BBC ON THIS DAY | 20 | 1993: Two boys charged with toddler's murder 1993: Two boys charged with toddler's murder Two 10-year-old boys have been charged with the abduction and murder of two-year-old James Bulger in Liverpool. The toddler went missing from the Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle last Friday and his body was found on a railway embankment less than three miles away two days later, on 14 February. The two suspects were arrested two days ago and are being held at different police stations with their mothers and lawyers. When they appear before South Sefton Magistrates Court - a quarter of a mile from where James was abducted - tomorrow, they will be among the youngest people to face murder charges in the British courts. Other members of the boys' families have been moved to secret addresses to protect them from possible reprisals. Police issued a statement saying the pair had also been charged - at 1840GMT - with the attempted abduction of another two-year-old and were being held in police detention under section 59 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991.

It looks likely they will be remanded into some form of care or custody before the case is tried by a judge and jury at crown court. Officers are consulting the local council over the welfare of the boys. Grieving for Jamie Bulger family solicitor Sean Sexton said: "The family are of course relieved at the progress that has been made. They are still trying to come to terms with the situation." "We should like to thank the police and public for their support," he continued, asking for the privacy of the family to be respected and saying there would be no further statement. Hundreds of flowers have been heaped around the entrance to the shopping centre where James was last seen, on security video, being led away. And over �7,000 of public donations has been collected and given to the Bulger family. The 35,000 people at Liverpool Football Club's Anfield ground stood for a minute's silence before the game against Ipswich Town today.

February 20 1993: John Venables and Robert Thompson Charged With Murder Of James Bulger In Liverpool | By Anorak on 20 February 2014 | comments 4 Share this: ON This Day in photos – February 20 1993: John Venables and Robert Thompson (both aged 10) are charged with the abduction and murder of two-year-old James Bulger in Liverpool. James went missing from the Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle the Friday before. His mother and father made appeals for his safe return. Denise Bulger, mother of James Bulger the 2-year-old boy who went missing in the bootle area of Liverpool, breaks down at a police press conference in Liverpool. Date: 13/02/1993 The police had CCTV of James leaving the mall with two boys. CHIEF INSPECTOR GEOFF MACDONALD SHOWING A SECURITY VIDEO OF MISSING TODDLER JAMES BULGER LEAVING THE STRAND SHOOPING CENTRE IN BOOTLE, MERSEYSIDE, WITH TWO YOUTHS, AT A PRESS CONFERENCE.

Date: 14/02/1993 This picture was distributed. It would prove to be an enduring and chilling image. A heinous crime was in motion. A video still of missing boy James Bulger, aged 2 years old, being led away by a youth in the ‘New Strand’ shopping centre in the Bootle area of Liverpool. James’s battered body was found on an isolated railway line. His schoolboy killers, Robert Thompson and John Venables, now free and living with new identities, were detained indefinitely following a high-profile trial at Preston Crown Court. The plot was hatched. PA NEWS PHOTO 18/2/93 “ENHANCED” VIDEO OF TWO YOUTHS THAT POLICE WOULD LIKE TO QUESTION IN CONNECTION WITH THE MURDER OF JAMES BULGER. On 14 February, James Bulger’s body was found on a railway line less than three miles away. It had been mutilated. THREE OF THE BOYS WHO FOUND THE BODY OF TWO YEAR-OLD JAMES BULGER. L-R, STEPHEN GUNNIAN, JAMES RILEY AND HIS BROTHER TERENCE.

Date: 15/02/1993 DETECTIVE SUPT. KIRBY HOLDS A TIN OF PAINT & A PACK OF BATTERIES WHICH THE POLICE BELIEVE ARE VITAL CLUES TO SOLVING THE MURDER OF 2 YEAR OLD JAMES BULGER, IN BOOTLE, LIVERPOOL. Date: 16/02/1993 On February 18, Venables and Thompson were arrested. UNDATED FILER OF JAMES BULGER, THE TODDLER MURDERED IN LIVERPOOL. POLICE QUESTIONING TWO TEN-YEAR OLD BOYS IN CONNECTION WITH JAMES’S ABDUCTION & DEATH. Date: 20/02/1993 On February 19, the children who killed a child appeared at South Sefton Magistrates Court. ANGUISH SHOWS ON THE FACE OF A YOUNG WOMAN BEHIND POLICE BARRIERS AS THE CONVOY CARRYING THE TWO-TEN-YEAR OLDS CHARGED WITH THE MURDER OF JAMES BULGER LEAVES SOUTH SEFTON MAGISTRATES COURT.

The boys’ families were moved to secret addresses to protect them from possible reprisals. The case is now infamous for the secrecy around the killers, who must never reveal their true indentities. A BBC ARTISTS DRAWING OF THE SCENE IN SOUTH SEFTON MAGISTRATES COURT AS TWO TEN YEAR OLDS APPEARED CHARGED WITH THE MURDER OF JAMES BULGER. Date: 03/03/1993 AN ARTIST’S IMPRESSION OF FORENSIC SCIENTIST PHIL RYDEARD AT PRESTON CROWN COURT WITH A SHOE USED IN THE FATAL ATTACK ON THE TWO-YEAR OLD BOY. Date: 10/11/1993 In November 1993, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, were convicted of abducting and murdering James Bulger. Ralph Bulger carries the coffin of his 2-year-old son, James, into the Church of the Sacred Heart, Kirby. Date: 01/03/1993 Justice Morland sentenced them both to eight years.

Lord Chief Justice Taylor raised the sentence to 10 years and Home Secretary Michael Howard put it up to 15, although the House of Lords ruled he had acted outside his powers in 1998. In 1999 the case went to the European Court on Human Rights as lawyers claimed Venables and Thompson should not have been tried in an adult court. In June 2001, Venables and Thompson went free. They are placed on life licenses. They are given secret identities. Local people read about the release of the killers of James Bulger in the Liverpool Echo newspaper, outside the Strand shopping centre in Bootle from where James was abducted by Venables and Thompson. The killers of toddler Jamie Bulger were preparing to be released. *The Parole Board ruled that they should go free. The board ruled that Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, now aged 18, were no longer a danger to the public after spending eight years in secure accommodation. But the decision has sparked anger among campaigners who wanted the pair to serve longer sentences.

Date: 23/06/2001 Denise Fergus, 33, centre, the mother of the murdered little boy James Bulger leading a march of more than 300 people in protest at the expected release of his killers. She led the procession through the streets of her home town in Kirkby, Merseyside * … to highlight her Justice for James campaign. The campaign was set up last December after the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, said the youngster’s killers’ tariff should be over. Marchers were walking two miles to St Mark’s Church in Northwood, where a memorial service was being said for James to mark the eighth anniversary of his march from Kirkby Town centre . Date: 10/02/2001 Venabels is back in prison. The story of the innocent child killed by children rumbles on. Share this: These boys are satans. They should have been hanged rather than being released. Ash Alpha those two boys don’t deserve to be happy. after what they did 22 years ago. James had his whole life a head of him. he would have been famous in the future. the years he had missed.

are 1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015. them tow deserve to go to hell and get burned. Ash Alpha those two men need to go back in jail Oberst James Bulger murder 20 years on: Lawyer of Jon Venables reveals that killer's confession still haunts him - Mirror Online Killer: Robert Thompson was instigator, says Laurence (Photo: Getty) Share Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email Peering down at the angelic-looking lad at the police station, solicitor Laurence Lee thought there must have been a terrible mistake.

Laurence did not believe his new client – a boy aged 10 – could have been involved in the brutal crime that officers were accusing him of. The lawyer was accustomed to dealing with appalling offences but nothing could prepare him for the catalogue of evil that young Jon Venables would confess to. Tuesday marks the 20th anniversary of the day Venables and accomplice Robert Thompson kidnapped two-year-old James Bulger from a shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside, then tortured the defenceless toddler before battering him to death. And the chilling memories of the sickening case are still etched on Laurence’s mind. In particular, he will never forget the detached and cold attitude of 10-year-old killer Thompson. Recalling the first moment he saw his client Venables, Laurence says: “I went to Lower Lane police station and he was sat with his mother, Sue, a respectable lady. "I couldn’t believe this small boy was involved in this crime. He looked almost angelic. “When the officer interviewed Venables, he said he’d been nowhere near the Strand shopping centre, and I thought I had been brought along under false pretences.

"It was only when the officers compared notes with what Robert Thompson was saying in his interviews at Walton police station that it didn’t add up. "Venables kept up his denials then suddenly there was silence before he wailed, ‘OK, we did go to the Strand but I never grabbed a kid’. Killer: Jon Venables' confession shocked Laurence (Photo: Getty) “There was wailing, and the walls caved in. He was hugging his mum, grabbing officers. "I wanted to stop the interview as he was getting tired and his mother was distressed. “As I left the station I had to check under my car for explosives in case of reprisals. I was a security target as I was representing Venables.” The next day Venables admitted his gruesome crimes. Laurence, now 59, says: “What we heard reached the depths of depravity. "And Venables said, ‘we did kill James – please tell his mum we’re sorry’.” No one can forget the haunting CCTV images showing primary school pupils Venables and Thompson leading James, from Kirkby in Merseyside, through the shopping centre where he had been with mum Denise.

After coaxing James two miles away to Walton the older boys attacked the toddler on a railway line. Paint was splashed in his eyes before the pair stamped on him. James had 10 skull fractures – and a total of 42 injuries. Bricks and stones were hurled at the tot during a degrading assault. Kidnap: CCTV of moment they led James away to his death A 22lb iron bar was dropped on him before Thompson and Venables laid their victim’s body across the railway line to try to cover up his murder as an accident. Two days later, James’s body was found severed by the impact from a train. Laurence says Thompson was the instigator but the lawyer dismisses Venables’ claims about playing a minor role. Sitting in his wife’s cafe in Liverpool, Laurence adds: “Venables was a conniving little liar, although he showed a lot more emotion than Thompson ever did. "Thompson was the coldest child I’ve ever seen. “Venables said he’d thrown stones at James, but missed on purpose. "He claimed Thompson picked up on this, and shouted, ‘Are you blind, divvy?’. “That was Venables’ defence. That Thompson had been the driving force.

“But he was far more involved in the attack than he wanted us to believe. “During those interviews, his parents were shell-shocked and Venables was crying. "We also walked along the route they took James, which was a horrible experience for everybody.” Victim: Little James Bulger (Photo: Reuters) Dad-of-three Laurence only spoke with Thompson once – but it left an indelible mark. “I first saw Thompson at the ID parade,” he says. “I put my head against the glass and he said to me, ‘You’re a f****** ugly b******’. That’s the type of boy he was.” Riots erupted outside Sefton magistrates court in Merseyside in February 1993 as Thompson and Venables made their first appearance in court. They were sent for trial at Preston crown court where the boys, by now aged 11, became the youngest convicted murderers of the 20th century. Laurence says: “At court Thompson sat twiddling the ring on his finger. Venables listened but it was all over his head. “We got the dock raised by 18 inches so the boys could see over the top. It was a landmark case in many ways.

“Thompson’s mum screamed after the case, ‘He may be a f****** robber, but he’s not a murderer’.” The boys were handed controversial eight-year minimum sentences and were released in 2001 aged 18 with new ­identities to protect them from reprisals. Nine years later, Venables, then 27, returned to prison for child porn offences. Laurence says: “It was a shock to me as I thought Thompson would be the one who might transgress again.” Campaigning mum: James' brave mother Denise Fergus (Photo: PA) Venables is applying for parole this summer, a move vehemently opposed by James’s parents, Denise and Ralph, who are now separated. Laurence says: “I couldn’t believe Venables was trying for release on the back of the 20th anniversary of James’s death. “It’s horribly timed. If Venables is trying to claw back sympathy, he’s going about it the wrong way.” Laurence adds: “The case 20 years ago really affected me. "At the end of the trial I had terrible flashbacks and ­nightmares.

"It took me months to get back to any sort of normality.” Most Read Most Recent Jon Venables & Robert Thompson - YouTube Jon Venables & Robert Thompson Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Published on Jun 10, 2012 CCTV evidence from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle taken on 12 February 1993 showed Thompson and Venables casually observing children, apparently selecting a target.[6] The boys were playing truant from school, which they did regularly.[7] Throughout the day, Thompson and Venables were seen stealing various items including sweets, a troll doll, some batteries and a can of blue paint,[8] some of which were later found at the murder scene.[9] It was later revealed by one of the boys that they were planning to find a child to abduct, lead him to the busy road alongside the mall, and push him into the path of oncoming traffic.[10] That same afternoon, James Bulger (often called "Jamie" by the press, although never by his family),[11] from nearby Kirkby, went with his mother Denise to the New Strand Shopping Centre. While inside the A.R.

Tym's butcher shop at around 3:40 pm, Denise, who had been momentarily distracted, realised that her son had disappeared.[3][12] He had been wandering by the open door of the shop while she placed an order, and was spotted by Thompson and Venables. They approached him and spoke to him, before taking him by the hand and leading him out of the precinct.[13] This moment was captured on a CCTV camera recording timestamped at 15:42 .[14][15] The boys took Bulger on a meandering 2.5-mile (4.0 km) walk across Liverpool to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal where he was dropped on his head and suffered injuries to his face.

The boys joked about pushing Bulger into the canal.[7][16] During the walk across Liverpool, the boys were seen by 38 people.[17] Bulger had a bump on his forehead and was crying, but most bystanders did nothing to intervene, assuming that he was a younger brother.[18][19] Two people challenged the older boys, but they claimed that Bulger was a younger brother or that he was lost and they were taking him to the local police station.[20] At one point, the boys took Bulger into a pet shop, from which they were ejected.[16] Eventually the boys arrived in the village of Walton, and with Walton Lane police station across the road facing them, they hesitated and led Bulger up a steep bank to a railway line near the disused Walton & Anfield railway station, close to Anfield Cemetery, where they began torturing him.[7] James Bulger being abducted by Thompson (above Bulger) and Venables (holding Bulger's hand) in an image recorded on shopping centre CCTV.

At the trial it was established that at this location, one of the boys threw blue Humbrol modelling paint, which they had shoplifted earlier, into Bulger's left eye.[11] They kicked and stamped on him, and threw bricks and stones at him. Batteries were placed in Bulger's mouth.[21] Police believed some batteries may have been inserted into his anus, although none were found there.[3] Finally, a 22-pound (10.0 kg) iron bar, described in court as a railway fishplate, was dropped on him.[22][23][24] Bulger suffered ten skull fractures as a result of the iron bar striking his head. Dr. Alan Williams, the case's pathologist, stated that Bulger suffered so many injuries—42 in total—that none could be isolated as the fatal blow.[25] Category The boys who killed James Bulger The boys who killed James Bulger Jane Cornwell Pin to Pinterest Link Off the rails … CCTV footage of Jon Venables (left) and Robert Thompson taken in The Strand shopping centre on the day of James Bulger's abduction.

Photo: Corbis It was Friday lunchtime in the strand shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside, six kilometres from the heart of Liverpool. It wasn't as busy as on a Saturday, but it was crowded enough for two 10-year-old boys to skip school, wander about getting up to no good and arouse more irritation than suspicion. The Strand had more than 100 shops, set over two floors. It was probably around the time the boys were seen tapping on the window of a shop on the upper level, trying to beckon a toddler outside, that Denise Bulger was queuing downstairs in film processing store The Photo Expert with her two-year-old son, James. Accompanied by her brother's fiancée and her brother's little girl, Denise took a restless James into shops including clothing retailer Marks & Spencer and supermarket chain Tesco before ducking into A. R. Tyms Butchers. Denise wanted to buy some chops for her husband Ralph's tea. SHARE Forever young … James Bulger, aged two. Photo: Getty Images A. R.

Tyms was to be their last stop; after that the group planned on heading back to Kirkby, a tough, unemployment-hit suburb the press called "baby Beirut" in this impoverished pocket of north-west England. The pair of junior truants had been nicking stuff all morning: batteries, a clockwork soldier, some blue Humbrol model paint. At some point they decided to nick a toddler. It was a terrible dare shared by two damaged children with warped chemistry; it seems fair to say neither boy would have tried to take a child on his own. They managed to coax a youngster a few metres out of department store T. J. Hughes before his anxious mother ran out and scooped him up. Undeterred, they looked around the lower concourse - which still has the same beige tiles and strip lights - and saw little James Bulger standing in the doorway of A. R. Tyms. SHARE Horrific find … the spot where James Bulger's body was found. Photo: Corbis Denise only turned her back for a minute. She'd taken out her purse, and the assistant had got the order mixed up.

The next thing, James - a Thomas the Tank Engine-loving livewire with a healthy curiosity, a ready laugh and an innocent's trust in human nature - was gone. "I remember the Tannoy announcing that a little boy was missing," says Gaynor Davis, 44, who was working in The Photo Expert on Friday, February 12, 1993. "That evening the police asked if we'd come back into the Strand so they could check to see he wasn't locked inside somewhere." Advertisement Davis answered the phone and grabbed the shop keys: "They knew the little boy and his mother had been in here earlier; they thought he might be curled up in one of the big wooden pigeon holes where we used to keep the prints." Davis pauses, her gaze steady. A stuffed toy beagle and a tiny watering can, props for the children's studio portraits that are available all day for only £5.99, sit on a high shelf behind her. "They should have got the chair for what they done, those kids. One of them is back inside now, isn't he?" She puts both of her hands on the counter, steadying herself.

"Once evil, always evil." SHARE No time to forgive … Denise Fergus, formerly Bulger, in Liverpool, 2010. Photo: Austral It is now 20 years since blond, blue-eyed James Patrick Bulger was abducted from the Strand by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. Twenty years since he was forced to walk four kilometres to a desolate stretch of railway line, where he was beaten, pelted with stones and had blue paint splattered in his eye before being bashed to death with an iron bar. His little half-naked body was discovered on the tracks two days later on Valentine's Day, sliced in half by a speeding train. A group of boys had found the body - at first they thought it was a broken doll - and had rushed screaming down the overgrown embankment to Walton Lane police station, only a couple of hundred metres away. SHARE Pin to Pinterest Link Won't let go … Ralph Bulger, the father of James Bulger leaves Liverpool Crown Court after Venables' parole hearing in 2011.

Photo: AAP "I've dealt with many murders but I've never seen the extent of the injuries that were inflicted on someone incapable of defending himself," says Albert Kirby, 67, who was then head of the Merseyside Police Serious Crime Squad. "You couldn't think the person responsible for this was a child." News of the murder left Britain reeling. How could two 10-year-olds be capable of such an abhorrent deed? What possessed them to torture and kill a baby (in their separate police interviews, both Thompson and Venables would refer to James as "the baby"), in the most brutal way, for no apparent reason? What kind of nation could allow this to happen? "A nation in moral decay," said the then shadow home secretary, Tony Blair. SHARE Dark deed … Mary Bell, convicted of murdering two young boys in 1968. Photo: Getty Images Britain's tabloids labelled the boys "evil beasts" and "depraved monsters". Front pages and TV news programs from Amsterdam to Sydney featured that now iconic, blurry CCTV image of the trusting James being led from the Strand by the two older boys, his tiny legs hurrying to keep up. Then, as now, there were so many questions.

Did the boys understand the seriousness of their actions? Were they capable of understanding? At that time, children between 10 and 14 could be tried for criminal behaviour in Great Britain only if the prosecution could prove the offender had known that what they were doing was seriously wrong - a rebuttal of the presumption of doli incapax (the incapability of criminal intent). Bulger's prosecutors did this, paving the way for Thompson and Venables to be tried in an adult court. The oak walls of the old-fashioned Crown Court in Preston, Lancashire, featured gargoyles and paintings of 18th-century judges. Its dock was specially raised so that the two boys could see over it. "They knew what they were doing was wicked," writes Ralph Bulger in My James, a memoir to be published this week. "Thompson and Venables had plenty of opportunities to walk away from James, to let him live, but they never showed an ounce of compassion or feeling for a tiny boy whose life had barely started." Albert Kirby agrees, saying, "I've always maintained, even as a Christian, that they summarised the true sense of evilness," he tells me in his calm, measured tones.

Many police at the scene were traumatised by the extent of James's injuries (42 in all). Everyone involved - from the juror who recoiled when asked to hold the iron bar that killed James, to Ralph's brother Jimmy, who had the scarring task of identifying his nephew's remains - was psychologically affected. "What we were faced with then was something none of us [in the police force] had ever faced before," Kirby says. "The only similar case prior to this one was the Mary Bell case from 1968." Mary Bell was 11 when she was convicted of the manslaughter of two small boys in Newcastle, in north-east England, and 23 when she was controversially released with a new identity. Just as Bell was deemed "evil" by the tabloids then (and with each fresh airing now), so does Kirby maintain that James's killers were born bad - that they are bad eggs, aberrations. There were other details. Details withheld from the press and from Denise, who at the time of the trial in November 1993 was pregnant with her and Ralph's second son, Michael, and stayed away. "The evidence came out in court as to what the sexual injuries were," says Kirby.

James's foreskin had been forcibly retracted; a battery may have been forced into his rectum. "But because of the additional anxiety this would have caused, the prosecutor and counsel didn't run it on a murder and sexual gratification charge. They ran it on a murder charge." A pause: "At the end the outcome was the same." After being found guilty in November 1993, Thompson and Venables became the youngest convicted murderers in Britain for almost 300 years. "An act of unparalleled evil and barbarity," said Mr Justice Morland before sentencing them to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure for a minimum of eight years, the normal substitute sentence for life imprisonment when the offender is a juvenile. After agreeing that the two boys should be publicly identified, the judge set an order in place forbidding the disclosure of their whereabouts. Outside the court the crowd surged towards the police vans as Thompson and Venables left for their separate secure children's homes, never to see each other again.

In 1994, the home secretary, Michael Howard, increased the boys' minimum sentence to 15 years following a petition from James Bulger's family with signatures from 278,000 people who believed that the duo should never be released. In 1999, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that putting children on trial in such an environment was unfair, and reinstated the original minimum sentence. "The issue of the minimum tariff the killers had to serve had been a political hot potato ever since the boys' original conviction," writes Ralph Bulger, "and the goalposts kept being moved." In his 2010 memoirs, former UK prime minister Tony Blair admits he was wrong to try to take political advantage of the killing, blaming it on years of Tory rule: "I took the easy but ultimately flawed conclusion that our society had broken down. Of course it hadn't as a whole, only in part." It was under Blair's watch that the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 set the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales at 10 years old, making it one of the lowest in the Western world.

Pam Hibbert, chair of the National Association for Youth Justice and a former manager at Red Bank secure children's unit in St Helens, Merseyside - where Jon Venables was sent after sentencing, and Mary Bell before him - is campaigning for a change in the British law. "The number of children aged 10 years old who commit very serious offences is low and always has been," she says. "But the response to the Bulger case absolutely closed down any debate over whether the age of criminal responsibility is too low, which I believe it is." According to criminologist Professor Gwyneth Boswell of the University of East Anglia, "What you have to look at really is each individual according to intellectual and emotional maturity. I don't think children of 10 have developed sufficiently to know the difference between right and wrong. In Belgium, for example, the age is 18." Albert Kirby has heard it all before. "In this country we're streets ahead by having an age of 10. And now there is even stronger evidence to suggest that boys of that age have the ability to become involved in some quite serious sexual perversions." In their separate police interviews, both boys refused to answer questions about the crime's sexual element.

Venables became hysterical, hitting his father and weeping uncontrollably. Thompson was defiant, incensed at being called a pervert. Denise and Ralph's marriage broke down and they divorced in 1995. "Denise was a living reminder of what I had lost," writes Ralph Bulger. "I imagine she felt the same when she saw me. I think if we had stayed together any longer we would have ended up destroying each other." Both went on to remarry and have children with new partners, and now Ralph Bulger is in a new relationship again. Both have continued to express their dissatisfaction with a system bent on "rehabilitating" their son's killers instead of punishing them, deeming the actions mutually exclusive. Tabloid stories about the boys enjoying special privileges including PlayStations, holiday camps and football matches while they were locked up underscored their belief that Thompson and Venables had got off scot-free. "I am still full of hate," said Denise Bulger - now Denise Fergus - more than once. "I will do my best to hunt them down," said Ralph Bulger in 2000 when asked how he felt about the imminent release of Thompson and Venables.

"It was like there were two different worlds," states Ralph's older brother Jimmy in My James. "One for the millions of people like me and Ralph ... and the other world that seemed to be inhabited by the few, a lofty elite who appeared to be out of touch with the rest of us." In 2001, aged 18, Thompson and Venables were given new identities and released on a "life licence" which imposed strict conditions on what they could and couldn't do. Thompson has allegedly done okay: there were rumours that he'd fathered a child, that he was living with his gay partner in Australia. (The latter rumour was so persistent that the Howard government was moved to specifically deny it in 2006.) Venables has proved more problematic. At 17, while still inside the Red Bank secure children's unit, he'd been accused of having sex with a female care worker. For a while, once he was out, he appeared to be functioning. Then he started drinking, taking drugs. In 2008, aged 26, there was a scuffle outside a nightclub and an arrest for a small amount of cocaine.

Then, in July 2010, he was returned to prison for two years after pleading guilty to downloading and distributing indecent images of children. So what went wrong? was 18 too young to release a youth who'd been locked up during his formative years to then try and assume a new life under a new name, in a society where he could never tell anyone what he'd done? "Venables was dealt with in there with kid gloves," says Kirby. "When he went before the parole board, the evidence was there that he wasn't ready. But no doubt about it, he was released because they didn't want to be seen to be failing. "In the 12- to 18-month period before [his conviction for child pornography], there were a number of opportunities whereby the authorities could have brought him back in and given him further assistance in making that adjustment to life. But they failed to." "Somebody didn't ask the right questions, or wasn't properly qualified to do the job, or misinterpreted the signs," says Sharon Girling, a retired police investigator and the Child Protection Advocate at the International Foundation for Online Responsibility. "Why wasn't this picked up? There must be something in the risk assessment somewhere.

We're lucky he hasn't gone on and abducted another child." "The whole episode was a huge embarrassment for the government and the legal system," writes Ralph Bulger. "They had tried to 'cure' a savage killer and had failed. I only hoped that lessons had been learnt to safeguard the protection of all children for the future." Pam Hibbert feels that the blame lies partly in the fact that Thompson's and Venables' identities were revealed at the time of sentencing: "In the 2009 Edlington attacks" - which involved the torture and attempted murder of two boys aged 11 and nine by two brothers aged 10 and 12 in Yorkshire - "the judge quite rightly took the view that the boys shouldn't be named because it would mitigate against their chances of rehabilitation." She mentions the case of Silje Redergard, a five-year-old girl who was beaten and left to freeze to death by two six-year-old boys in Norway in October 1994. It's a case that - out of the glare of publicity - saw the boys remain with their families and back in school within the month. The echoes of the Bulger case are obvious.

But the reaction - of the public, of the murdered child's parents - was startlingly different. "I remember the mother of Silje saying, 'Something very bad must have happened to those boys to make them do this,' " says Hibbert. "Here in Britain it's either good or evil, which is crazy. Surely, if we believe that adults can be rehabilitated, we have to believe the same for children." For all his talk of "unparalleled evil", after the trial Justice Morland called for a public debate about parenting and the two convicted boys' family backgrounds. Venables' mother and father had joint care of their three children, two of whom - Jon's siblings - had learning difficulties. At school Jon gave his teachers cause for concern with behaviour that included rocking and moaning, banging his head on his desk and hanging from a coat peg like a bat. Robert Thompson was the fifth of seven children in a family that was textbook dysfunctional. Abandoned by their father, with an alcoholic mother who had a history of violence and stints in care, the Thompson siblings had a history of violence and stints in care, and were streetwise beyond their years. Or seemed to be; Robert was bullied by his brothers for sucking his thumb.

Thompson used to pick on Venables until they were kept down a year at school and put into the same class. They forged a common bond by bunking off school, shoplifting and mucking about; they liked frightening elderly ladies by jumping out at them in the street. Each boy blamed the other for the murder. The 38 witnesses who saw the boys walking the route with James didn't single out either of the boys as the main culprit. Thompson was held to be a sort of malevolent Pied Piper, leading the impressionable Venables on a macabre dance. When the news came in 2010 that one of James's killers had been recalled to prison, most people assumed that it was Thompson. "When I first met Jon I would never have believed he was involved," says Laurence Lee, Venables' then solicitor, when we meet in a cafe opposite the Crown Court building in central Liverpool. "He looked like an angelic eight-year-old, and was a very convincing little liar. At first I thought, 'What am I doing here?

He's never been near the Strand!' Until Thompson admitted to being there in his interview and that was put to Venables, and the screaming and wailing began: 'Okay, I might have been there, but I never killed a kid!' " Lee, 59, blinks behind his wire-rimmed specs. "That was a spooky, scary moment," he says. "I think Venables realised straight off - as much as a 10-year-old can - that his life was over. "He was a much more vulnerable child than Thompson. Thompson was hard-headed enough to get on with life; Venables, unfortunately, hit drink and drugs very quickly. He might have been at liberty, but he was never free." It wasn't until the case was over that Lee started having nightmares about being run over by a ghost train: "You didn't have post-traumatic stress in those days. Today I'd probably be off on six months' paid leave." It's a bright winter's day in Liverpool. The city has blossomed in recent years, and wherever I go, I'm met with the same open friendliness. Everyone remembers the Bulger case.

Even if they were just children themselves, even if they weren't even born then, they know. Because in a way it wasn't just Thompson and Venables on trial, and their parents on trial-by-media with them (both families moved away after their sons' convictions and took on new identities). It was as if the city of Liverpool was in the dock as well. "Liverpool was a very different city then to what it is now," says Mark Thomas, editor of The Liverpool Post, and author of Every Mother's nightmare: The Murder of James Bulger. "Liverpool had come through 15 years of real hard-core economic depression and was a pretty demoralised region at the time," he tells me as we sit in his office overlooking the busy newsroom. "But the one thing the Hillsborough disaster helped generate was a spirit of unity, a sense of protectiveness and closing ranks." Four years before James's murder, 96 Liverpool football fans had been crushed to death at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield. The Sun newspaper erroneously pinned the blame on the Liverpool fans, on a bunch of drunken Scousers misbehaving at a football match. The lie cut deep - but it brought Liverpudlians together.

Some 23 years later, on September 12, 2012, following the Hillsborough Independent Panel's report, The Sun (still commonly referred to in Liverpool as "The Scum") finally issued a formal apology to the people of Liverpool. "But this [the Bulger case] concerned two people from within Liverpool's own community, committing an unimaginable crime on another child from within that community," Thomas says. "People here didn't know how to rationalise that." It was easier, perhaps, to insist that the boys "were born evil", to label them as psychopaths. This vindicated the mobs who pounded their fists on police vans, who were sure that Thompson and Venables would kill again, who advocated locking them up and throwing away the key. In that sense, it absolved them of any collective responsibility. But like Hillsborough, it also brought people together. There is no doubt that the mass weeping for James, that the laying of flowers, soft toys and handwritten cards on that stretch of Walton railway line, was borne of genuine feeling. "Self-Pity City" ran a headline in The Sunday Times, for which it, too, later apologised.

Such accusations of mawkishness only served to strengthen the divides thrown up by the case: working class versus the chattering classes; rehabilitation versus punishment; good versus evil. For a long while, Denise Fergus was treated with something approaching disdain by the liberal media. The marches, rallies and publicity that she organised through her own justice campaign variously saw her riding in the cab of a truck draped in "Justice for James" banners on the day of Thompson and Venables's release; demanding to see photos of the adult Thompson and Venables (arguably leading to vigilantes posting photos on the internet); and in February 2012 speaking out against Robert Thompson's plans to sue News International, publishers of the now defunct News of the World, after police confirmed that his phone had been hacked. "It would be a terrible insult to James's memory if the animal who murdered him was to receive a payment," she told the Daily Mirror. Fergus didn't give articulate interviews speaking about forgiveness for her son's killers, like Silje Redergard's mother. She wasn't awarded an OBE for her services to community relations like Doreen Lawrence, mother of the murdered black British teenager Stephen Lawrence.

Indeed, by demanding to know why the adult Venables was recalled to prison, she was held to be stirring up a lynch mob. She was too angry, too raw, too working class. "Tormented as she undoubtedly still is, she clearly revels in a role for which her background makes her perfectly suited," wrote Charlotte Raven in The Guardian in 2001. Arguably, Fergus wasn't the right kind of victim. "The really sad thing about these two [Ralph Bulger and Denise Fergus] is that no one seems to have helped them move forward," says criminologist Gwyneth Boswell. "It seems to me they've been encouraged to continue the hatred. You've only got to look at their faces to see this hasn't helped them." "You can't tell people how to channel hatred, or how to mourn," says Laurence Lee. "People grieve in different ways. Denise has been tremendous in her charitable work, especially of late." Fergus currently helms the James Bulger Memorial Trust, a charity founded on March 16, 2011 to mark James's 21st birthday, which offers support to young people who have become the victims of crime, hatred or bullying.

"James lives on as far as she is concerned," adds Lee. "Quite rightly." In June 2011, Venables lost his bid to be released on parole for a second time. In November of that year, it was reported that he is being kept in prison for his own safety - because he can't be trusted to keep his identity a secret. "He used to say to me, 'I don't want to get out, 'cause I know what will happen to me,' " says Lee. "From an early age he was looking over his shoulder. He was always scared. "This case was so unique at the time, children killing children. Youth crime is a lot worse these days ... Ten is the right age of criminal responsibility. I don't care what the do-gooders say." Lee stands to leave; he's due back in court to help defend a Mr Big involved in a massive alleged tax fraud*. "Have you been down to the Strand?" he says. "It hasn't changed one iota. It's a time warp." Except that some of the shops that were there on that February day in 1993 aren't there any more. T. J. Hughes department store is an empty shell.

"My son was the same age back then," says Jenny Johnson, 45, at Discount Fruits. "We all went out and bought them child reins; suddenly there were all these little kids on leads everywhere." "[James] was naturally nosy and friendly," writes Ralph Bulger, "and he would have been in seventh heaven looking around at all the shops and all the people there that day." What was A. R. Tyms Butchers is a charity shop selling second-hand furniture and homewares. "There's no one in Bootle who doesn't know the Bulger case," says a strapping young sales assistant, John Sefton, who tells me that he lives out by Kirkdale Cemetery, where James Bulger's grave is tucked away under a tree with a sign that reads "James's Special Place". "I'm the age that he would be now," he adds. I'm taken aback. With James Bulger frozen in time as a smiling blond toddler, it's easy to forget he'd also be a young man today had he lived. * An earlier version of this story said Laurence Lee was set to "prosecute" an alleged drug dealer. This was incorrect. Mr Lee is a defence lawyer, not a prosecutor.

BBC ON THIS DAY | 14 | 1993: A murder that shocked the nation About This Site | Text Only 1993: A murder that shocked the nation On 14 February 1993, police confirmed a body found on a Merseyside railway embankment was that of missing two-year-old James Bulger. The toddler had disappeared two days previously from the Strand Shopping Centre, Bootle, during a shopping trip with his mother. Two 10-year-old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, were convicted of his murder in November 1993. They were released in 2001 and now live under protected identities The horrifying nature of James' death - and the fact the murderers were children themselves - shocked the community and the nation. Your email memories below were received about the time of the 10th anniversary of James Bulger's disappearance in 2003. I remember being horrified at the time, but now I am a mother myself to a 9 month old boy, I am shocked at how badly this tragedy still affects me.

I just cannot get out of my head what that poor boy must have gone through and what his parents will go through for the rest of their lives. Sarah, England What kind of society do we live in? Nothing seems to have changed in the last 10 years, its still not safe for our children whatever their age. Carolyn Kerr, Scotland Even 10 years on the murder of little James horrifies me. The awful CCTV images of him being lead to his death will haunt me forever and I still cannot bear to think about what he must have gone through in the last minutes of his life. Bill, UK I probably have become over-protective towards both my children Julie Jenkins, UK I gave birth to my son the day before James was taken, I just remember cuddling him and praying that James would be found safe and well. I couldn't understand how anyone could hurt such a lovely little lad and I still don't. It still makes me overwhelmingly sad to think about him and I probably have become over-protective towards both my children. Julie Jenkins, UK I don't think any story had so much impact for me as the murder of James Bulger.

Pregnant with my son at the time, I could only watch in horror as the story unfolded. When the CCTV footage was released, people everywhere were aghast with shock that two boys had abducted him. In the way that terrible tragedy does, I think it brought parents closer together and we not only became more watchful of our own children but also of others. Not long afterwards, various stores were selling out of wrist link bands (a link tied from parent to toddler) in an effort to prevent another terrible occurence. Katy, UK I remember this horrific time so well. I was 13 and I had a two-year-old neighbour who I was very close to. I just couldn't see how anyone could hurt a child. All I wanted to do at this age was care for children and it was so shocking to me, it took me a long time to come to terms with it all, to comprehend that children could be so cruel. Even now reading about it all again brings back tears, so sad. James was a beautiful little boy and all I can say is at least he is in a better place now. I live in the US now but I will always remember the little boy who touched all our hearts 10 years ago.

He will never be forgotten. Fiona, US It still horrifies me today as much as it did then Dave Hawkins, England My thoughts are still with James' family. It still horrifies me today as much as it did then. How an earth could two ten-year-old boys do something so horrific is beyond me. I will always remember the haunting picture of James that was on the news. Dave Hawkins, England I was 11-years-old at the time this happened, now 10 years on it still horrifies me as much as it did then. Being only a year older than the killers I strongly disagree that they did not know what they were doing at the time. Laura, UK I was 10 at the time of the Bulger murder. The one thing that sticks in my mind, was that when those boys were caught there was a big debate as to whether they were old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. Being 10 myself I knew it was wrong. A terrible tragedy, and I am very sad that the boys have already been released. Polly, England I - like the rest of the country - had been hoping James Bulger would be found safe.

At that time I had been a Special Constable for four years and was contemplating quitting. It made me think again and, 10 years on, I am still a Special. During the past 10 years I have helped many people who have been injured or needed assistance and will continue to do so for as long as I can. My thoughts are with James' family. Ian, England We are still grieving for beautiful young James Paul Duffy, Liverpool In a world which seems that we are less and less likely to be shocked by its horrors, the age of the perpetrators and the sheer brutality of this case still make shivers run down my spine. I find it equally chilling that our justice system sees it fit for them to be released (having paid their debt) after only eight years. Simon Ellis, US ex-UK Just a few words to say the whole city of Liverpool is still right behind the Bulger family. I/We are still grieving for beautiful young James. Paul Duffy, Liverpool I'll never forget watching all the coverage of James going missing and when they found him. I was so shocked and horrified when they announced that it was two young boys who had murdered him. Personally, I think Thompson and Venables should still remain behind bars.

I watched the coverage shown when they were interviewed by police. They knew what they were doing and I could not see any remorse being shown. I just hope that James Bulger's parents and family can get on with their lives as best they can. Mary, US (from Ireland) My son was the same age and I think I became overly protective. Mary Anne Kloss, US To this day, it still haunts me. I think I went into shock for a few months back in 1993. My son was the same age and I think I became overly protective. The worst part was expecting it to be some sick and depraved adult and to find out it was children who did this made me disgusted and even angrier. Mary Anne Kloss, US It is a news story that never leaves my mind. As the mother of a two-year-old boy I can't even imagine the trauma and despair Jamie's parents feel at losing their beautiful son in such a horrific way.Why would anyone do such a thing to an innocent boy? Annette We are doing a school project about baby James's murder. We are very sorry this pain his parents and other family members has to go through.

I was a little girl in 1993, so it is the first time I have heard about this terrible and scary story. We are very sorry. Nadia, Denmark The Jamie Bulger murder was one of the first high profile child murders that I remember. I was only six years old at the time, but I have never forgotten it and never will. The reason it has stuck in my mind so clearly after all this time is because the killers were children themselves. Jamie Bulger's killers served their sentences in secure accommodation where they had access to many privileges that had not been available to them before they were arrested. The judge who heard the facts of the case and handed out their sentences ordered that they should be held in custody for 'very, very many years to come'. I was expecting them to serve around 15 years, as younger offenders always receive more lenient sentences than adults. Alex Wilkes, England Jon Venables - Mirror News Jon Venables Jon Venables and classmate Robert Thompson murdered James Bulger in 1993 when only 10 years old. They abducted two-year-old James from a shopping centre in Bootle then tortured and killed him.

They were released in 2001 on life licence with new identities after serving eight years. However, Venables, had his parole revoked in 2010 and was jailed for two years. He was granted parole again in July 2013. James Bulger murder: 'I will never forget mother's scream' - BBC News BBC News James Bulger murder: 'I will never forget mother's scream' 12 February 2013 Close share panel Image caption Albert Kirby has lived with the James Bulger case for the last 20 years The man who brought the 10-year-old killers of James Bulger to justice says he will never forget the moment the toddler's mother realised her son was dead. Det Ch Supt Albert Kirby met James's mother Denise as she walked with a family liaison officer in the car park at Marsh Lane Police Station in Bootle. "I just walked toward Denise and she must have realised the worst and she just let out this blood-curdling scream," said Mr Kirby, who had just returned to the station from the murder scene.

Two-year-old James was killed by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson after being snatched by them from a shopping centre in Bootle on 12 February 1993. Mr Kirby, who led the inquiry into James's murder, has lived with the crime for the past 20 years. "I will always be known as the man who dealt with the James Bulger inquiry," he said. As an incredulous nation tried to comprehend the brutal child-on-child murder Mr Kirby felt "the tremendous responsibility under the glare of the media and public and also all the emotional issues which came out, as well as having to deal with my own staff who were as emotionally touched by it as anybody else". 'Difficult to believe' He said: "I think it affected us all. We knew quite quickly that James had been taken from his mother by two boys but didn't realise how young they were. Child killers Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were convicted of killing two-year-old James Bulger in Bootle, Merseyside, in 1993. Thompson, who was released in 2001 after eight years in detention, was given a new secret identity and address.

Venables was also released on licence in 2001 after serving his sentence but was jailed for two years in July 2010 after admitting downloading and distributing indecent images of children. He has been refused parole. "When we went to the murder scene we found it difficult to equate what had happened at the scene with the action of two young boys who were then 10 years of age." Mr Kirby said it was not the most difficult crime he had to solve as a detective but added: "With James the other issues made it very very difficult - the public expectations and the emotional side of it." Mr Kirby said at first police thought James was lost after the two boys had taken him from The Strand Shopping Centre, in Bootle. Yet once continuing sightings placed him further and further away from The Strand, he said "we had to readjust our thinking and think 'blimey there's going to be a strong possibility that they have done the murder'". Image caption James Bulger's body was found two days after he was snatched Mr Kirby said the only reaction of he and his team at the end of the trial was a sense of relief.

"Normally with detectives at the end of any inquiry you would have some form of celebration, a few pints. That never happened. "It was coming up to Christmas and we were just glad we could enjoy the Christmas holidays." Twenty years on Mr Kirby said he feels no upset at recalling the inquiry. "It has stayed with me but I don't look upon that as a downside. I was a professional detective and I did my job - that is what was expected of me," he said. 'Why kill James?' "In the years that followed, you've always had the issues. Did Robert Thompson and Jon Venables do long enough? "Should they be out? What happened with Venables? We are still dealing with them 20 years on. "James's murder highlighted to all commentators and observers that children were capable of doing some very evil and violent things. "The question is always why? Even now I don't know why they did it. "Sadly we were able to show on that day they set out to murder - they tried to take another boy a couple of hours earlier who they were going to shove under a bus outside the shopping precinct. "I don't know anyone who has heard what their explanation is.

"It fascinates people because we all think of our own children." James Bulger: Jon Venables and Robert Thompson kidnapping timeline | Daily Mail Online Jon Venables - who along with Robert Thompson abducted and murdered two-year-old James Bulger in 1993 - is back behind bars after breaching the conditions of his release from prison. Here is a timeline of events surrounding the events which led to the schoolboys' convictions. Behind bars: Jon Venables in 1993 held over the murder of James Bulger, right February 12, 1993: Two-year-old James Bulger is snatched during a shopping trip to the Strand shopping centre, in Bootle, Merseyside. February 13: Parents Denise and Ralph Bulger make an emotional appeal for the safe return of their son, while detectives release stills from the shopping centre's CCTV cameras. The images become iconic of the dreadful crime and show James being led away by the hand. February 14: The toddler's battered body is found by children playing on a freight railway line 200 yards from Walton Lane police station, Liverpool, and more than two miles from the Strand shopping centre.

RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share February 18: Two 10-year-old boys are arrested in connection with the murder of James, and later charged. They are the youngest to be charged with murder in the 20th century. February 22: There are violent scenes outside South Sefton magistrates' court in Bootle, when the two primary school pupils make their first appearance, then known as Child A and Child B. March 1: James Bulger is buried. Shocked a nation: A police tent marks the spot where two-year-old James Bulger's body was found November 24: Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, now both aged 11, are convicted of James Bulger's murder following a 17-day trial at Preston Crown Court. They are ordered to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure, the normal substitute sentence for life imprisonment when the offender is a juvenile. June, 1994: Home Secretary Michael Howard is handed a petition from James's family, signed by 278,300 people who believe the schoolboy killers should never be released.

July: The eight-year sentence tariff set by the trial judge, which has already been increased to 10 years by Lord Chief Justice Lord Taylor of Gosforth, is increased again to 15 years by the Home Secretary. November: News of the Bulgers' troubled marriage hits the headlines and they finally part some 17 months later. Both later settle with new partners. June, 1997: The Law Lords rule by a majority that Mr Howard has acted illegally in raising the boys' tariff. March, 1999: The European Commission on Human Rights finds that Thompson and Venables were denied a fair trial and fair sentencing by an impartial and independent tribunal. November: Chief Inspector of Prisons David Ramsbotham prompts an outcry by saying Thompson and Venables should be released soon after their 18th birthdays. He later apologises to Home Secretary Jack Straw. Campaign: Denise Fergus, the mother of James, protests against the release of Venables and Thompson in 2001 December: The European Court of Human Rights echoes the Commission's conclusion, saying the schoolboys had not received a fair trial.

March, 2000: Mr Straw says he will not set a date for Thompson and Venables' release. October: Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf reinstates the trial judge's original tariff, paving the way for their release. January, 2001: James Bulger's killers win an unprecedented court order from High Court judge Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss which grants them anonymity for the rest of their lives. June: Thompson and Venables are freed under new identities. November, 2004: It emerges that James' mother, now known as Denise Fergus, tracked down Robert Thompson but was 'paralysed with hatred' and could not confront him. April, 2007: It is revealed that the Government has spent £13,000 preventing overseas magazines revealing the killers' new identities. June: A computer game is withdrawn because it appears to contain images based on the CCTV stills of James being led away from the Strand shopping centre. March 16, 2008: Eighteen red balloons are released during a private ceremony at Kirkdale Cemetery to mark what would have been James Bulger's 18th birthday.

March 2, 2010: Venables has been returned to prison after breaching the terms of his release, the Ministry of Justice said. Profile: Jon Venables - BBC News BBC News Close share panel Image caption Venables fell into drug addiction and alcohol abuse following his release from prison in 2001 Jon Venables was just 10 years old when he and friend Robert Thompson murdered toddler James Bulger. Venables served seven years of a life sentence for the 1993 murder before he was freed in June 2001, aged 18. He was given a new name, a job and a flat on his release to try to ensure his security and give him an "ordinary" life. Had he gone on to lead such a life, that might have been the last the British public ever heard about Jon Venables. But at the age of 27, Venables finds himself back in the headlines and back behind bars having been jailed for two years after pleading guilty to charges of downloading and distributing indecent images of children. A lifetime ban was placed on reporting anything about either his or Thompson's whereabouts or their new identities after their release.

New details The ban relating to Venables was partially lifted on Friday at the Old Bailey after he was jailed for the offences under the 1978 Protection of Children Act. The judge revealed that Venables had been living in Cheshire at the time of the offences, and that the case was dealt with by Cheshire police and Cheshire probation service. It was also revealed that Cheshire police had produced a "threat assessment" to try to establish what could happen to Venables were his new identity revealed. That assessment concluded that Venables would face the highest possible risk of being attacked if his name was either published in the media or known elsewhere in society. Police had even trained him in counter-surveillance after he was told he would have to "live and hold a lie" for the rest of his life. Venables worked full-time in a job with anti-social hours, earning close to the minimum wage, the court heard. Then in 2007, he started drinking heavily and taking drugs, including cocaine and the recently-banned substance mephedrone. On 20 September 2008, he was held on suspicion of affray over a street fight with a man who claimed Venables had attacked his girlfriend.

Both men were charged with a public order offence, but this was later dropped. Image caption James was killed a month before his third birthday Venables was formally warned by the Probation Service for breaking a "good behaviour" clause in his licence. Three months later, police cautioned him for possessing cocaine, and a requirement was added to his licence ordering him to address his alcohol and drug problems, the court was told. It was not until February that it emerged Venables had been recalled to prison for breaching the conditions of his release. The Ministry of Justice refused to reveal any details, but the then Justice Secretary Jack Straw did say the recall was prompted by "extremely serious allegations". Venables was later charged with three offences. The first involved downloading 57 indecent pictures of children on to his computer between February 2009 and February 2010. The second involved distributing three indecent photographs of children in February 2010, while a third involved distributing 42 images in February 2008. He pleaded guilty to these charges. Some of the images involved children as young as two years old and some showed the rape of young girls.

The Old Bailey also heard that in 2008 Venables had posed as a mother offering to sell her daughter for sex during three online chats. It was on 12 February 1993 that two-year-old James Bulger was snatched from the New Strand Centre in Bootle, on Merseyside, while his mother Denise was shopping. The moment was caught on CCTV and became the defining image of a horrific case. In the picture, it is Venables who is holding James's hand. 'Unparalleled evil' Two days later, after a huge police search, James's battered body was found on a railway line more than two miles away. A few days later, Venables and Thompson were arrested and charged - the youngest people to be accused of murder in the 20th Century. They were tried as adults and made to stand in the dock away from their parents, while the judges and barristers wore full gowns and wigs. Some seven years later, the Court of Human Rights would rule that they should never have been tried in an adult court. During the trial, the full horror of James' death emerged. He had been tortured - beaten with bricks and an iron bar.

He had so many injuries it was hard to determine which had been fatal. In court, Venables was the more emotional of the two defendants, crying openly and leaning against the shoulder of his social worker. Both boys were said to have had difficult home lives and both had been playing truant from school on the day of the killing. They were convicted after a 17-day trial and only then were their names and faces revealed. Summing up, the judge, Mr Justice Morland, told them they had committed a crime of "unparalleled evil and barbarity". But he also laid blame with their parents, calling for a public debate about "the home background, upbringing, family circumstances, parental behaviour and relationships" of children who commit "grave crimes".

Question: Who did Jon Venables and Robert Thompson kidnap from a shopping centre in Bootle, Liverpool on 12 February 1993?
Answer: James Bulger