Two Little Boys

This was my response to that godawful email petition that demanded the return of the Bulger killers to prison.




This is really more of an addendum than anything else really. Yesterday I mentioned the people I thought to be the main candidates for the Conservative Party leadership. It appears that I spoke to soon in dismissing candidates other than those three, as Iain Duncan-Smith is apparently threatening to throw his hat into the arena and stand as well. On that basis, I shall give you a rundown of his history and chances.

Well...erm...oh, yes he was the first British politician to meet officially with a member of the Dubya administration, doing so before even Tony Blair. And he...that is to say he is well known for...uh...yes. Well...anybody watch the telly last night? No? No, there wasn't much on was there...anybody know any good stories at all? No one? It's just that I'm sort of...stumped to be honest. Whatever Mr. Duncan-Smith's good qualities may be, he is undoubtedly hampered by the fact that he is an anonymous suit full to the brim of bugger all. Still, it was nice to see Anne Widdecombe behaving as reasonably as we've come to expect yesterday. She said Portillo was surrounded by "backbiters", which considering his homosexual past could be taken to have a dual meaning...

Anyway, enough of politics; it's clear there's no mileage in that today. The subject that does have a certain amount of mileage in it on this gray day that holds the promise of rain is the imminent release, and subsequent protection by the state, of 2 murderers. John Venables and Robert Thompson, the boys who will forever be reviled by history, will be released as early as next week and it is proving to be a thoroughly divisive topic.

In case you're a little hazy on the details of this horrid little tragedy, 2 year old Jamie Bulger was abducted from a Liverpool shopping centre (he had left his mothers side for less than 30 seconds) by Venables and Thompson who were then aged 10. They took him to a derelict area of land, tortured him by pouring paint in his eyes, beat him and eventually killed him. They left his body lying over a rail track in order to make it look like he had wandered there and been hit by a train. His body was cleaved in two by a train before he was found. This all happened 8 years ago.

I've actually had to stop writing for a few minutes as it rather took it out of me to describe the actual circumstances of his death. I would imagine it made for reasonably difficult reading as well. In doing that, I now have a better idea of the reasoning behind the arguments for keeping V & T behind bars for a lot longer than the 8 years they have served. That said, it has not altered my opinion (although it has tempered the force of my belief) that their release is the right thing to do.

I have come to that conclusion for a few reasons. Not least (and perhaps most surprising) of these is that I am willing to trust the experts on this. The judge involved in the appeal against their release has stated that according to all of the assessments and reports available, both boys were fit for release. Presumably, this means that they have shown remorse for their actions, and are no longer of the same mindset that they were upon committing the murder. They have changed, and are no longer the disturbed boys they were.

Normally, I among the first to condemn social workers and their ilk for being either overstretched (if I'm to give them the benefit of the doubt) or inept (if I don't). But in this case, I accept their findings unreservedly not because this is a unique case, rather because something like this has happened before and the social workers et al got it right. I refer to the case of Mary Bell.

27 years ago, 11 year old Mary murdered 2 boys aged 3 and 4 years old. She was imprisoned, and released in 1980. She has lived a perfectly normal life since, the only blip being the publication of a book about her crimes, childhood, and imprisonment. With all due respect to the feelings of Denise Fergus and Ralph Bulger (Jamie's parents) I can't see any reason why V & T can't do exactly the same thing.

Well to be more accurate, I can see a number of reasons why not but none of them are to do with V & T. They are all to do with the media, and in particular The Sun. They are doing their best to whip the public up into a frenzy of hatred and have actually had to be injuncted to prevent them publishing recent photos of the pair. Taking into consideration the (rightly) strong feelings that Jamie’s family and their friends have about the 2 boys, this is tantamount to incitement to murder.

Do you really think that The Sun give a damn about the feelings of the Bulgers, or would it be more accurate that nothing sells papers better than public outrage, be it totally genuine or given a helping hand by the papers themselves? I know what I think, especially given the history of the Tabloids concerning the Bulger case. When V & T were first arrested, the overwhelming question was simply "Why?" What had caused 2 young boys to commit such an horrific act? Well, after giving due consideration to factors such as poverty, social depravation, lack of parental supervision, poor relationships in their homes, and society's general failure to notice any of these factors and attempt to remedy them, The Sun gave the public the answer to their question.

The film "Child’s Play 3" was directly responsible for V & T murdering Jamie Bulger. They'd watched it and got the idea from that film. So rather than acknowledging that perhaps when we live in a time where this sort of thing happens then perhaps there is a deep rooted problem in that society, a handy scapegoat was provided, and the public duly responded by rushing to condemn the film and demanding tighter controls on video's and films, conveniently ignoring the fact that the film was cert. 18 anyway and so shouldn't have ever been seen by V & T. And they wouldn't have seen it were it not for the fact that the father of one of the boys left it lying around in the house and allowed them to watch it.

I don't wish to seem harsh or overly critical when I mention that (almost everyone can tell I tale of how they watched an unsuitable film in their youth; mine were The Evil Dead and Threads and the only effect that had on me was to guarantee that I had nightmares involving zombies and nuclear war for the rest of my life). However, what was the point of imposing tighter controls if they are going to be disregarded anyway? And as to the film being responsible, whilst it gave the boys the methodology for the torture of James, I cannot accept it gave them the idea to do it in the first place. Murderous intent is not something that is switched on and off by a film, it is something that is built up over time and then released by a trigger. In this case, the trigger was the film.

But to return to the point, V & T have had 8 years to have these issues addressed and the experts say that they have been. To say that V & T are also victims in this scenario is to devalue the suffering of James, so I shall stop short of that. But there is no doubt that they did not become killers overnight and something awful must have been happening in their lives to lead to the murder. With the murder of James, society failed 3 young boys. With the release of V & T, it has a chance to redeem itself regarding 2 of them. The tragedy is that the initial failure means that society has no way to redeem itself for James.