The media were quick to apply for reporting restrictions to be lifted when Jon Venables appeared in court. Their motive is clear. Publishing up to date information, photographs even, which are likely to identify Venables would be an extremely popular move with the readers of some of those newspapers.

Denise Bulger is trotted out again and again to give her opinion – as the one person who incontrovertibly has the right to express that opinion – that no sentence is sufficient to atone for Venables’ crimes.

The murder of Jamie Bulger was horrific, nightmarish, and no amount of state sanction will ever bring him back.

There are many, and I sympathise with their views, although I don’t support them, who would argue that Venables should be locked up for life, and ‘life’ should mean that he literally dies in prison.

There are just as many who would be happy to see Venables handed over to a lynch mob to be torn limb from limb, slowly, painfully, and left to die on a railway line somewhere.

However, there are also those who contend that Venables was 10 years old when he committed his crime, a child himself, and as such should have been given the chance to turn his life around and atone for his sins by living a useful life after serving a hefty prison sentence.

If we are arguing in favour of the first contention, that ‘life’ should mean ‘until death’, then we are also arguing that no child can ever learn, that beyond aged 10 there can be no progress in development. Is that really what we mean? That at 10 years old you have completed your development – if so we might as well lower the age of consent to 10 and be done with it. That is after all why we keep the age of consent at 16, the belief that until then you are not fully formed in your mental, physical or emotional ability.  Or do we just mean that in Venables case, the crime was so horrific, that the armchair pundits have the right to demand that Venables right to another 6 years of development be suspended and he be sentenced as an adult. I will uphold that if every 10 year old is treated as an adult. No more ‘but he’s just a child’ for anyone over the age of 10.

If we are arguing in favour of the second contention – that Venables should have been handed over to the lynch mob – I could be persuaded to support that contention too, providing it is universal. No more judge and jury, anyone over the age of 10 who is perceived to have committed a crime to be dealt with by a lynch mob. If your 11 year old son tears off my car aerial, I reserve the right to round up my neighbours and between us we shall tear off his ear. An ear for an aerial, a life for a life, So long as the justice is universal and applied equally to all, then I have no problem with it.

Which is why I supported the third contention, that Venables was just a child at the time, and should be given the chance to understand the errors of the values so far imbued in him by his parents.

The State took over control of him, and today the State stands accused of having failed to exercise that control over his mind.

They gave him a new identity, at great cost to the taxpayer. Had they not done so, they would have effectively handed him over to contention No. 2. The Lynch mob. The state has a duty to preserve life, and given the large number of people out there in the community who had already nailed their colours to the mast of ‘tell us where he is and we will kill him’, I do not see that they had any effective choice other than to make sure, by way of a new identity, that the lynch mob didn’t find him.

In giving him a new identity, they posed a substantial problem to Venables. The law does not allow him to conduct a ‘relationship’ without disclosing his true identity. There is no substantive definition of a ‘relationship’. At what point in whatever you term a relationship, do you feel secure enough to put your life in that person’s hands? Is it the same point at which your probation officer feels you should disclose your true identity? The first time you sleep with her? When she takes you home to meet her Dad? Who knows.

We made that law to protect us, so that if we found ourselves in a ‘relationship’ with someone who had committed a heinous crime, we should be aware of it. At what point do you think you should be aware that you are about to bed a man who killed his last sexual partner? Personally I would advocate – before I even went home with him for the first time.

You can see the problem posed for Venables now; long before most of us would have considered we had a ‘relationship’, he must blow his carefully constructed new identity, and entrust that person – that he hasn’t even gone home with yet, with the explosive knowledge that he is Jon Venables.

Little wonder that under the circumstances, he didn’t form a relationship.

We now have a 27 year old young man, who is unable to form the sort of relationship which most young men form in order to assuage their sexual needs.

We are surprised that he turned to pornography and cocaine? Really? Both pornography and Cocaine are freely available because hundreds of thousands of other men and women purchase them in similar circumstances. They of course, didn’t murder a child when they were 10.

We are told that Jon got into a drunken fight two years ago, and that the Home Secretary should have revoked his licence then. We are told that he was discovered with a small amount of Cocaine two years ago, and that the Home Secretary should have revoked his licence then. Mainly by those who support contention No1. that ‘life’ should mean ‘until death’. Even for a child.

I think there would be an outcry if the Home Secretary took to revoking licences for everybody who got involved in a fight, or was found to be taking drugs. I cannot support the contention that Venables should have been treated any differently than any other lifer.

Finally Venables was discovered to be accessing and distributing child pornography from his computer. I cannot and will not defend him on this charge. That is not the purpose of this blog post. I will support the State however.

Short of sitting with him 24 hours a day, which is scarcely the point of having released him on licence, how one earth were they supposed to know that this is what he was doing? Sure, they could have monitored his computer – but the computers of all his friends as well? Are you supporting State monitoring of all our computers in case one of us is unwittingly a friend of Jon Venables?

The State has done all it can do rehabilitate Venables, and then to monitor him. Now they have recalled him, quite rightly. And the media, who would dearly love to pander to those readers who support option 2, the lynch mob, are in full bray, saying that ‘justice has not been done’.

The sentencing remarks of Mr Justice Bean have just been released by the Judicial Communications Office, and they make for more sober reading than the main stream media.

“It would be wrong, in my view, for the sentence you receive today for child pornography offences to be increased by reason of the fact that you are one of the two people who, when much younger, carried out the horrific murder of two year old James Bulger. But there is a significant difference between your case and that of a typical offender. In an ordinary case, I would be telling the defendant that after serving half of the sentence of imprisonment which I imposed, he would be released on licence. That does not apply in your case.”

You wouldn’t have learnt that from the MSM – their angle is that ‘Venables could be out in 12 months’.

The sentencing guidelines are laid down by the Sentencing Guidelines Council, not the judge. He has to follow them.

“The appropriate sentence after a trial would therefore have been 3 years, but you are entitled to credit of one third for the fact that you made immediate admissions when interviewed about the respective offences. “

Do we want to abandon the convention that by pleading guilty you are entitled to a reduction of one third of your sentence? I will only accept that if it applies to everyone. This will mean that there is no advantage to say a rapist in pleading guilty and saving his victim from going over the gruesome details in court again……

So that left Venables with two years. Not two years and entitled to count the time spent on remand, as anybody else would be, but two years starting from yesterday.

“They run from today since you are not entitled to credit for the time spent in prison since your recall.”

Venables, you see, was not on ‘remand’, he was on ‘recall’.

In addition, Venables was placed on a Sexual Prevention Order which prohibits him – assuming he is ever released – from either owning or using, i.e., anybody else’s, computer which does not have software installed which prevents access to child abuse images. Or using any peer-to-peer file sharing software for whatever purpose, including downloading music or legitimate films, or using any social networking sites or chat facility.

These restrictions will apply whenever, if ever, he is able to persuade the parole board to release him on licence again. If he does apply to the parole board, Denise Bulger will be entitled to make her opinion known and it must be taken into account. He does not have a ‘right’ to parole; it is a privilege that he must justify.

If he is considered for parole, he will have to explain to the parole board how he is going to make a useful life without jeopardising his life by commencing a relationship, without chatting on line, without downloading music or videos, and naturally with an assurance that he won’t use drugs or get involved in fights. Short of agreeing to sign up to a monastery, it is difficult to know how he might do that.

So what else could the state have done to avoid the ‘justice has not been done’ headlines.

I suppose they could have followed the ‘justice must be seen to be done’ and allowed pictures of him in court to be published, so that he could be beaten to death in jail somewhere.

Would that really be justice, or just a sop to those who would like to be able to take the law into their own hands?

Does the state not have a duty to preserve our life from those who violently disagree with us? That is probably the only function of the State that I really support. There are people that I violently disagree with. Am I to be given the freedom to beat them to death? Is it OK for a fundamentalist Islamist to blow you up because he violently disagrees with the things you believe in?

Be careful what you wish for when entering the Venables debate.

Ali July 31, 2010 at 19:49

Absolute gem of an article, and I agree with so much of what you have
written. I’m actually relieved that there are still people like yourself out
there. It feels, at the minute, like discussion of this case must begin and
end with “Kill them”, or the person offering a different viewpoint becomes as
big a “monster” as Venables and Thompson.

Dave July 26, 2010
at 01:19

I notice yet again that one of the Sunday tabloids has wildly exaggerated
one of the stories in its latest edition by saying Venables “bragged” about
murdering James Bulger when in fact on reading the full story you find the
source actually said Venables was heavily drunk and told his friend in
confidence what he had done, had done this to 1 or 2 other friends while under
the influence of drugs and alcohol, and that the source of the story actually
said “I think that’s why he was getting drunk and high all the time…. because
he was desperate to talk about his past when he knew he couldn’t”.

In a minority
July 25, 2010 at 15:26

I was so glad to find your article as I was beginning to think that I was
the only person who thought like this. Personally, I always thought it was
wrong that these young boys were tried as adults and identified to the world.
If their identities had not been revealed, we would not be in this situation
and Jon Venables would have been able to live a normal life after a period of
rehabilitation. I believe that these recent offences were a direct result of
the way that he has been forced to live – in and yet outside society. I also
wonder if he didn’t deliberately allow himself to be caught – after all he
could easily have disposed of the evidence before calling in the probation
service.
I remember at the time of the original crime being just as shocked
at the behaviour and lynch mob mentality of the adults outside the court, as
at the evidence heard within it.
I do not believe that children are born
evil and I have seen no evidence anywhere, from the many professionals
involved, that Jon Venables is either a psychopath or a sociapath. If he was,
he would now be in Rampton or somewhere similar.
My opinion of Denise
Fergus is that she cannot let the issue go as she feels responsible, as any
mother would. She knows that she didn’t protect him as well as she could have
done. Illogical, I know, but nevertheless, any mother or indeed parent would
feel the same. She must, therefore, forever demand justice for her son which
she will never feel has been achieved until both the boys are dead. However,
our legal and justice system does not exist to satisfy the desire for
vengeance for the victims, but to punish and rehabilitate the offender and
protect the public. Therefore, whilst everyone can sympathise with her, she
should not be allowed to galvanise the support of those with a lynch mob
mentality who would take ‘justice’ into their own hands.

Dave July 25, 2010
at 04:44

Thank you for such a thought-provoking and well thought-out article. My
opinion on this case has often led to some intense debate and even heated
arguments amongst my friends and colleagues, but I will stand by my views that
these 2 young men are entitled to move on from their childhood just like the
rest of us. We may not have been murderers but I’m pretty sure there are some
well-rounded adults out there who did some pretty ghastly and horrible things
as children. However I fully understand and sympathise with those who would
sooner see them publicly skinned alive.

My biggest concern though, is the way the Bulger case is consistently used
as a political and media football. I find it odd that after so many years,
Denise Fergus still allows herself to be used by a media who feign concern for
her feelings, when they treat her as nothing more than a tool to boost their
sales. To risk the lives of 2 more people – and play with the emotions of
countless others – for political and media gain is nothing short of
abhorrent.

JuliaM July 25,
2010 at 06:39

“I find it odd that after so many years, Denise Fergus still allows
herself to be used by a media who feign concern for her feelings, when they
treat her as nothing more than a tool to boost their sales.”

She no doubt feels she hasn’t had justice. So who can blame her?

jailhouselawyer July 25, 2010 at 11:24

“So who can blame her?”

I can.

As you would expect…

Dave July 26,
2010 at 01:12

No one can blame her really but you’d have thought she’d have learned
by now what the media really want her time for. Her feelings are the last
thing on the mind of the mainstream media.

The Nosey Mole
July 24, 2010 at 23:13

Very thought provoking article, like you I belong to the third contention
but as you say the issues raised by this case are contentious.

English Viking
July 24, 2010 at 19:16

It’s not a dilemma, it’s dead simple… you killed somebody, therefore you
die.

For the hard of thinking, and the weak-willed and lilly-livered, I’m more
than happy to shoot him.

Fred July 24, 2010 at 21:15

With your axe????

Dave July 25,
2010 at 04:31

It always makes me laugh when I see people make comments like this while
calling those who don’t agree “hard of thinking”. It takes much more effort
to look into the reasoning behind cases like this than it does to simply
follow the “eye for an eye” mentality.

Eleanor July 24, 2010 at 19:12

So, Journalists would expose him if they could find out where and who he
now is. It doesn’t say much for Journalism, does it, that they would want him
torn limb from limb just to sell a few more Newspapers.

Is it any wonder that he has been living his life in fearful isolation. It
seems to me that a Monastery is probably the best place for him.

Fred July 24, 2010 at 17:32

Anna,

Please have a look at the excellent take on this by John Ward.
http://nbyslog.blogspot.com/ psychopathic.

As your good self has told us in blog posts before; physical disability is
clearly acknowledged (hard to ignore missing limbs…), but people such as
Venables with mental disabilities are branded as “evil f*cking scum”.

Such an easy copout doesn’t help anyone in such cases.

Thank you for your lucidity & objectivity in a world full of the
seemingly impossible, namely: Single Cell Kneejerkers…

jailhouselawyer July 24, 2010 at 16:19

Good post Anna.

A few points.

1. As I understand it, Jon Venables contacted his probation officer because
he believed that his new identity had somehow come to the attention of another
person. His probation officer told him to pack his things ready to be moved.
It would appear that he then drew attention to his laptop by stating he wanted
to leave it for his relatives to collect, and that the police were not
prepared to leave something portable of value behind. His conduct probably
aroused reasonable suspicion that he was attempting to conceal a crime, and so
the police decided to investigate further and searched the laptop.

2. Was it a lawful search? I have my doubts, unless we are not being given
the full story.

3. This case highlights the injustice of the life sentence not ending upon
release from custody but continuing in the community. Nowhere else in Europe
is a released lifer attached to an elastic band whereby just a tug means that
the lifer is recalled to prison. In effect, the Parole Board re-sentences
behind closed doors. The normal rules of evidence do not apply. Even had
Venables been found not guilty of the charge, the Parole Board can ignore this
and continue to detain him as though he was guilty. The Parole Board sentences
not for actual conduct but instead on the basis of what is in the minds of the
panel members, that is, what they think the prisoner might do in the future.
Regardless of what Venables has done, it is an affront to justice to have a
system of “Thought Crime” in a counrty laying claim to being civilised and a
liberal democracy.

Anna
Raccoon July 24, 2010 at 16:37

Jailhouse lawyer,
Have you not seen the Kent case of Gavin
Smith?
Initially charged with having an obscene on line chat. A private
chat room, not a public forum. Otherwise known as thought crime.
A later
search of his computer produced images of child abuse for which he was also
quite rightly later charged.
His initial crime was thought crime.

Joe Public
July 24, 2010 at 17:00

A ‘thought’ is self-contained; a chat involves a second person.

JuliaM July 25,
2010 at 06:33

“This case highlights the injustice of the life sentence not ending
upon release from custody but continuing in the community.”

Actually, what it highlights is exactly the opposite of that.

opsimath July 24, 2010 at 16:17

A fine piece, Anna, for which many thanks. It is difficult to keep a
perspective on things when we are all hyped-up and angry – hell, it sells
papers, eh – which is why we have judges, jury and the whole edifice of
law.

As a great man once said: ‘An eye for an eye makes the world blind’.

Joe Public July 24, 2010 at 16:15

A thought-provoking article Anna. Thank you.

“We now have a 27 year old young man, who is unable to form the sort of
relationship which most young men form in order to assuage their sexual
needs.
We are surprised that he turned to pornography and cocaine? ”

If it had just been ‘normal’ pornography, there wouldn’t have been such a
rampant outcry. But it was that heinous version ‘child-pornography’ any
reference of which sells MSM.

Child-Killer & Child-Porn, an emotive combination.

Anna
Raccoon July 24, 2010 at 16:30

Joe Public,
I should have made myself clearer, he turned ‘initially to
pornography, but then progressed to child pornography’ – for which, Thank
God, because if it hadn’t been child pornography on his computer, the
authorities would probably have turned a blind eye, and he would still have
been just as damaged an individual, and still ‘out there’.
Someone,
somewhere, still has to address the problem of how he has a sexual
relationship – unless you relish the idea of a thoroughly frustrated, and
repressed man with murderous ability roaming the streets one day…….I
don’t.

Joe Public
July 24, 2010 at 16:56

Possessing ‘normal’ porn is not an offence.

If there was no ‘child pornography’, there was nothing for the
authorities to ‘turn a blind eye’ to.

“Someone, somewhere, still has to address the problem of how he has a
sexual relationship…”

Having a sexual relationship is not, as far as I’m aware, a Human
Right.

Anna
Raccoon July 24, 2010 at
17:08

Joe Public,
Not a human right, of course not, but still a subject
that needs to be addressed, or someone, male or female will pay the
price.
It may seem like a simple solution to say ‘he should have
thought of that, serves him right’, but that is not going to make his
sexual need go away.
You could of course say ‘keep him in prison’,
then you are back to option 1, he was 10 years old when he went in
prison, are you making 10 the age at which there can be no further
developement?
It is a conundrum whichever way you look at it.

john July 24, 2010 at 15:47

It’s not hard to see why the country has gone down the tubes with
intelligent people like yourself spouting this drivel Anna.
Venables has
shown he should never be released as he is incapable of rehabilitation.
And
the msm have repeated many times that his release is dependant on the
probation services reports and is not automatic.

Anna
Raccoon July 24, 2010 at 16:24

john,
Venables has shown that he hasn‘t been
rehabilitated, agreed.
But ‘Venables has shown that he is
incapable of rehabilitation’ – I don’t know what you are
basing that statement on.

SadButMadLad July 24, 2010 at 18:14

“Venables has shown that he is incapable of rehabilitation”

That’s because he is a psychopath.

Dave July
25, 2010 at 04:25

It’s far too easy to make a statement like that without giving a
legitimate reason for it.

JuliaM July
25, 2010 at 06:31

Maybe he is. But at what point are we to stop throwing money at him in
a (possibly futile) attempt to find out?

john July 25, 2010 at 13:25

” But

Anna
Raccoon July 25, 2010 at
13:52

“If he couldn

Fascist Hippy
July 24, 2010 at 15:36

My own view is that we have not heard the last of Venables, do remember
this comment when he does something in the future and hits the ‘headlines’ yet
again.

Alan July 24, 2010 at 15:20

“The sentencing guidelines are laid down by the Sentencing Guidelines
Council, not the judge. He has to follow them.”

Not so.

“When deciding which sentence to give to the offender, the courts have
sentencing guidelines to assist them. The Sentencing Council, which was
created on 6th April 2010, has responsibility for producing sentencing
guidelines for use in all criminal courts. Any guidelines that are issued by
the Council must be followed, unless it is not in the interests of justice
to do so.”

I disagree with the mere existence of the sentencing council for the same
reason I disagree with juries being instructed to find particular verdicts by
judges.(and by consequence many juries doing as they are told) It is the State
interfering with the authority of the courts and justice itself. Judges have
by and large been freed from having to exercise their own judgment. This is
leading to decisions that many of the public cannot fathom. That is not to say
the public is right, but that the Judges can now hide behind the
guidelines.

It is a bureaucratic distraction to avoid the responsibilities being a
Judge or Magistrate brings. They *can* pass sentences that go beyond the
guidelines but I would guess many would rather not for a quiet life. They will
not get into trouble if they follow the rules. Sorry, guidelines. We
have moved far from Habeas Corpus without the State ever having the balls to
put it to us. Judges have been complicit in that.

We need a varied spectrum of sentences that Judges and Magistrates
hand out in order for the results that work to be determined. The sentencing
guidelines are the same arse first approach to everything we are enduring now.
Judges and Magistrates have to be held to account for the decisions they make
otherwise they will make bad decisions.

The Sentencing Council website goes on to state: “It is important to ensure that the same
approach is applied in sentencing in courts across England and Wales.”

Why? That approach has failed wherever it has been applied – health,
Policing, education, etc. All these services become unaccountable to the
public and jump to the quangocrat and Westminster beat and a lowest common
denominator approach prevails. It always will.

Dennis July 25, 2010 at 10:29

There is probably enough in your post for a five thousand word paper with
foot notes stretching towards infinity, but I will try to be brief.

The overarching principle when handing down criminal sentences, before
aggravating and mitigating circumstances, is that their severity should be
consistent with other sentences handed down for the same or similar crimes.
In other words, it involves the application of precedent to sentencing. This
is by no means a new innovation and is entirely consistent with the
principles of English law. The function, then, of the Council is to sift
through the various sentencing decisions for particular crimes and to
produce an aide memoire for those handing down sentences.

You are quite right to say that the sentencers do not have to follow the
guidelines. However, they do not “get into trouble” if they depart from the
guidelines: they simply get appealed and a superior court will, if
appropriate, apply the proper precedent. This is not new, and predates the
Council by many years.

Essentially, it’s about similar treatment: one of the themes of Ms
Raccoon’s leading article.

I am tempted to write something about the gap between the public’s
expectation of retributive sentences and those handed down; the Media and
the consumer society and judges being held to account by the public. It
might, however, be more appropriate if I simply ask you to consider the
difference between the public’s desire for retribution in the Bulger case
and the case where two children in South Yorkshire were within an inch of
carrying out a similar atrocity.

Hysteria July 24, 2010 at 15:08

there is something about the absence or presence of images that drive the
level of reporting (and so subsequent level of interest).

How many times do we have trivial “news” stories simply because there is
some video. Obvious example would be a car chase in Arizona, say, shown on UK
TV ??WTF?

On the other hand – the lack of fancy video relating to the financial
crisis and all the threats that brings to our society is virtually unreported
in the main TV news programs.

Fabian the
Fabulous July 24, 2010 at 14:36

Thank you Anna –
May I expand on that?
The particular horror of the
Jamie Bulger murder was that the two who did it were themselves children – a
fact which inspired the perverse, if understandable, reaction that this made
them more guilty, not less.
Whether the media are leading a gullible
public, or simply following the tide of opinion is hard to say.
There was
an unusually heavy media interest in the missing Soham girls in the week
before their bodies were found and Huntley was arrested – apparently this was
because the families and the police wanted it.
But more common is the
sequence of isolated news items… “Police fear for the safety of missing
5-year-old…”, “Police searching for missing 5-year-old have found a body”
followed soon after by “Detectives investigating the death of… have arrested a
local man”.
Apart from the trial months later, that is quite often e all
the coverage it gets in the national news.
Why is this? I don’t know.

JuliaM July 25,
2010 at 06:29

“There was an unusually heavy media interest in the missing Soham
girls…”

Again, I suspect it was a visual thing. That photograph of the two young,
blonde, pretty white girls standing together in matching red football
shirts. I can see it now. It was everywhere…

Gildas July 24, 2010 at 13:38

Thanks Anna for this excellent post. It highlights the dilemma that the
State faces in this and other areas – capital punishment, for example, and the
tension between free will and the effect of external forces. I completely
agree with your point: what is going to happen to a young man (27) who, living
in a sexualised society, is for practical purposes cut adrift from any
meaningful sexual relationship? However, the child pornography issue troubles
me greatly. This, together with other obvious matters, indicates a
fundamentally damaged and disturbed individual.
What future for him now?
How should the state respond? A new identity and more money spent on this
young man, but not on the unemployed guy who lives his life on the straight
and narrow?
Sometimes there are no right or wrong answers.
Gildas the
Monk

Anna
Raccoon July 24, 2010 at 14:02

Gildas,
I think Fabian made an excellent point – what is the essential
difference between Venables and the many other child killers? It is very
similar to the Madeleine McCann situation – what is the difference between
Madeleine and the many other young children who go missing around the
world?
The common denominator would appear to be the media response,
which is driven by a desire to sell their advertising medium.
Some
stories sell better than others, hence the marked difference between Justice
Bean’s remarks and the media reportage.
One sells papers, one
doesn’t.

JuliaM July
24, 2010 at 14:09

With the Bulger killers, I alway put the discrepancy down to the
existance of that CCTV image of them leading him away.

Humans are visual creatures. Without THAT image (which still has the
capacity to send a chill down my spine even now), I suspect this would be
already forgotten.

Gildas
July 24, 2010 at 14:27

Dear Julia and Anna
Does the press make the story? Or does the
story make, or allow, the press to make something of it?
Gildas

JuliaM July 25, 2010 at 06:28

Despite the jaundiced view we probably all have of the press, they
rarely get caught making something up out of whole cloth. They need a
peg to hang their hat on, so to speak…

The Grim Reaper
July 24, 2010 at 13:17

Very nicely written, Anna.

PT Barnum July 24, 2010 at 13:14

Applause for a sterling analysis of the dilemma faced by the law in the
teeth of blood-hungry mobs. Robert Thompson, so far as we know, has slipped
into the quiet obscurity of, I hope, a productive or inoffensive life. For
Venables, the state parenting he received has not been successful, and I wish
there were somewhere, a protected, therapeutic environment, where such as he
could live that quiet, obscure life with other people, rather than the
pretence that he could be fitted in to wider society. Apparently he welcomed
being sent back to prison. I’m not surprised.

Unless one believes in innate evil, a child of 10 does not turn victimiser
unless they have already been victimised. The former does not always follow
the latter, of course, but I guess believing in inborn evil is a soothing
position, since it absolves everyone from thinking about how and what and
why.

Fabian the
Fabulous July 24, 2010 at 12:12

I think you’ve missed the point here, Anna – Venables and the other one
were more guilty because they were children.
Quite a few adult
child-killers slip into relative obscurity, other than among those directly
involved

Anna
Raccoon July 24, 2010 at 13:13

Fabian,

Good point!