‘Gay’ Jon Venables Linked To Baby P’s Killers On Facebook
JON Venables and James Bulger: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at Jon Venables in the news: The gay, Peter Achapman, Facebook killers, David Calvert and what is justice?
Jon Venables is only on one front page:
Daily Star (front page): “Venables outed on Facebook”
He’s gay? Robert Thompson is gay and lives with a man. Well, so say reports.
Can Jon Venables now be linked to Peter Chapman, the man who met Ashleigh Hall on Facebook and went on to rape and kill her?
Daily Mail (front page): “Facebook under Fire”
But surely Facebook has led to the recapture of Jon Venables? Back in the Star, then, where we learn:
A MAN has spoken of his terror after he was falsely accused of being James Bulger’s killer Jon Venables. Innocent dad David Calvert has been the victim of a sick web scam.
So, Jon Venables was not outed on Facebook. The Daily Star’s front-page headline is wrong, undone by the opening lines to its own story. Says David Calvert, who moved to Fleetwood, Lancs, in 2003, having done jail time for fraud:
“People have been turning up at my neighbours’ houses with pictures of the killers printed off the internet and saying one of them is me. Now I hear that threats are being made and I’m worried that someone will come for me or my girlfriend, or hurt my kids.
“I’m too scared to go out of the house now. I have these people saying they will get me out ‘no matter what’ and I’m terrified at what they might do.”
Maybe these idiots should read Anorak because – and this might come as a shock – we know where Jon Venables is. He’s in jail.
The page was called: “John Venables is David Calvert and lives in Fleetwood… kill the ****”.
By the time it was taken down yesterday, around 2,500 users had signed up, many posting insults and abuse. But the lies had also spread to other sites.
Mr Calvert is not Jon Venables. That’s a picture of Mr Calvert. But what do we know about Venables? If he lived in your street should you be concerned?
The Scotsman has more:
A PSYCHIATRIC assessment of James Bulger killer Jon Venables compiled before his release reportedly said he posed only a “trivial” risk to the public…
Venables had “come to terms” with James Bulger’s killing. The report says:
“The Jon Venables of today is a very different person to the Jon Venables aged 10. It has been a very important part of his rehabilitation so far that he has come to terms in a wholly realistic way with the awfulness of his behaviour eight years ago.”
Says the paper:
The judge who granted Venables’ anonymity has warned he could be murdered by vigilantes if his new identity is revealed.
Well, get a load of that Facebook campaign.
The Independent: “Terence Blacker: Jon Venables and a case of mob morality”
It is not truly interested in justice, fairness or security, this lust for punishment. Titillation disguised as morality, it seeks excitement in the day’s news, a real-life story of popular justice, with a conclusion – sad, perhaps even violent – that will leave a tingling sense of dramatic resolution, as in a good TV soap opera.
Curing Jon Venabels is one thing. But can he be prevented?
In an article about midwives and “five-star labour wards” readers learn:
Imagine how transforming it would be if all vulnerable women had five-star maternity support: mothers would bond better with their babies and – simplistic but true – there would be fewer Baby Ps, fewer Jon Venables.
While we inveatigate is Venables mum got gas and air or something stronger in the birth, we are invited to talk about rehab.
The Guardian: “Not all new starts for ex-offenders are what they seem – Rehabilitation agencies don’t always do what they say on the tin, says Eric Allison”
Last week, amid the furore over the re-arrest of Jon Venables, I was asked to take part in a debate on local radio. The question asked was: can leopards change their spots? Asking that of me – a former dedicated career criminal, turned honest hack – is like asking is the Pope a Catholic.
So, Jon Venables can be cured.
Daily Mail: “The sorry truth is that many sex offenders CAN’T be rehabilitated”
By Dr Ludwig Lowenstein
We do not live in Utopia. The darkest side of human nature cannot be wished away by therapy. We have to face the reality that rehabilitation is no universal panacea. If we are to protect the most vulnerable in our midst, we have to be vigorous in tackling these brutes.
Any other expert got a view?
The Times: “It’s hard to class a child as evil, says Venables’s former solicitor”
Jon Venables should still have an opportunity to be rehabilitated despite being recalled to custody for breaking the terms of his release on life licence, his former solicitor said yesterday. Laurence Lee said those working in the system should not give up on Venables, now 27, and that it was “very hard to class a child as evil”.
So, if not cured, can the “evil” Jon Venables be saved?
Daily Star: “PRIEST: I FEEL SORRY FOR JON VENABLES”
A CATHOLIC priest was blasted yesterday for saying he felt “immensely sorry” for Jon Venables. Father Ray Blake, from St Mary Magdalen Church in Brighton, claimed life must be “horrendous” for the killer.
Well, it must be, no?
Writing on his internet blog, Fr Blake said: “Just to excite the wrath of our local paper, I feel immensely sorry for Venables, as well as James Bulger and his poor mother.
“We are what we are. It must be horrendous for Venables to wake up every morning and see facing him in the mirror a hated child killer, carrying all the baggage of a corrupted childhood which led to murder, and the baggage which followed his conviction.”
Is that his punishment?
The Times: “Can Jon Venables have a fair trial?”
What’s fair?
The judge who granted life-long anonymity to the killers of the two-year-old James Bulger, has warned that Jon Venables could be murdered if his new identity is revealed.
Baroness Butler-Sloss, a cross-bench peer and former President of the High Court Family Division, has stressed the “enormous importance of protecting his anonymity now and if he is [again] released, because those who wanted to kill him in 2001 are likely to be out there now”.
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, agrees — for different reasons. Both the police and Director of Public Prosecutions had advised, he said, that “premature disclosure of information could undermine the integrity of the criminal justice process, including any potential prosecution”.
James Bulgers was killed. Nothing done can bring him back. Jon Venables is at the State’s mercy. What does he deserve? Who decides?
The Story so far:
Jon Venables: The Rapist, The Porn And The Parents
Life’s Been Hell For Jon Venables, James Bulger’s Killer Accused Of Possessing Child Porn
John Venables ‘Sex Crime’ As Jack Straw Forced To Meet James Bulger’s Mum Denise Fergus
James Bulger And Jon Venables: The Killer Worked As A Bouncer
James Bulger And Jon Venables: The Killer Is Identified
Jon Venables’ Girlfriend, A ‘Stabbing’ And A Politically Incorrect Jack Straw
James Bulger: This IS Jon Venables
James Bulger’s Killer Jon Venables: Pictures And Sickening Detail
Jon Venables Saved By The Nanny State
Posted: 10th, March 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
