James Bulger's Killers To Be Freed

[Muzna]

So Venables and Thompson will each emerge from their detention with new identities and passports.

For their protection.


Quoted from a CNN report:
"Last October the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, effectively ended the boys' tariff -- the minimum period they must spend in custody.

He ruled that it would not benefit them to spend time in what he dubbed the "corrosive atmosphere" of a young offenders' institution."

Both of these guys are being released after serving the minimum sentence of eight years for a vicious and most heinous crime.

Should they not be locked up for good and the key thrown away? What do you think?

[who---me]

who are they... whats the story?

[Nadia_H]

Who-me - In the UK in 1993, John Venables and Robert Thompson (both then 10 years old) kidnapped, tortured, and then brutally murdered a 2 year old toddler, James Bulger. Both are now 18 years old, and a court has decided to release them from their detention centres within a couple of weeks, if not days.

Muzna - Venables and Thompson were never going to spend their entire lives in jail; the original plan was to have them released in 15 years, (they were going to be transferred to a young offenders institution (YOI) this August upon turning 19). Seen from this perspective, perhaps there is a solid argument to be made in favour of releasing them now rather than after they have spent 7-8 years in a YOI and become hardened, embittered criminals - with absolutely no hopes whatsoever of genuinely 'reforming' them.

Yes, I know I have the luxury of stating all of the above since I didn't personally know little James Bulger, and I know that, God Forbid, if anything like that happened to my little brother, I would most definitely want the perpetrators to never see the light of day again.. So it's a very tough decision.
I am fairly certain they will both be sent out of the UK - Canada and Australia have been touted as some of the likely destinations.

[Puther-Jibraan]

Now i think that they shouldn't be released. What are they gonna feel sorry for anyway. They probably don't even remember the crime that they commited. Besides a recent newspaper reposrt said that their "prisons" are more like that gaming paradise. They have everything that they want there.

------------------
Shakspeer kheta hai...

[CoolDude]

I reckon their parents should have been prosecuted as well. They let their kids run truant from school, clearly not teaching them good family values.

This left them with enough time to prowl the streets and kill and innocent 2 year old.

Did you know that they have had a better education (one to one) than a lot of their classmates they have left behind?? This system is crazy.

Eight years is far too less for the act of murder, esp if it was premeditated. An example needs to be set that commiting crime is wrong. If the parents had been prosecuted, how many of the parents of today would let their kids prowl the streets (esp at night) knowing that they could be put in jail if their kids did anything wrong???

[Najim]

Some Vigilanties are after them (according to BBC) ... so we never know what will happen. But in my opinion they should be kept in, releasing them is neither in their favour nor in public.

Even if they have new identities ... just imagine what would they say to their wives or GFs, well I am the todler killer Venables/Thompson but now I am Mr. TOM/HARRY. Can they hide their true identities for rest of their lives??? They can get any education in any institution unless they are given references from the past ... etc etc and if false records are created then the people who will create the record .. what assurance they will not leak out the information (delibrately or mistakenly in future).

Anyway .. its a long useless debate ... we cant do anything so ... let it be happen the way its happening and Allah will punish the wrong doers.

[NYAhmadiX]

If they are rehabed and are now fit to be released to the world, then Justice is well served. The Justice is not about keeping criminals behind the bars but making them better. I personally do not like the idea of ‘new identities’. They should be released by their own identities and be allowed to live in the society where they belong. Part of their rehab should be facing the society. Afterall, they were only 7 and 10 when they committed that horrific crime. Kids of that age have little idea of what is right and what is not.

[farhana]

they were both 10

and all 10 year olds know its wrong to kidnap, torture and kill a 2 year old child

theres no excuse for what they did

[Mr Xtreme]

It was a terrible crime but people seem to be forgetting that they were 10 yrs old. IMO the 'grown up' vigilantes who are threatening to kill them have bigger problems.

I believe at the time that there was a link made between the horror movie with Chuckie the doll in it and the Bulger killing - perhaps it served as an inspiration on impressionable young minds.

[CoolDude]

blame the parents.

I've seen young kids (around 10) around my neighbourhood streets at 11pm at night. Where are their parents? These kids have nothing to do so they end up doing mischeivious things. Make the parents take control of their kids. If they cannot, then the kids should go into a home where they can be cared for better.

Impressionable young minds need discipline and good role models to teach them what is right and wrong.

Over here in the UK we have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies. Even that tells you that something is wrong here.

[who---me]

Oh well looks like they are not welcome in aussie or NZ
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/story_5910.asp

Bulger killers not welcome, says Senator

WA SENATOR ROSS LIGHTFOOT SAYS THERE''S NO WAY JAMES BULGER''S KILLERS, EVEN WITH CHANGED IDENTITIES, COULD GET INTO AUSTRALIA UNANNOUNCED. Listen to Audio


Australia would not be allowed to become a haven for the world's troubled and dispossessed, Liberal Senator Ross Lightfoot said.

Senator Lightfoot was responding to an opposition call for the government to make clear its position regarding the now-teenaged killers of British toddler James Bulger.

Robert Thompson and Jon Venables will be given new identities upon their release after eight years in jail for the 1993 murder, and a plan has been floated to relocate them to another commonwealth country such as Australia or New Zealand.

On Sunday, federal opposition immigration spokesman Con Sciacca said the government should demand a written guarantee they would not be sent to Australia, saying Australia's penal colony days were long over.

"Australia is no longer a dumping ground for criminals - we stopped that 150, 180 years ago," Mr Sciacca said.

West Australian Senator Lightfoot said today the opposition's call was nothing more than a political stunt in view of the fact Britain had made no approach to the Australian government to resettle either youth here.

"It is inconceivable that even the Blair Labour government, after more than 130 years since the cessation of transportation, could be harbouring any remnant thoughts that Britain still considers Australia a dumping ground for the refuse of England's justice system," Senator Lightfoot said.

"Australia will not be allowed to become a refuge for the world's troubled and dispossessed."

Meanwhile, a former fellow inmate said Thompson was treated while in jail to weekend ice skating and soccer excursions.

A 21-year-old Australian man, known only as Andy, told Channel Nine he had spent 15-and-a-half months in the cell next to Thompson after being convicted of several armed robberies as a 15-year-old.

Andy said warders at the Barton Moss Secure Care Unit in Greater Manchester would dote on Thompson.

"(He got) privileges such as ice skating on weekends, football matches - Manchester United tickets to Old Trafford," Andy said.

"He used to go there regularly."

Thompson and Venables, then aged 10, bludgeoned James Bulger to death with bricks and left his body on a railway track where it was run over by a train.

New Zealand has said the two are not welcome there either.


------------------
Guy with the Urdu Custom Title :~P

[Muzna]

I believe that Canada had already made it clear that the two will not be welcome here either....

[Mem Sahib]

I did hear that the plan was that they be released 6 months or so before or after all this HUNGAMA - so for all we know they might even be out there now...

I studied this case in depth at college when we did child pyschology.. it was really freaky when we looked at the life of these 2 boys before they commited the crime, and Xtreme Sahib you are right, the film Child's play is where they got their inspiration from..

Personally I think it would be unfair to other countries of the world if we shifted these boys someplace else, its shifting the problem from one place to another rather than sorting it out,

James' mother believes that the boys will be killed by someone else...