A detective who helped catch the killers of James Bulger has told how he heard the youngster’s mother ‘scream from the gut’ when she discovered he was dead.
Phil Roberts was a detective sergeant with Merseyside Police when the toddler was abducted and killed by 10 year olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables in 1993.
He says he was studying the now-infamous footage of the two boys leading two-year-old James away from a shopping centre when he heard James’s mother, Denise, in another room of the police station.
Phil Roberts, a former detective, who worked on the James Bulger case, has told of the terrible scream he heard when the youngster’s mother was told of her son’s death
Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were convicted of a murder which shocked Britain
Mr Roberts told the BBC: ‘I heard a terrible sort of scream from the gut, and it was coming from Denise, from where the family of James Bulger were. And then I realised the body had been found.’
He spoke after Venables was again back in court last week after being found with child abuse images for the second time since his release the sentence he was given from James’s murder.
Mr Roberts interviewed Thompson, who he has said appeared to be ringleader and the more likely to reoffend of the two.
The former detective said he was initially sceptical that boys so young could have murdered the youngster, so assumed he was speaking to Thompnson to eliminate them from enquires.
However, once he started speaking to the schoolboy killer, he suspected he was involved.
James’ mother Denise Fergus has said she blacked out when told her young son was dead
Mr Roberts said: ‘It was only as you start interviewing you establish that he was lying, and why was he lying?
‘He gave it away by shuffling his legs under the chair. Every time you gave him a hard question, he would shuffle his feet on the chair.
‘He eventually started admitting that he and Venables had taken James from the Strand but left him.’
He said he believes the two boys did know what they were doing and were motivated the desire to cause headlines and say they were the cause.
Mr Roberts said he cannot think of any other crimes which was worse than the Bulger killing.
James’ mother, Denise Fergus, last week spoke on an ITV documentary to mark the 25th anniversary of the crime which shocked the nation.
Mr Roberts was reviewing this infamous CCTV footage of James’s killers leading him away
Remembering the moment she discovered her son was dead, she said: ‘I just blanked out. I just remember, when I come round there were loads of people around me.
‘I’m just thinking ‘it can’t be true. It can’t be happening’. You know, one minute they’re going to come through that door and say ‘you know what, we’ve made a massive mistake, here he is’.’
She added: ‘I think I was in shock like everyone else. No one expects two 10-year-old boys to take a child and do what they done.
‘It’s just beyond words really how two 10-year-olds could be so evil.’