James Bulger’s twisted killer was also using online dating websites in search of single mothers while amassing a haul of child-abuse images, it has been revealed.
Jon Venables, who was just 10 when he tortured and murdered two-year-old James, was last week recalled to prison over the sick stash of pictures.
But the murderer was also using a dating website that is popular with single mothers, sources say.
‘Police had known he had tried this before. He’s been warned repeatedly but thinks he’s untouchable,’ a source told the Daily Star Sunday.
Jon Venables (pictured after he was arrested as a 10-year-old), one of the killers of James Bugler, is back in jail after being caught with child porn – the second time he’s been recalled
In CCTV footage that shocked a nation, Venables (seen holding the toddler’s hand) and Thompson are seen leading James out of the shopping centre and towards his death
The crime made Thompson and Venables the youngest killers in modern English history
‘He has had secret identities, costing ridiculous amounts of money and all at the cost of the taxpayer, and thinks he will continue to be protected.
‘And the sad thing is, he’s probably correct.’
After discovering Venables’ haul of abuse images, officers also found he was using the ‘well-known, well-used, dating site’.
Officers were said to be ‘concerned’ because he was trying to access women who made no secret of having young children.
Venables is now on suicide watch in a prison’s sex offenders’ wing following his arrest last week.
The killer and his friend Robert Thompson were only ten when they killed two-year-old James in 1993, after abducting him from a shopping centre in Bootle, Liverpool.
‘SHOW US THIS MONSTER’: JAMES BULGER’S FATHER DEMANDS SON’S KILLER IS STRIPPED OF ANONYMITY
Ralph Bulger (left, in 2011), James’ father, said previously that monster Venables could kill again and should spend the rest of his life behind bars
The father of murdered toddler James Bulger is calling for an up-to-date picture of his son’s killer to be shown to the world.
Ralph Bulger, 51, said he wants Jon Venables to be stripped of his anonymity after he was discovered with child-abuse images on his computer and jailed.
Mr Bulger said that Venables, who is 35, should be given an adult life sentence for his part in the horrific murder of his two-year-old son 24 years ago.
The furious father slammed a decision to spend £5million on rehabilitation and protecting Venables’ true identity and his co-killer’s, Robert Thompson.
‘If people saw a photo of him as the adult monster he truly is they would have a very different perception of the person committing the crimes instead of a picture of so called childhood innocence,’ Mr Bulger told The Sunday People.
CCTV footage shows the final moments of James Bulger’s life, as he is led to a railway track by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson
The toddler’s mutilated body was found on a railway line in Walton, Liverpool, two days after he was abducted
They led the two-year-old along a canal and down a towpath before battering him with an iron bar.
They also poured paint into his eyes, stoned him and hit him with bricks before leaving him on a railway line to be hit a train.
They were jailed but released with new identities after serving eight years, without spending a day in an adult prison.
In 2010, however, it emerged Venables, 32, was back behind bars for breaking the conditions of his release by downloading and distributing more than 100 images of child abuse, some involving victims as young as two.
He is now back behind bars after more abuse images with discovered on his computer.
How Bulger killer Jon Venables is back in jail for the second time in seven years
Jon Venables is back in prison
Jon Venables was first released from prison in 2001, at the age of 18, and given a new identity to protect him from the risk of vigilante attacks – but he has been returned to jail twi
At the time, a psychiatrist ruled that he did not pose a danger to the public and was extremely unlikely to commit any further offences.
However, he developed drinking and drugs problems, and he compromised his identity at least twice by telling friends he was a convicted murderer.
When a probation officer visited his home in Cheshire in 2010 to discuss his fears that he could be in danger, he was attempting to destroy the hard drive of his computer.
The hard drive was later examined by police, who discovered that it contained dozens of indecent images of children.
Venables admitted that he had posed online as a 35-year-old woman who had abused her eight-year-old daughter, and was returned to prison.