James Bulger: What do you do with Thompson and Venables’ ‘unparalleled evil’?
JON Venables is front-page news. One of two-year-of James Bulger’s two ten-year-old killers is the subject of the Sun’s story:
“BULGER KILLER GROOMED ME FOR SEX”
Groomed? Like paedos groom? Grooming is the word the UK authorities use to describe a paedophile’s online communication with a child they plan to meet and abuse.
So, who did Jon Venables groom?
JAMES Bulger’s killer Jon Venables spent months trying to seduce a single mum online, she has revealed.
Can you groom a mentally able adult woman age 36? When does grooming become seducing?
Sarah Finn, 36, exchanged flirty messages with the “charming” suitor for nearly a year — unaware of his true identity. Venables, 30, tried repeatedly to get her to meet him — and even sent her a naked photo of himself.
Is this grooming, or just what passes for modern courtship rituals? Says Sarah:
“It makes me sick now knowing who he really is. He nearly became mine — and that terrifies me.”
Sure. That online lothario might not be all he makes out to be. Not that Venables is allowed to tell the truth – he’s banned from doing just that. He has to pretend. It’s part of experimental rehab programme.
Says Sarah:
“It’s chilling to think our relationship could have gone further and I may possibly have introduced him to my son who was ten — the same age he was when he killed James…”
Because killing children is contagious?
“Venables — as I now know him — kept asking me to meet up with him. But I didn’t know the area where he wanted to meet me and I didn’t have many friends I could drag along with me. I wouldn’t meet a man off the internet on my own. I’m quite shy.”
Says the “quite shy” woman talking to the Sun about getting a photo of a man’s penis in her inbox.
Having head Sarah tell us, “He did seem charming, kind and easy to talk to”, the Sun says:
Venables used a pseudonym to mask his infamous past.
He has to. It’s the law. He cannot revels his true name. He must stick with the fake identity the State has given him.
…The Sun can confirm from pictures he sent her that it was definitely Venables. We are not allowed to show you how he looks now for legal reasons.
That’s to “mask his infamous past” and comply with the State’s ruling.
Back to that penis:
“He sent me a picture of his penis. Our conversations hadn’t gone down that route — I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say…”
So… You killed the charming chats stone dead?
“I remember writing back something like, ‘Ew, that’s not yours, is it?’ and he said it was. That incident put me off a bit and we stopped messaging as much.”
That’s odd. Because the Sun also says:
She broke off contact with her would-be lover after he sent her a picture of his manhood.
Having said that the texting (they swapped phone numbers) and social network chats had not been sexual, we are told:
“We got to know each other and talked intimately. And he would text quite a lot. Sometimes he would be flirty — sometimes not.”
Recalling a night in May 2007 when the pair met via webcam, she said “He looked off his face on drink or drugs. He didn’t look normal. Then he fell asleep.”
But they carried on being web mates. But in “2008 his messages stopped and his Facebook profile and MySpace snaps were deleted”.
So, the relationship ended when he ended it, not her when he suddenly produced a shocking picture of his penis? And they never met.
After that cheesy story, the Sun thinks it best to quote the father of James Bulger. Ralph Bulger says:
This is a perfect example of how dangerous he still is. Thank God this woman and her child had a lucky escape.
Jon Venables was a child who killed a child. It’s a hideous story. The innocent child is dead. The killer is back behind bars for possessing indecent images of children. Ralph Bulger and his ex-wife, James’s mother Densie Fergus, suffered an appalling ordeal. They are still suffering. If they want revenge, it’s understandable.
It doesn’t mean they should get it.
The impression is that they are being exploited by the media and politicians, keen to portray them as the victims of the crime that epitomises ‘Broken Britain’.
No lurid newspaper story on Venables is complete without a few detailed lines of the abuse meted out to the young child and the cost of keeping Venables protected in a “cushy” nick. The media seems impelled to turn us into a mob of vigilantes. Are we talking of “Justice For James”, as Denise Fergus is, or of something else?
At the boys’ 1993 trial in an adult court, judge Mr Justice Morland said the killing was “an act of unparalleled evil and barbarity“.
Their killing exceeded all else – it was worse that everything that had ever gone before.
Having so described the young killers – the Mirror called them “freaks of nature” – what should the State do with them? They helped to create a problem. What do you do with two ten-year-olds who had done the worst thing ever, in the history of mankind?
Denise Fergus opined:
“As children, one can understand them being given some protection. But what right have they got to be given special treatment as adults?”
Were they protected as children? Venables was tried in an adult court. We all knew his name. The judge called him “unparalleled evil”. Isn’t that the kind of ‘protection’ that has led to the curent problem?
Posted: 3rd, March 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comments (4) | TrackBack | Permalink
