The family of James Bulger called for one of his killers to lose his anonymity yesterday as they said he had ‘got away with it again’ after being jailed for just 40 months for child porn.
Ralph Bulger, 51, demanded Jon Venables’ new identity be revealed for the safety of the public after he was jailed yesterday for hoarding child abuse images.
Mr Bulger warned that his son’s killer could strike again when he becomes eligible for parole in 20 months. ‘Forty months is a joke,’ he said. ‘It’s an insult to the family.
‘We’ve got to watch this sexual deviant. We know what he’s capable of. He’s just waiting for another victim. Let’s just make sure there are no more victims.’
Ralph Bulger (pictured) has called for his son James’ killer to be unmasked after he was jailed for 40 months for child sex charges
Jamie Bulger, pictured, was killed 25 years ago next week. The tale of two 10-year-olds killing the two-year-old shocked the nation
Jon Venables, who as a boy (pictured) killed toddler James Bulger, has now admitted having child sex images. James’ father has called for his anonymity to be lifted
Mr Bulger yesterday launched a legal challenge to Venables’ lifelong anonymity after his son’s killer was jailed after admitting charges of making indecent images of children and having a ‘sickening paedophile’s manual’.
The Old Bailey heard that he continues to pose a ‘life-long risk’ and presents a ‘high risk of serious harm to children’.
The 35-year-old could be freed in just 20 months even though the court heard that while supposedly under the supervision of probation and police he downloaded 1,170 images and videos of youngsters being sexually abused.
It was the second time he had been caught downloading child pornography following his release from jail in 2001, along with James’s other killer, Robert Thompson, having served eight years for the kidnap, torture and murder of the two-year-old in 1993, when they were ten.
In 2010, Venables pleaded guilty to downloading and distributing child pornography and was jailed for two years.
For the past four years Venables has lived a ‘relatively normal life’ anonymously in a flat, with only police and his probation workers knowing his whereabouts and new identity.
25 years on from James’ death, the family has released new pictures, including this one of James and his mother, Denise
Denise Fergus, James Bulger’s mother, with her new husband Stuart (right) and Chris Johnson (left), the chairman of the James Bulger Memorial Trust, outside the Old Bailey today
Jon Venables (left) and Robert Thompson (right) were just 10 years old when they murdered James. Venables has been back before a judge for the second time since his release
Venables and Thompson led little James to his death from a shopping centre in Liverpool
Yesterday, it emerged that he breached his licence conditions in 2015 by going online just weeks before a Sexual Harm Prevention Order preventing him from accessing the internet expired. But secretly he was only given a police caution rather than being taken to court.
Then in July 2017 Venables started trawling the dark web for ‘repulsive’ images and videos depicting babies and young boys being abused brutally. On a day when he was being assessed by probation, he downloaded 1,170 images on a laptop hidden behind the headboard in his bedroom, including a paedophile manual providing ‘graphic details’ of how children can be ‘trained’ to ‘endure increasingly extreme forms of sexual abuse’.
After he was caught last November, Venables said: ‘This is my own fault. I have let people down again. I have had stupid urges.’
Yesterday, Edward Fitzgerald QC, defending, insisted his client deserved praise for his ‘honesty’, adding: ‘Jon Venables still has the capacity for good and a capacity for change. He has asked me to apologise to all those he has let down – and to the family of James Bulger for the renewed distress by his reoffending.’
James’s family have released photos of him ahead of the 25th anniversary of his death
But James’s mother Denise Fergus said this was just ‘rubbing salt in the wound’ as she called for a public inquiry over what she described as collusion by the authorities to cover up Venables’ pattern of vile behaviour. Her spokesman, Chris Johnson, said: ‘The sentence is too short.
‘Three years and four months for horrendous re-offending like this is a farce. It was shocking to hear in court that he had breached the terms of his parole in 2015 by getting access to the internet.
‘What is most disturbing is that the authorities chose to hush it up by just giving him a police caution. That was fundamentally wrong and highlights the need for a public inquiry into the mistakes and cover-ups that have happened in this case since the start.’
In launching his legal challenge to the lifelong anonymity given to Venables, Mr Bulger has described it as a ‘failed experiment’ that had put the public at risk.
His solicitor, Robin Makin, said: ‘We are immensely concerned about the danger Jon Venables would pose if he is released again.
‘Due to his innate nature, there has to be a fundamental reassessment of the injunction order.
‘It seems to be perfectly obvious that the authorities haven’t been able to manage him in the community. He’s already reverted to committing further criminal offences. Where is this going to lead?’
25 years on, portrait of little James with his life ahead of him
Previously unseen pictures of James Bulger are revealed by his mother today, 25 years after his abduction and murder.
The touching images show him as a baby, playing on a trampoline, and dressed up in a black and white sailor suit.
Denise Fergus, 50, says the photographs help to bring back cherished memories of the toddler.
James’ mother Denise Fergus has today released these previously unseen pictures, 25 years after his abduction and murder
Ms Fergus has appeared in a documentary titled James Bulger: A Mother’s Story, to be broadcast on ITV tonight
The pictures will be shown in a documentary, James Bulger: A Mother’s Story, to be broadcast on ITV tonight.
In the programme, Mrs Fergus tells Sir Trevor McDonald that James’s killers were ‘rewarded’ rather than punished for their horrific crime.
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were given new identities and granted lifelong anonymity when they were freed on licence in 2001.
Mrs Fergus said: ‘I’ve never had justice for James. I never said, “Lock them up and throw away the key”. I thought doing a proper sentence in a proper prison would be justice. But that never happened. They never got punished for what they did. In fact, if anything, they were rewarded.
‘I did say that if they weren’t punished properly, then they would go on to re-offend, and that’s exactly what happened with Venables.’
She also tells how she collapsed when she learned her son had been killed by the ten-year-olds.