Jamie Bulger case

xoxo

Well people cared enough about the victims of William Malcolm to shoot him in the head. They cared enough about the victims of Brynley Dummett to beat up the 67 year old Brynley Dummett look-a- like Francis Duffy. They cared enough about the entirely imaginary victims of Paul Webster to cause him to commit suicide. They cared enough about the imaginary victims of an imaginary paedophile to firebomb a house, killing a 14 year old girl.

Given the chance, they will tear Venables and Thompson apart, and also tear apart anyone who looks similar. How many weeks until someone gets beaten up for being 18 and scouse?

Certainly though the treatment of victims of crime and their families is not great. And of tragedy in general - look at Leah Betts' parents, now completely trapped and hardened into a particular national role after the accidental death of their daughter. If they had simply been left alone by the media would this have happened? So yes, the Bulger parents are the victims here but they're as much the victims of the red-tops incessant attention as Thompson and Venables are, because their autonomy - their right to try and control how and to what extend their tragedy shapes their lives - has been taken from them.

See also: the poor mother of the kid Hindley and Brady killed. Yes of course her life would have been immeasurably better had they not killed her son. But it would also have been better if she'd not been media-pushed into the role of Hindley's merciless antitype, forever dragged back into the spotlight with the same old quotes again and again.

It's also not just the media, of course. I've been a victim of violent crime - not thank goodness a life-changingly serious one but I was set upon, bottled and beaten up by a bunch of 7 or 8 young teenagers. And what I noticed is that - in their entirely humane wish to empathise with you - people project onto you what they think they would or should feel as a victim. You *must* hate these people. You *must* suffer psychological harm, but then after a certain time (in the case of getting beaten up, at least. In the case of child murder 'a certain time' = 'never ever ever') you *must* move on.

And if you don't fit that profile then you are looked on with - not suspicion exactly, but you learn that people's empathy tends not to step outside how they think you ought to behave. So in my case I felt quite aggrieved that my initial reaction (no bones broken; rest up a few days then get on with things) was seen as a kind of unhealthy denial. And I lost count of how often I was told, oh, a republican is a democrat who's been mugged (switch with British examples), whereas actually the incident had made me much *softer* on crime and punishment: the absolute last thing I wanted to happen to the kids who attacked me was for them to be banged up in an environment where their bolshy drugged-up criminality would get hardened into something much nastier. Far better to try actually teaching them stuff.

God, what a rambling post. Summary, I suppose, is that yes, victims are not listened to but this applies not to their views on the criminals but they're more subtly not listened to about themselves.

Mob rage also relates to guilt denied: when we're faced with some hideous act, one of the things we face is our own capacity to have — inadvertently? — enacted same at some point past. Murderous rage? Drunken violence against endlessly whiny toddler? Who hasn't been there — at least mentally, at least for a nasty, swiftly suppressed moment? I nearly stabbed a kid at school — because he interrupted me at lunch in a maddening way. He never noticed; probably no one noticed. There's a resentment (and sometimes an envy) fuelling the lynch-rage which says, "Why is my unfailing good and decent behaviour (= swift suppression of ordinary human evil) not BETTER REWARDED OR RECOGNISED? My life = rubbish, even tho I am (fairly) good." Its implacability relates to the sense — hidden, but also there — that it's a kind of defiant acting out, at least to start. (This = why lynchmob victims are so often unrelated — it's a mirror-crime disguising itself as a reversal of a crime...)

I was talking last night with some foax abt Big Brother: usual lame stuff coming out, inc, how we're soon going to be watching phone-in gameshows on who shd be KILLED? Didn't think abt this then: but ans = we ARE, already. But of course they're not gameshows, they're Kilroy: and they long predated Big Brother et al (which is an "artistic" response to a phenom, not a vanguard....)

Of course the media are complicit in this, but I've always had the impression about that woman that she didn't need much, if any, dragging. I think her son's murder became an obsession for her (a bit like the Hanratty family's quest to clear their hanged relative's name).

The Betts' situation is clearly different in this sense: mother and father were already professionals with pretensions to being able to protect and advise children: their daughter made her (bad) choice herself, in the context of their (rotten, I think) prior guidance.

Unfortunately it all comes down to the varied reasons we lock people up in the first place. Is it societies revenge, rehabilitation, protecting the public or as a deterent. Bulger's mother is being used / is using the media to put forward merely the idea of revenge and dressing it up as justice. Even if you do not take the worth of a 10 year old moral development into account Thompson and Venables have faced societies revenge. Do you think being branded as the most eveil kids in Britain doesn't fuck you up. I for one hope they join the police.

That said - if anyone asks you about Thompson and Venables just say you think their new TV football pundit show on Channel 5 is a good thing. Especially when John Thompson does his fat goalkeeper character.

As a suggestion to what a bad mutha said Bulger is, he was higher that Tony Hopkins on the list.

Is this true? Maybe in Momus's crazy timelord zone morality.

If their lives are taken away, so be it! Justice will be complete. Thus a cycle of life.

Just my 2c USD worth, flame me or whatever at we.are.all.going.to.die@soon.com

what an edifying thread

think this is an amazingly stupid article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/mar/07/jon-venables-jamie-bulger-peter-sutcliffe

Comparing the two cases throws up an unpopular and provocative question: why treat Sutcliffe differently from the Bulger killers? Admittedly, there are big differences between the cases. Sutcliffe is in Broadmoor and must prove he is sane before a parole board can even consider sanctioning his release.

yeah there is another aspect in that THEY WERE TEN YEARS OLD

idk what the hell i think about their sentencing -- i don't think sutcliffe should ever be released -- but wtf at this.

BBC coverage of this has been fucking disgusting mostly too but hey who wants to hear about shit being complicated when we can all play sofa justice?

Why don't tabloids have torches and pitchforks in their logos? It's the only thing they do anymore.
Oh, and they've got a reaction from Bulger's mom. I wonder what that's going to be.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2881255/Jon-Venables-cover-up-42000-back-us.html

I remember this case vividly. Still follow the articles just because. Now I try avoiding cases like these cause it hurts me even more now that I have kids of my own. (And I mean: not only for the toddler's parents but also the parents of the 10 yos)

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/03/07/jon-venables-sent-back-to-prison-over-child-porn-offence-115875-22090622/

^^^ if that is true then britain is going to go absolutely insane over this. but this bit is desperately sad:

Venables is understood to have been masking severe psychological problems by abusing drugs and alcohol on a daily basis.
Probation officers became particularly concerned when they discovered that he was publicly revealing his identity.

sounds like he's pretty comprehensively internalised the tabloid view of him.

every paper seems to have a different reason

but idk joe i wouldn't think the tabloids have much to do with this guy's inevitable psychological problems. maybe they don't help, but id imagine the guilt would fuck him up even if the tabloids were saying nice things about him.

agreed, although you can't help but wonder what the coverage would do to someone in that position. (mary bell wasn't discussed at all until she collaborated on that book in later life iirc.) i meant really "the view, which is most vocally expressed in the tabloids". just that his sense of guilt seems to have converged with public anger so that both parties agree the best thing would be for him to be exposed and punished, presumably violently.

(assuming any of this is accurate, of course. one way in which venables has "given up his rights" is in libel - he can't sue, even if he wanted to, without revealing his new identity, and the papers know it.)

I wouldn't want to be a Scouser in my late 20s facing a court case in the immediate future for anything right now. Try finding a jury full of folk who aren't thinking "I wonder if he's Jon Venables"...

this whole situation is deeply unsatisfactory. in general though, i don't think it's unreasonable for the tabloids to seek to report on criminal activity by people released under license. i'm not suggesting they have the public interest in mind when they do it though.

how do people react when they see those tv interviews on the streets of liverpool with middle age women clamouring for them to be tortured, killed etc?

Joe that is one big honking libel fact I hadn't even considered. The tabloids need to lay the fuck off. Has this thread been Googleproofed yet? I don't want any more reminders of how badly your average HYS person writes.

One can't help but absolutely despise the narrative that advances a 'lock them up forever and feed them bread and water for life' concept of justice. I mean, I can feel deeply sorry for the loss suffered by the Bulger family but that doesn't give them the right to have any kind of authority or extra knowledge over what happens to his killers. When tabloid media manipulate these survivors (whether they are 9/11 'moms' - I often feel like smacking women who demand some kind of fealty only because they have spawned - or people who'd lead lynch mobs with misspelled sighs for whatever reason) I feel a strange mix of anger at the manipulation and annoyance that the people so willingly play the part of Jeremy Kyle guest. There is a perfectly natural need for attention when you've been wronged but when it is handed to you by tabloids keen to sell papers, the insight required to say 'stop' may not be there, and the vigilanteism of the vox pop is just a form of baiting.

I have no doubt that the adult formerly known as Jon Venables is probably now severely mentally ill in a hospital wing somewhere. Let's see if Mrs Bulger thinks that's punishment enough, but I suspect she'd like to administer any electroshock herself. That makes me lose most of any sympathy I might have had.

Let's see if Mrs Bulger thinks that's punishment enough, but I suspect she'd like to administer any electroshock herself. That makes me lose most of any sympathy I might have had.

this doesn't sound very nice you know
esp given she is also probably mentally ill

Yes, she probably is! Many people in that situation back off from revenge ideas *because* entertaining them is a surefire route to mental health problems. Also mine is a very visceral reaction to a vindictiveness I find unseemly, regardless of any argument over emotions the woman and others like her may feel entitled to.

how do people react when they see those tv interviews on the streets of liverpool with middle age women clamouring for them to be tortured, killed etc?

― nakhchivan, Sunday, March 7, 2010 1:58 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

with total lack of surprise tbh. not surprised that people think it, not that surprised they say it, especially people with kids. upthread there's an element, to my mind, of ilx getting so upset about other people's reactions that the other extreme is reached -- "how could anyone think release after seven years was a problem?" i don't have an answer.

lynch mobs with misspelled sighs

Ironing?

If anyone's interested there's a couple of tv docs in full on You Tube. One slightly hysterical (a Channel 4 Dispatches from 2001) and a sensitive piece about the policeman in charge of the original investigation (a BBC2 doc also from 2001).

Also, here's Will Self refusing to play to the gallery like the usual shower, on Question Time last Thursday:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/8550915.stm

the fault lies almost entirely with those who co-opt this poor woman and it's kinda unseemly to smear her alongside various cottage industry vicarious victimhood reactionaries (jeremy kyle ffs) when someone so vulnerable is led to believe they have a special insight into the justice system

I often feel like smacking women who demand some kind of fealty only because they have spawned

hating on these entitled breeders and proletkult enablers is weirdly vindictive itself, if rather mild by comparison

i don't know why there has to be this liberal consolation of getting worked up about this shit, it's an awful tragedy but we can hope that the institutions of state are resilient enough to withstand malign forces

upthread there's an element, to my mind, of ilx getting so upset about other people's reactions that the other extreme is reached -- "how could anyone think release after seven years was a problem?" i don't have an answer.

this is true

there simply isn't enough to go on in the public domain, occasional insight like this excepted for any forensic consideration of the particulars, so for better or worse we can refrain from trying to provide answers

From the POV of a child-free woman, the way mom status is used as emotional blackmail in certain situations feels cynical to me, because usually someone is trying to get me to comply with them via the expectation of pulled heartstrings when appeals to logic are not forthcoming, or insufficient. This may also be an internecine thing that guys just don't 'get'; I've seen it deployed the most frivolous situations, too, with the same expectation.

And WRT the mobs and their demands, last I checked, we don't live in Murdochistan. The Government will only be doing something wrong if they capitulate, as with the BBC and its recent appeasement strategy. I loved Will Self on QT for trying to re-introduce equanimity to the concept of justice.

Yes also LOL typo, possibly my fifth ever on ILX.

From the POV of a child-free woman, the way mom status is used as emotional blackmail in certain situations feels cynical to me, because usually someone is trying to get me to comply with them via the expectation of pulled heartstrings when appeals to logic are not forthcoming, or insufficient. This may also be an internecine thing that guys just don't 'get'; I've seen it deployed the most frivolous situations, too, with the same expectation.

cosign x1000

Yes, and challenging that status in any way (and Heaven forfend you don't obey them) gives the person free reign to characterize you as some cruel and heartless bitch who could never understand what really being a woman is. You can't even *ignore* these people because a failure to respond is almost the same thing to them.

Zelda otm in that there's not really much comparison between the two, although tbh Erwin James' piece on Venables seems like quite trite 'you don't understand, poor me, poor him' copy that is, tbf, quite a bit below the standard of the other examples of his writing that I've seen.

Meanwhile, The Sun's coverage is being overseen by the paper's chief reporter John Kay. The same John Kay who, in 1977, drowned his Japanese wife Harue in the bath of their Barnet home before attempting to gas himself. Driven mad by the pressure of work as the paper's industrial correspondent, he could see no other way out for himself or his wife, who had been cut off by her family for marrying a westerner. He was convicted of manslaughter with diminished responsibility, and, on his release from Friern Barnet mental hospital, was welcomed back by his employer. The problem for me isn't that Kay killed his wife. I'm happy to accept that he was temporarily deranged. I've been temporarily deranged too, and it's a dark place to inhabit. The problem is that The Sun showed a greater degree of enlightenment and understanding when one of its own transgressed than it would ever have done in any other circumstances. Imagine the reporting of a similar case where the killer was AN Other.

is there another source to corroborate that?

It's on Wikipedia, it must be true - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kay_%28journalist%29

fucking ugh @ other humans, generally

wow that's deeply fucked.

OK yeah no one who got off on a "diminished responsibility" manslaughter charge ever has the right to bay for anyone elses blood.

So, the first lynch mob target is out there (I was given this guy's name at work today as definitely being Jon Venables without recourse to the internet to check the veracity of the claim being made by a pitchfork-wielding colleague).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/09/david-calvert-jon-venables-facebook-jamie-bulger

good ole dail mail never lets u down

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1257055/STEPHEN-GLOVER-Credulous-psychiatrists-pornographic-videos-truly-comprehend-mystery-evil.html

Chucky!!!! He's back!

That's a pretty fair article - not at all what I was expecting.

certainly more interesting and thoughtful than anything i've read about this in the guardian

it seems to actually confront the issue, which is basically "WHY DO THEY DO IT - WHO KNO" though of course still manages to get its 600 words in, chaching, thanks

A bit let down by the comments though:

The lord Satan has the whole world deceived... only the good can discern evil.
Perhaps he in his own way has exposed an infinitely greater evil than himself in his refusing to play along with Jack damned to hell Straw.

- Hugh E Torrance, London England

first line eerily reminiscent of tom cruise scientology interview?

You may be on to something. I wouldn't put it past Cruise to believe that Jack Straw is more evil than the devil himself...

"only the good can discern evil"? seriously? kinda lets the evil off the hook if so imo

well only the good are allowed throw the first stone iirc, so tbh being able to discern them probably seemed like a waste of time without the payoff.

Look, there's some evil- I can see evil! MOM I CAN SEE EVIL!

STFU Bradley, eat your greens.

kinda like being able to see lotto numbers but not having a pen, ennui or madness are the only options.

Tom Verlaine is evil QED

Not letting Richard Lloyd take more solos IS evil

The lord Satan has the whole world deceived... only the good can discern evil.

This just sounds like something paraphrased from the Usual Suspects.

http://www.hanamoira.com/Chris/2.jpg http://www.alltopmovies.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/kevin-spacey1.jpg

is there another source to corroborate that?

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Tuesday, 9 March 2010 11:57 (1 week ago) Bookmark

Finally found my copy of 'Stick It Up Your Punter' and they go into in detail.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2925524/Jon-Venables-sits-in-den-strumming-Oasis-hits.html

the sick bastard

His rights still have to be upheld.

"That means finding him constructive activities to do.

someone message my dad circa 1996 and explain to him that hours alone in a room playing the compositions of n gallagher is 'constructive' please.

On the outside the fee for an hour-long lesson is typically £30.

Should be able to strum 2 Oasis songs after one hour-long lesson really.

The freed murderer of James Bulger - back in prison over child porn allegations - was last night said to be masterbating the instrument thanks to weekly visits from a tutor.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10369277.stm

About to become the least popular prisoner in the country.

poor him, etc

Um.

?

Next week will be the 25th anniversary of James Bulger's murder.

A couple of weeks ago I heard Denise Fergus, his mother, interviewed on Woman's Hour, which, while of course very sad, I'd say is very much worth listening to for those interested. She's very candid about her experience, both at the time and since http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09nrsfj

I was 11 years old myself at the time and growing up on the Wirral, so it was all very close to home, but I realise that I'd never thought about the case in any detail until now, which was probably for the best. I've been thinking about it quite a bit since the interview though and it's so difficult to comprehend both the events of the murder itself and to think about what I feel should be the response to it, in terms of Venables and Thompson.

Unrelated bump to Venables conviction for offensive material today?

there are lots of people living normal lives who have done worse as adults. I think it's fair to say not just the nature but the volume of the discourse is indicative that something's fucked

No, I was reading about that just before posting and it reminded me that it had been on my mind to write something here.

How do you mean ogmor?

Don't know if ogmor's reply was even in relation to this, wrong thread?

It's no small feat that Thompson is apparently happily married and living and going about "normally", in a local community, without people knowing who he is. I'm in awe such secrets can still exist tbh.

well what sort of thinking and feeling should people be doing about it? if it's a question of justice then from what I know I'd say it's been a reasonable effort in a situation made almost impossible by the attention and chatter around the case. if we're pondering the scope of rehabilitation then its clear that the acts themselves don't necessarily render it impossible. i think the media has never had good reasons for pursuing this as they have, and the act of opening a national debate on it has put a huge distorting pressure on how people think & feel about it. people's ideas have been forged in the heat of this discourse and they reflect it even in rejecting it. it's a model that informs how ppl think more widely, and i think that makes it very hard to come back to it 'cold' or whatever, but even the desire to do that seems borne of this swamp of feeling.

or, more briefly: the iconic nature of this case is deeply suspect and distorts all subsequent chat around it

Suspect hardly, it's very understandable.

But I agree that it makes it a poor case to focus any debate about rehabilitation around

the reaction to the media coverage is understandable, the existence & nature of the coverage in the first place is the issue. the point's been made before about similar cases elsewhere being resolved much better away from the glare of public interest

Child murderer cases should be held in camera kind of thing?

probably. it seems like a media/public sphere problem rather than a legal one. this 'public interest' that makes people want to read about violent and sexual crime and the media's love of victims and villains should not just be an accepted part of the landscape because it changes over time and it's an appetite that the media develop

Documentary now on c4 is very good apart from allowing kelvin mackenzie a voice on the subject. He should be nowhere ner this and it's unnecessarily confrontational to have him included here

Also a mod should really change the title of tt

i don't really have anything to say about this - other than this crime really perturbed me greatly when it happened, and i was a year or two younger than the murderers. It's sort of interesting to note how Venables has just been a wretched, train-wreck of a human being since being released in 2001 while Thompson is apparently well-settled and in a long term relationship, given that I seem to remember that Thompson was supposedly the ringleader.

I think that's what Krakow was getting at, too. He did mention he was 11 when it happened. The impact it had on you as a child.

And yes, having listened to his mum today, a mod should change the title into James Bulger.