One of the investigators who questioned the killers of two-year-old James Bulger has recalled his chilling encounter with Robert Thompson, 10, who tried his best to outwit police during interviews.
Phil Roberts was the detective sergeant who arrested and questioned Robert Thompson after the abduction and murder of James Bulger, two, in Walton Liverpool on Friday 12 1993.
James was taken away from his mother during a shopping trip at the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle and led out of the centre by Thompson and Venables to the Walton train tracks where his mutilated body was found badly beaten two days later.
Recalling the investigation in Channel 5’s two-part documentary Lost Boy: The Killing of James Bulger, airing on Wednesday and Thursday at 9pm, Roberts said he found Thompson to be ‘street smart’ and ‘clever,’ and said the ten-year-old was ‘trying very, very hard to con me.’
Robert Thompson was charged on February 20 1993 for the abduction and murder of James Bulger, two, and were found guilty on all counts, and senteced to eight years in secured children homes. They were released and given new identities in 2001
Phil Roberts, pictured, was the detective sergeant who interviewed Robert Thompson in relation to the murder of James Bulger on February 12 1993 in Walton, near Liverpool. He talked of Thompson and the case in Channel 5’s Lost Boy: The Killing of James Bulger, airing Wednesday and Thursday on Channel 5
Denise, pictured, said she would ‘never let go’ after James’ murder, and said ‘it is my son that he took,’ speaking of Jon Venables, who is currently in prison relating to child pornography charges
‘He was quite confident in him self, was street-wise, he thought he was quite clever,’ Roberts recounted. ‘But he wasnt really showing any anxiety…all he was waiting for was to go home.
‘I don’t think he recognised the fact that what he’d done was that bad,’ he added.
‘I don’t know how he was doing at school, but he was switched on and he was trying to con me, trying very hard,’ he added.
Fellow detective Laurie Dalton said Thompson was ‘calculating’ and trying to manipulate the investigators and ‘would cry whenever there would be an awkward situation,’ to deflect blame.
James Bulger, two, was taken away from his mother Denise Fergus during a shopping trip at the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle on February 12 1993. His mutilated body was found two days later on rail tracks in Walton
‘When I say “cried,” there was not a drop of water, there was not a tear.’
In the documentary, Jim Fitzsimmons, who was investigating alongside Roberts and arrested Venables, said he got a call from Roberts after the arrest of Thompson.
‘He said “Jim, these are little children. I can’t consider that they’d do something like this”,’ Fitzsimmons said.
In the documentary, Roberts explained: ‘I couldn’t believe a ten-year-old could cause so much suffering.’
Both Venables and Thompson first denied ever being at the Stand Shopping Centre, but their lies soon unravelled after fingerprints put them at the scene.
Venables and Thompson first denied ever been at the New Strand shopping centre. But Thompson soon admitted being there and seeing James, pictured, with his mother
Jon Venables was the one to eventually admit to police that he’d killed James
The documentary will feature police interviews where the two ten-year-olds were heard blatantly lying about their whereabouts and denying ever having ‘taken a kid.’
Jon Venables denied ever being at the Strand, and told his mother and investigators it was ‘God’s honest truth’ he had been nowhere near the shopping centre.
However, Thompson had admitted to being at the Strand with Venables, and the police used this information to force Venables into telling them the truth.
In the interview recording, the ten-year-old admitted he was at the shopping centre, but cried: ‘We never took a kid.’
In the recordings, Thompson is heard crying: ‘I’m gonna take all the blame,’ and saying ‘You said I took him’ to Robert, in order to make it sound as though it was his friend who had said he’d taken James’ hand to lead him away from his mother.
Meanwhile, Venables, who was interviewed separately from Thompson in another prison, three miles away, admitted: ‘I killed the baby,’ after the police asked his mother to talk to him.
Thompson tried to manipulate the investigators, who said he was ‘calculating’ and would pretend to cry ‘without a tear’ (James as a toddle, before his murder)
While Venables made this confession, he then moved on to claim Thompson was responsible for most the harm that had come to James, two, and never again admitted he was responsible for the toddler’s murder.
In a chilling extract, Venables can be heard imitating James’ voice as he told the investigators that the toddler had said ‘I want my mum.’
Thompson and Venables were 11 when they faced a 17-day trial at Preston Crown Court in November 1993, and were the youngest murder defendants in the UK in over 100 years.
They were sentenced to eight years and served seven years eight months, so that they wouldn’t go on to serve time in an adult prison. They were given new identities at the taxpayers’ expense on their release in 2001.
While Venables has been recalled to prison several times, Thompson has not re-offended and in 2006, the DailyMail and Mail on Sunday revealed he had come out as gay, aged 23, and had been granted permission to live with his same-sex lover, after telling his partner about his criminal past
Denise Fergus, James’s mother, said she felt Venables and Thompson had not really been punished for their crimes (pictured: James before the murder)
James playing at home before the murder. Denise said Venables and Thompson shouldn’t have been able to get away with murder
James’ mother Denise, who now has three son, Michael, 27, Thomas, 22 and Leon, 21, said in the documentary she felt like Venables and Thompson hadn’t really been punished for their crimes because they had not spent any time in an adult prison facility, and were only sent to secured children’s home for the murder.
Denise said the seven and eight months sentence was ‘not only a kick in the teeth but a stab in the back.’
‘I thought “James’s life didn’t mean anything, then”,’ she said.
‘I wanted them to spend a long time in an adult prison,’ she added. ‘You can’t get away with murder. That’s someone’s child that they’ve taken and they can’t get away with it.’
The mother-of-three said she had also been scared by the fact Thompson and Venables’ identity had been changed, and that their pictures had not been released to the public.
‘I got a lot of nieces that go into town. One of them could be chatted up by him,’ she said in the documentary, revealing she had had to discuss it with her nieces.
‘For everyone who says I should let it, well why should I let it go? It was my son that he took. I’m never going to let this go,’ she concluded.
Lost Boy: The Killing of James Bulger airs on Wednesday and Thursday at 9pm on Channel 5.
James Bulger: How the murder of a toddler shocked the nation
The murder of James Bulger was a vicious crime that shocked Britain.
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were both 10 years old on February 12, 1993, when they abducted the two-year-old before brutally torturing and killing him.
The crime made the boys the youngest killers in modern English history.
The duo snatched James from outside a butcher’s shop in Bootle, Merseyside, in 1993, while his mother popped into a store for just a few seconds.
Two-year-old James Bulger, pictured, was tortured and left for dead in February 1993
He was abducted by 10 year olds Jon Venables, left, and Robert Thompson
James’ mutilated body was found on a railway line in Walton, Liverpool, two days later.
The boys were playing truant from school, and CCTV showed them observing local children at the shopping centre, appearing to be ‘selecting a target’.
They were then captured on camera taking the boy away at 3.42pm, before leading him on a two-and-a-half mile walk through Liverpool to the village of Walton.
Venables and Thompson were seen by 38 people during the walk, and were twice challenged by bystanders because James was crying and had a bump on his forehead.
CCTV footage, pictured, captured the moment Venables and Thompson took James from the shopping centre in Bootle
But they were able to convince the concerned people that James was their little brother and continued on their way.
They led James to a railway line near the disused Walton & Anfield Railway Station where they began torturing him – including throwing paint in his eye, pelting him with stones and bricks and dropping an iron bar on his head.
After the body was found, police launched an appeal showing the low-resolution CCTV images of the boy.
The breakthrough came when one woman recognised Venables, who she knew had skipped school with Thompson on that day, and contacted police.
They were charged with murder on February 20 and forensic tests confirmed they had the same paint on their clothes as was found on James’ body.
The death of James shocked the nation and floral tributes were left in their droves at his funeral, pictured
Around 500 protesters turned out for their initial magistrates’ court hearing due to the public outcry against the crime.
The subsequent trial at Preston Crown Court and the boys were considered to be ‘mature enough’ to know they were doing something ‘seriously wrong’.
Venables and Thompson were found guilty on November 24, 1993, with the judge describing them as ‘cunning and wicked’.
Reporting restrictions on their names were also lifted as it was considered in the public interest to do so.
Their parents were moved to different parts of the country and also received new identities due to death threats against them.