Jon Venables: Ralph Bulger’s new book sheds light on James Bulger’s killer
THE murder of James Bulger is still news. Ralph Bulger, father of the two-year-old murdered by twn-year-olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, has written a book. My James by Ralph Bulger and Rosie Dunn centres on the events of February 12, 1993. The parts about he and wife Denise Ferguson’s unbearable pain are horrible, like being invited to look at survivors’ slides from a fatal car crash. The parts about the child’s body and wounds are grim. They offer nothing new. What is interesting is the story of the criminal case, particularly how Jon Venables comes across:
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‘Is that you on that video, son?’ Ann Thompson demanded. ‘Nah, it’s got nothing to do with me,’ he replied. As if to prove his point, Robert went to a makeshift memorial near the railway in Walton and later took some flowers. When he got home he said to his mother: ‘Why would I take flowers to the baby if I had killed him?’ At another home nearby, Jon Venables told his mother, Susan: ‘If I’d seen them kids hurting the baby, I’d have kicked their heads in.’
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Jon’s father, meanwhile, asked his son about the blue paint that was splattered on his mustard-coloured coat. He said that his friend Robert Thompson had thrown it at him.
I later learned that on the Wednesday evening an anonymous woman went to Marsh Lane Police Station. She said she was a friend of the Venables family and knew that the son, a boy called Jon, had skipped school with a friend called Robert Thompson on the Friday that James went missing. He had returned home with blue paint on his jacket.
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Jon was having lunch when his mother held her son in a tight embrace and said: ‘I love you, Jon. I want you to tell the truth, whatever it might be.’ He started to cry, and just blurted out: ‘I did kill him.’ The boy looked across the room at the detectives and said: ‘What about his mum? Will you tell her I’m sorry.’ Jon continued to blame everything on Robert. He said they found James outside the butcher’s shop. He said it was his idea to take him, but it was Robert’s idea to kill him. They took him to the canal, where Robert planned to throw him in. James would not kneel down to look at his reflection in the water as they wanted, so Robert picked him up and threw him on the ground. This was how James had first injured his head. He said that James kept crying: ‘I want my mummy.’
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‘He wanted him dead, probably,’ he responded. ‘Robert was probably doing it for fun because he was laughing his head off.’ For his part, though, Robert refused to admit any involvement in the attack. ‘He never actually told me the truth in the end – far from it,’ said DS Roberts. ‘He lied from the minute we started to interview him.’ ‘When he was charged, he had no problem with it. I suppose he knew that if he was found guilty he would have a better life than he would outside. I thought to myself, “This boy has caused so much misery and evil.” I didn’t look for the three sixes on the back of his head, but at that moment I thought he was the devil.’
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It may oversimplify the arguments, but that to my mind makes them evil beyond belief.
You never do hear much of Robert Thompson…
Posted: 3rd, February 2013 | In: Books, Reviews Comments (21) | TrackBack | Permalink
