robert would give Jon presents of stolen objects: trolls, of course, toy terrapins, sweets. Anne Thompson could hold her drink and no one ever saw her staggering home. View the profiles of people named Susan Venables. It would be a week before we heard their voices, in hours of taped police interviews, They stopped us all in our tracks. We still think the same of him as we always have. It's high time they were investigated. She was a happy baby, much happier than her eldest brother had been, but as she grew older, Susan began noticing that she, too, appeared lazy, and was not as advanced as Jon. Englands Ollie Chessum dives in to score his sides second try during the Guinness Six Nations match at Twickenham Stadium, London, Sam Smith arrives for the Brit Awards ceremony, A robin redbreast takes flight in Dublins botanic gardens. Money, or his family's lack of it, preyed on his mind. His mother cared about him. The judge, in sentencing the boys yesterday, voiced his strong suspicion that exposure to violent videos had played a strong part in corrupting them. 'They would say 'take your son home'. Join Facebook to connect with Susan Venables and others you may know. I suspect she still feels that., In 2001 there was a renewed uproar over the case when it emerged that the killers were to be freed, despite a. recommendation by the trial judge that they should remain behind bars for a very long time. 'I sat away from him - he caused trouble,' Jon said. One woman asked how James had injured his forehead. He was fearful of the other boy. In any case, the couple drifted together, and in 1983, just fifteen months succeeding Jons birth, Susan gave birth to their third child, a daughter. The best photos of birds and other wildlife from around the world. As a new documentary is set to air on ITV, the haunting words of Jon Venables' parents have resurfaced. We still think the same of him as we always have. One police officer described how Jon Venables was so small, his legs were swinging. Put bluntly, Jon Venables still gets a kick out of seeing small children suffer. The days James was abducted, February 12 1993, I was a young reporter in my home city of Liverpool. He was fearful, he was weak and he was provoked. The Radio Merseyside newsroom, where I was working at the time, was full and everyone was on this story one way or another. Self pity? "My heart really goes out to them. Hes your son., Unhappily, it was during this critical time that Ann became pregnant with her seventh child, the product of another failed relationship. Last November he was arrested and recalled to jail on suspicion of possession of images of child sex abuse. What a horror it all was. Once he stole decorating borders from a DIY shop which he discarded at regular intervals to mark his way home. As a grim portrait of abuse, drunkenness and neglect emerged, the hatred and loathing for Robert Thompson and Jon Venables was also turned on their parents. "It was very dark and I shouted down, shouted his name. In some families this was the third generation to be unemployed. Get out and get into Dyson Hall children's centre, the only residential care school in the country just outside Liverpool. Teachers later reported that whereas the boys were manageable when separated, together their behavior worsened dramatically. The street in which Robert lived was not untypical: a row of terraced bay windowed houses that stretched from the railway line back towards the city. kl. His body was found two days later on a railway line. The haunting words of Jon Venables' parents only interview have resurfaced, twenty five years after he killed tot Jamie Bulger. His mates called him a girl because whenever there was something on his mind he sucked his thumb. On Sundays he used to watch Thunderbirds. While, on the face of it, there doesnt appear to be as much external devastation present in Jons family history as in Roberts, his outlandish behavior suggested that internally, Jon was in a state of extreme emotional upset. James Bulger: Jon Venables' identity leaked online - news Robert had asked once before but Jon, who had rarely truanted in his previous school, was scared and said no. INSIDE the court sat the two boys, dwarfed by the weight and majesty of the place. The atmosphere in the courtroom was oppressive as the tension of a month was about to break. The most startling moment of the trial came when, in lieu of giving evidence in person, the boys' taped interviews with police - recorded just after their arrest - were played in court. Sitting in the new class was a chubby boy with a cherub's face - Robert Thompson. rk ye. Gillespie, McNeilly, and Powell were sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 25 years. In 1999, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the pair did not receive a fair trial and awarded costs and expenses of 29,000 to Jon Venables and 15,000 to Robert Thompson. his mother was told that it was important that she stayed in his life and stood by him. . THE first time the boys set eyes on each other after they were arrested was in Preston crown court 3 1/2 weeks ago. 'America is the land of shopping malls. sons, were settled in council houses within easy reach of the institutions where their sons were being held. football, snooker, things like that. After they became friends he initiated Jon into the delights of climbing into people's back gardens and the consequent thrill of being chased out by the owners. The couple was financially strained from the start, but Ann did what she could to make it work. The mayor of Preston accused them of being sick ghouls, but still they came, queuing up for tickets two hours before proceedings began. These are the words of an officer who was in the police station when DCI Geoff MacDonald of Merseyside Police broke the news to Denise that James was dead. During that time, Susan felt as if she was trapped and overburdened, often taking her frustrations out on her husband, who believed it was her responsibility to take care of the children, and offered her little support in the way of childrearing. Jon Venables is demonstrably no such thing. The beginnings of the friendship were inauspicious enough. Born on August 13th, 1982, Jon was the middle child of Neil and Susan Venables. Only a handful of officials and close family members know their true identities. Thompson got better opportunities there than if hed been walking the streets in Walton, says the author. The couple, who also have a 13- year-old son, who has learning difficulties, and a 9-year-old daughter, denied that Jon was bullied by his brother or that he watched violent horror films at home. But apart from his brother, Robert struggled to build friendships. Last week the author Angela Phillips spoke of how the gentle son of the female friend of hers turned into a fascist skinhead: 'The boy his mother wanted him to become was not man enough for the world he was forced to inhabit. The toddler's mum Denise Bulger was at the counter of a butchers in the Strand shopping centre in Bootle, Liverpool, on February 12, 1993, when she briefly let go of her son's hand to get some change from her purse. WALTON, where they both lived, is, in the jargon of planning, an inner-city urban priority area; neither the best nor the worst the city has to offer. I couldnt make any sense of it, Robert later recalled, desolately, when asked about his fathers unexpected departure. Why would I want to kill him? he said, referring to the slain toddler. Ultimately, wanting to escape the havoc, most of the boys opted to leave home, and some were placed into voluntary care at Dysons Hall, a childrens home just outside of Liverpool. But his progress took a nose dive in September 1991 when he was transferred into another class. "I think my son's concentration wasn't the way it should have been, but he wasn't slow. They deal with drugs, they deal with everything. Not that he had any need to borrow his dad's. Venables, who was said to have been subjected to regular beatings by his mother Susan, titled the drawing 'My Dads house'. Then between 1990 and 1991, Jons teachers recognized a dramatic change in the boys behavior, which was alarming enough for one of his teachers to begin keeping a daily log. gk. He frequented local cinemas and regularly hired videos for the night. She claimed, however, that she was completely unaware of Jons erratic behaviors at school, had never seen any evidence to support them (such as cuts on his arms or holes in his socks), and dismissed the possibility that many of the occurrences cited by the teacher had ever taken place. What happened to James Bulger? Im bringing them up on my own, but if I went round and screwed every warehouse, my kids would have everything, too. Even so, while Roberts community was rough, his home life was perhaps worse, and could hardly be considered a refuge for the boy. That was in September 1991, 17 months before they killed James Bulger. Superintendent Kirby is a religious man. When social workers came round, they did so to see his sister and his brother, who had learning difficulties and was receiving special education. Many of us had dined together most nights throughout the trial, mulling it all over but distracting ourselves, too. And there were rewards for breaking rules. Venables served seven years of a life sentence for the 1993 murder before he was freed in June 2001, aged 18. Parents who stand by James's killers - Express.co.uk He wanted a Rovers strip for his birthday present. Profile: Jon Venables - BBC News Home of the Daily and Sunday Express. Once the jury retired, so did the journalists - but we didnt go far. On one occasion one of Anns sons let his real name slip at school and they had to move almost at once, says. Ms Truss has written a 4,000-word essay in todays Sunday Telegraph in which she stood by her plans to boost economic growth during her short tenure in No 10, Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker fails to stop team-mate Joel Matip (not pictured) from scoring an own goal during the Premier League match at Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton, A member of the public lines the road into St Michaels on Wyre, Lancashire, with missing posters of Nicola Bulley, 45, as police continue their search for the missing woman who was last seen on the morning of Friday January 27, when she was spotted walking her dog on a footpath by the nearby River Wyre, Not your usual prisoner! If I wanted to kill a baby, Id kill Id kill me own, wouldnt I?. Superintendent Albert Kirby, who headed the investigation, doesn't believe in the under-belly of Liverpool nonsense or stuff about the disintegration of modern society, the collapse of the nineties cities. "What he's done is wrong so he needs to be punished. Susan Venables is on Facebook. He has never really been what you would call a sagger off school (a truant). Susan Venables - Facebook In court, he hid his face again. Only two people can answer the question, and even their ability is doubtful. Ann, desperate to escape the physical and emotional torment of living with her drunken father, was married to Robert, Sr. in December 1971, on the day of her eighteenth birthday. One investigating police officer said: 'You could look into the eyes of Robert and knew you were looking at evil.' Both had parents who had separated. He began telling his father that he believed his parents loved his brother and sister more than they did him, and, at one point, implored his father to send him to school with his siblings. His father, thin and balding, had a much gentler edge. In the first press conference she gave the day after her son was taken, this 25-year-old woman struck me as a girl, a desperate, grief stricken girl whose tired swollen eyes told their own story. I know how I feel as a mother. "All he said when we've said 'Why didn't you run away?' 'When you have got people in the area threatening to blow your kneecaps off every moment of the day - that's just the way they are. She said that Jon was always "loving, caring, thoughtful and considerate . Just something to do.'. Little Bobby went to visit his brothers every so often, eager to show them the latest playthings he had robbed from the assorted shops nearby. Architect Shahed Saleem in the Ramadan Pavilion 2023 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
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