James Bulger was two when he was murdered on 12 February 1993. Thompson and Venables were 10.

Laurence Lee represented Jon Venables. He recalls:

“The vast majority of Liverpool children probably had a worse upbringing than Venables. Thompson was the Pied Piper. Venables was transfixed by him. On the day they took James, Venables had been planning to go into school and pick up the class gerbils to look after during half-term. Thompson told him ‘Sod the gerbils, let’s go robbing’.

“They committed the most evil of acts but I said to Venables ‘If you were born in Las Vegas you would probably have ended up in the film industry’. I think it depends on circumstances as well as make-up. It’s about nature and nurture. Venables was brought up well, but he must have had a mental quirk. And it must also have been about the chemistry of the two of them together.”

As for himself, Mr Lee says: “Twenty years on I find it more difficult to believe I could have taken on the case – now that I’ve got three children.

“Once the case was over I had nightmares that I was being run over by a train. No case could tempt me back into court – until the bank manager phoned up and said ‘You’d better do some work’.”