How much does the public need to know about Jon Venables?

Sir Graphus

The public is interested. This is not the same as the public interest.

Chris

The public doesn't need to know anything about Jon Venables. The obsessives who burn with hatred for him have made themselves worse than he is.

Verity

How much does the public need to know about Venables? We need to know that he is dead.

Jay Joseph

I think the courts will decide any new Jon Venables trial will be prejudiced, case will be abandoned and his license revoked indefinitely. Win win for the Government as his new ID will still be protected and in the eyes of the public, justice will have finally been done.

Derek Drew

When will somebody have the guts to say: "we dare not prejudice proceedings leading to a trial for fear he may be found not guilty"
The outcry in this climate as he is then released back into the community does not bear thinking about.

Judy

All suspects up for trial have their names published. It will be open to the judge to bar reporting on any aspect of the case until it is decided in court, so that Venables can be tried under his new name without the trial being subject to intense media sensationalising (or even identifying to a wider public that he is a suspect in the case concerned. It should be no more difficult to get a jury to sit on a case involving Venables than for any other case in which a notorious figure is brought to court.

If he is found guilty, then the view could be taken that he forfeited his rights to have his new identity (and have his birth identity concealed) by reason of the crimes he chose to commit.

cityboozer

Nothing. The public needs to know nothing at all.

canonalberic

I think we need to know where he lives and what his new name is so we can get round there in a mob and beat him to death in public to ensure every 10 year old in the future knows whats coming to them if they follow their natural instincts and torture a younger child to death.........the victims mother should deliver the coup de grace and then we should force the authorities to disclose the address and identity of the other one so he can get proper justice too. Then we should flog the social workers and probation officers who are also responsible.

It makes me ashamed to be British.

Andy H

The only thing I need to know about this chap is that he is in prison.
There are plenty of other people who have never committed a serious crime that we should invest our time and effort in.

AndyinBrum

Ah Verity shows that great Christian compasion we keep hearing about.

Until Venables is tried & found guilty of whatever he's charged with, then we have no right to know. If found guilty, then it can be released into the public domain.

Why Mrs Bulger should be involved in commentating a crime that is nothing to do with her is just the tabloids doing their best to sell papers through mawkish sensibility & faux outrage.

THX1138

Best ever comment in the Mail? "We should have hung them when they were ten.
http://bit.ly/cTnFrE

Will Self was in top form on QT, we have collectively decided that these 10 year old CHILDREN who committed this crime are somehow more evil than adults.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/8550915.stm

Boudicca

If he is to be tried for a new offence, we should know nothing at all before the trial. We should not even have been told that he has been returned to prison. Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty and there is no way Venebles will ever get a fair trial if his true identity is known.

I have no idea how or where Venables has been living. But he was given a new identity in order to protect him from a lynch mob, and that has cost the country a fortune. If Venebles' new identity becomes known, we will no doubt have to spend another fortune providing him with another completely new persona.

After a trial, assuming one takes place, the public has a right to know the details. What form of supervision he was living under; the nature of his offence and how he managed to commit it when he was supposed to be under supervision and - if he is found guilty - what his punishment will be.

If he IS found guilty, then I think the life sentence should be applied and he should remain in prison for the remainder of his natural life - in solitary, if that is needed for his protection. We cannot keep giving him another chance and providing a new identity, at vast expense, if he simply won't follow the terms of his release under licence.

Prodicus

I fail to understand why the Justice Secretary should have to explain his correct decision - to uphold the law and sustain the judicial process - to the family of a victim of a crime committed seventeen years ago. That the person convicted of that crime may or may not be suspected of committing a separate offence today, an offence with no material connection to them, can be no concern of theirs. Are they victims, here? Witnesses?

I fail to understand why the press are harrying the Justice Secretary for obeying the law, as he must, for reasons which editors understand perfectly well and/or which their legal departments will or should have explained to them. And warned them off.

I fail to understand why the Attorney General has not officially and publicly warned commentators, editors - and John Humphrys who behaved like a particularly dense cub reporter this morning - that the consequence of their hue and cry may be to prejudice or prevent trial of a suspect in a serious criminal case. And that the identity of the suspect is irrelevant.

Yes, I want to know. I have no right to know, but I'm curious. I'm human. But it is more important to me that criminals be tried and imprisoned.

Zoo keeper (Elephant House)

"... too much information – and too much publicity – could forfeit his anonymity."

The moment I take a small child from a shopping mall and kill it, I would consider that I forfeit all rights to anonymity.

To think or say or argue otherwise is evidence of just how much the plot has been lost in the country of my birth.

AndyinBrum

What prodicus said

Vulture

in any sane society ( eg. the US or China) the brute would be strung up or shot - and his lousy family made to pay the cost of the bullet or noose.

Only in our pathetic, decadent Europe will millions be wasted in trying to shield this evidently incorrigibly sadistic child killer from the righteous fury and the rough justice which should await him.

Andy

We need to know nothing:

1 - It will not help us

2 - It may mean he cannot be tried

3 - It will cost the taxpayer a further £250,000 (minimum) to hide him away again.

Yosemite Sam

Everything about this affair has revolted, saddened and exasperated me in equal measure. First, I was revolted by the crime, but I said to myself they are ten year old boys and I guessed (correctly) that their upbringing and family life had not helped them to develop properly. I was revolted by the lynch mob mentality exhibited at the time. There were people then (as now) who seem to find a greater degree of culpability against these two ten year olds than they do against adults who torture and kill children. Where are the mobs baying for the blood of Baby P's killers? I am revolted by the stupidity of the trial judge who revealed their names. I am saddened that little James's mother cannot let go and move on. I am saddened that public opinion does not seem able to move on either. And I am exasperated by the media - they are responsible for the air of hysteria that surrounds this case. Let us have some calm heads please. We are supposed to be civilised. We stopped hanging children two hundred years ago - have we gone backwards? Venables may or may not have committed a further crime. In a civilised society we should let the law take its course otherwise we all become endangered by the justice of the mob.

Andy Leeds

I'm afraid the public should never even have know he had been returned to prison. Jon Venables no longer exists and if he has committed another offence he should simply have been arrested under his new identity and the law should then have taken its course.

Nicholas Hallam

"...evidently incorrigibly sadistic child killer..."

Come now, I don't think that even the most sensational tabloid report has suggested that he has broken the terms of his release by indulging again in sadistic child murder.

MikeF

The early reporting of this case seemed to indicate that Venables' license and therefore his current liberty could be revoked at the discretion of the Home Secretary. I do not know whether that is the case but given that that could theoretically mean him going back to prison indefinitely then there is a basic principle involved which demands that whatever he has done in breach of his license conditions should be made public. That principle is that no-one can be sent to - or in this case back to - prison simply by administrative fiat without any cause being given. There has to be a due and public process of law.

What makes all this horribly complicated, of course, is that the original offence - which was atrocious - was committed when he was below the age of criminal responsibility. So even if he has now committed an offence of some sort that by itself would merit a prison term then unless that offence is of extreme gravity you have the prospect of a man possibly being sent to jail for an extended period for an offence that might attract a much lighter sentence for someone else because of something he did when he was a child. To put it bluntly if he has punched his neighbour in a dispute over a parking place then it is obviously wrong that he be banged up for another 20 years.

So it is a matter of genuine public interest that whatever he has done is made public and that if he is accused of a criminal offence that he should face trial for it. There is a principle involved.

I seem to remember that before Venables and Thomson were arrested another entirely innocent young boy was taken in for questioning by the police and that his family were then hounded out of their home by a mob. Frankly some of the posts here display that sort of mob mentality.

bens comment

I don't understand why we were told that his license had been revoked in the first place. If it was important that his anonymity was kept he could have been returned under his new name and no one would have made the connection.
Was this announced by the Justice Minister merely to show that the government was tough on crime etc in the run up to an election.

THX1138

Vulture so you would hang 10 year old CHILDREN would you?

The loony right are just that loony.

AngloWelshDragon

Prodicus / AndyinBrum - what you both said!

Verity

It is an offence against innocent people that this individual was not put down all these years ago. I donīt know why they should live the rest of their lives as guests of the taxpayer. How much has Ian Brady cost the British? They were kept alive for what purpose? And the Yorkshire Ripper? Kept alive why?

Andy Carpark

Depraved serial killer, Dennis Nilsen, did only used to murder his victims. He then used to sit them in an armchair and regale them with his boring, left-wing opinions.

djw2009

Forfeit his anonymity? SO F***ING WHAT? Why should the state undertake to make sure that he lead a normal life, shielded from the contempt of others on account of his crime? And to think the police let that couple be killed by the criminal gang, even when they knew they were targeting them. Why is the Spectator dominated by this LEFT-WING RUBBISH.

Verity

Nicholas Hallm - Vulture, who is well able to defend himself, although I'll leap in anyway, said this Venables or whatever his nomme de guerre du jour is, is incorrigible. This does seem to be the case. We will see what the child pornography refers to.

David Ossitt

The problems have arisen as a direct result of the new identity.

If I am to be generous; I might concede that it was a well intentioned mistake, but in truth I do believe that it was a gross error of judgement, a decision made for all of the wrong reasons.

The facts are; two ten year old boys murdered a toddler, this resulted in them being tried and sentenced to a period of time in detention, where they had the advantage of care and education to a standard higher than they enjoyed prior to.

On release they should have been treated in the same fashion as all of the countless number who leave prison, to expect two young men to live their lives lying to all and sundry about a made up past is too horrible to contemplate.

Better by far; that they be seen to have paid society for their crime and then left to get on as well as they might and possibly do some good with the rest of their lives.

Mind I am one of the hanging brigade; I would have preferred them to have been put down after the trial.

London Calling

How much does the public need to know about Jon Venables?

As much as the Media believes we should know because it sells newspapers…

How much does the public need to know about the performance of thirteen years of Government including all political parties action and inaction on all decisions?

Everything…

Maybe that explains the lack of attack from the front the back and the flanks regarding Transparency…

Enlighten us with Transparency...

Vulture

@No, you come now, Mr Hallam ( and all other liberal bleaters of your ilk on this thread).

1) Venables is a convicted child killer.

2) More than a decade of the most expensive therapy that money could buy has failed to cure him of his sadistic paedo tendencies - which is why he has been hauled back to prison.

3) All research - theoretical and empirical work with the psychopaths themselves - show that such tendencies, once innate, are incorrigible. Or 'incurable' if you prefer to put it in medical terms.

4) Venables was 10 when he abducted and killed Jamie Bulger. He is 27 now. Its high time this piece of dirt was rubbed out.

Joesph Alan Jones

I taught in a child secure unit for several years. The inmates were in very comfortable surroundings and were given weak "let us make life easy for the staff" treatment. This included watching horror films until early in morning.

AndyinBrum

Well emigrate to China then vulture, and don't let the door hit you on your pathetic old testiment following arse.

London Calling

How much does the public need to know about Jon Venables?

As much as the Media believes we should know because it sells newspapers…

How much does the public need to know about the performance of thirteen years of Government including all political parties action and inaction on all decisions?

Everything…

Maybe that explains the lack of attack from the front the back and the flanks regarding Transparency…

Enlighten us with Transparency...

Athena

The Venables story: What a sad comment on the state of the press and other media in the UK!

strapworld

Well, since the judge gave a world wide ban on his new name and whereabouts and that any reporting of him would be contempt of court. I cannot see how Andy in Brum can confidentaly comment that once he is dealt with in a court which we will not know of, for an offence we will never know as it will not be allowed to be reported, under his new name or an assumed name for the purposes of hiding him away from publicity. There is no chance at all that it will be reported. Unless a brave editor will chance not being sent to prison for contempt!

The fact is that should he be identified and he is in prison then his life will not be worth tuppence. He will be kept in solitary!

echo34

The issue here though is that Jack Straw does not wish to disclose details of the charge, as the crime venables' is charged with may bring the decision to release him after just 8 years, into question.

There are plenty of people who commit crimes and are charged with an offence and that is reported in the media. Why is Venables any different?

That information is not prejudicial.

Naomi Muse

No-one should be entitled to know what the reasons for Venables return to jail are. If they were then the anonymity of any child miscreants would be known to all. The other one who committed a horrendous crime as a child was Mary Bell.

Mary Bell, settled under a new name and may have moved abroad or anywhere, but she has not done anything to warrant her being put back in jail, whereas Venables has.

The questions that do need answering are to do with how the State dealt with these boys, as they were 17 years ago, when convicted.

Scrutiny should be given to the licence under which Venables and his cohort were let loose back into society.

The difficulties to 10 year old boys of being put into custody, and treated in whichever way they were in their 8 year custody, followed by having to pretend to be someone else once they had been released and not allowed to go to their home turf at all or contact each other. These strictures of themselves create problems and frustrations and possibly depression for these two. Not an easy option to get back on the road to being a useful member of society.

What we need to know is why when he and his friend were let out with new ID under licence, sufficient supervision appears to have been missing, or he would not now have been taken back to jail for the blanket reasons given by our man of Straw.

It is the methods and practical effects of the youth justice, young offenders, probation and other systems involved that need to answer those questions, not that Jamie Bulger's mother should know why Venables has been banged up again. She indeed has an interest but she does not have any right to be told specifics, unless threats against her and her family have been received, which claim to be from anyone to do with Venables. That would be a totally different matter.

2trueblue

We have no right to know.
The government have got the media that it bred and that is their problem. It also has the means to deal with the media should it have the balls to do so. They have so far found this rabble useful for their own purposes and now it is a little tricky to call the hounds off.

Vulture

@Oddly enough, Andy, I got an invite to do just that today from an old American friend ( the former California chief of the late lamented Fannie Mae) who cashed in, sold out and emigrated to China two years ago: he saw it all coming.

He's now living with two Chinese lovelies and happily riding around the Chinese countryside on a 1938 repro German motobike ( complete with Wehrmacht insignia: the Chinese don't seem to mind) and thinks its much superior to life in the US of A.

I'm no Old Testament prophet, but if we had followed an eye for an eye rather than your pathetic liberal nostrums Jamie Bulger and hundreds of other murderred innocents would be alive today, and Venables and his evil ilk would be safely dead.

Carroll Barry-Walsh

There are 2 issues about the Venables case which have been conflated.

(1) Should he retain his anonymity? IMO yes because to reveal the name he goes under now would be likely to prejudice his chances of a fair trial, especially on the sorts of serious allegations which he seems to be facing.

(2) Should the public know what those serious allegations are? Yes. This is relevant to whether the whole rehabilitation process for very young offenders works. The whole basis for releasing the 2 boys after 8 years is that they would have had sufficient care/rehabilitation/what-have-you that it would be safe to release them. If that hasn’t worked in one case then we should know because we need to know what went wrong i.e. did the authorities not fulfil their side of the bargain? Are we living in la-la land in speaking of rehabilitation in these circumstances (e.g. the 2 Doncaster boys)? Should we lock up for longer etc? There cannot be any sensible debate if we do not know what happened in this case. Also, there is a concern that the authorities may use the “anonymity” excuse to shield their own failures.

Plus this feeds into the whole meme that too many serious criminals are let out early and that the concerns of victims and society at large are ignored by the authorities.

People feel outraged not just because it was a particularly harrowing crime but because they feel that the sentences were too lenient, especially if it turns out that the state did not do what it should have done to ensure they turned into young men who had properly repented of their crime and would lead useful lives in the future. Ideally, you should have both justice and rehabilitation. If you get neither, that’s a pretty poor bargain.

Fergus Pickering

Since we don't know anything much about Jon Venables because Jack Straw won't tell us, we can't know if he is incorrigible etc etc. It's difficult to imagine how anybody who could do what he did - my wife tells me it was his idea - could ever be cured/repent or anything like that. But a Christian would have to believe it were possible, thieves who repent and all that. I don't think these boys and Mary Bell exhaust the child-killers in this country. I suppose there are others. There were the boys in Peckham. How old were they? I am sure there are others. And though it is more shocking to us that ten year olds can do such a thing, they are surely no worse than other murderers of children. They killed one child but there are plenty of people who have killed many. Venables is not the most wicked man in the country is he? Somebody mentioned Nilssen. Thenn there is Brady. And Rosemary West. Come on, he's hardly first division when you think about it. There was a Russian schoolteacher who killed fifty children. One by one, not all at once. And then there are those children killed in witchcraft rituals. I could go on but I won't.

John Wilkes

I read through some of the comments and wondered whether or not to post at all. Do your readers really think that they would want to be part of a society that either executed 10 year old boys or put them in prison with no prospect of release. No doubt they think they are conservatives harking back to some forgotten golden age. Think again. In fact things started to go wrong from the moment Thompson and Venables were named at all. Traditionally children and young persons were not named at all - so as to allow them to rehabilitate themselves in the future. The legislation dealing with this was passed in 1933 (probably by the National Government) so it's not exactly the product of the 1960's. Had their anonymity been allowed at the time of the trial there would have been no need to go running for an injunction later on. If that is not good enough for some of your readers might I recommend to them the account of the trial of Barratt and Bradley ("doubly extraordinary for the modern reader, since it is a case with obvious parallels with the murder of James Bulger") at Chester in 1861 in A N Wilson's "The Victorians" [P. 264 - 246]. He concludes "The contrast between the treatment of the killers [aged 8] in the two cases throws an interesting light on the difference between ourselves and the Victorians. ..... there seems to have been none of the sentimentality, none of the vindictiveness or spite, none of the hysteria which accompanied the twentieth century case". They were convicted of manslaughter and received one month in prison and 5 years in a reformatory. The poor deluded Christian Victorians were presumably wholly debased by their broken society and had lost all reason or judgement compared with your readers progressive modern sensibilities.

Nicholas Hallam

Verity, I am not familiar with playing the part of liberal bleater (as Vulture has it), but here goes.

The Sun indicated that Level 4 child pornography was involved. This, I understand, excludes sadistic images (which are Level 5). The Sun may be wrong about this detail, but as things stand I do not think we can know that Venables has done anything which demonstrates that he is "incorrigibly sadistic" or that connects his behaviour now to the horrific murder he committed at the age of 10.

Verity

Nicholas Hallam - being involved in any kind of child pornography is sadistic. Controlling a child for sexual gratification is sadistic.

THX1138

At almost the same time as the Bulger killing, three 10 years old boys killed a little girl in Norway and buried her body in the snow, within three months they were back at school.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

John Wilkes: I thgink you will consider me cruel. However, I think that any person who tortured that poor baby is so sick they do not deserve life. Why the horror at putting murderers down? I could use "kinder" contemporary language and say "let them be put to sleep". In a society where innocent unborn babies are destroyed by medical personnel, who use the term "terminated", and some of the terminally ill or others unhappy in this life want assisted suicide, what's the big deal of ridding the world of rabid murderers?

Pot Head

Verity- And hanging a 10 year old child, what is that?

Frank P

Melanie did a full pros and cons, either/or piece in the Daily Mail column today about the Venables case. Good stuff.

But it's too easy to become abstruse about this case. He's back in prison for the murder of Jamie Bulger. Unless he's killed again, and I don't think there is any suggestion of that, he's now back where he belongs and presumably stands no chance of ever being released again? As for being tried for another offence, what's the point if it's a lesser charge? Leave it on file, and every time he comes up for parole in future, the parole board should just dangle said file under his lawyer's nose and tell him/her to f-f-fade away.

The liberal elite have to realise that sometimes people are born with innate characteristics that are intrinsically dangerous to their fellow citizens, whatever their upbringing and environment. I have met many in my time. When their actions reveal these traits and result in death or serious injury; when they are caught and convicted, they must remain incarcerated ad infinitum. Clearly Venables falls into this category.

What of course must be done now is a complete track-back on what has been happening with this little monster since his release; what responsibility those who were supposed to be monitoring release and his behaviour have for permitting his re-offending. Action must taken against them if they have fallen down on the job.

I'm personally more exercised today with the monstrous paedophile who was convicted today of grooming and luring a 17 year-old hapless
17 year old lonely girl of 'low self-esteem' by means of the internet and binding, gagging and murdering her. Then turning up at the cop shop, grinning at the CCTV camera and trying to persuade them that it was 'an accident'. He had a string of previous convictions for sex offences! There are plenty more like that roaming around unsupervised. Two stories like this on the run up to an election should result in the resignation of the Home Secretary and Jack Straw; it should also result in a landslide victory for the Tories in the election. But will that be the upshot? Nah! The Criminal Justice System has itself been GBH-ed to death over the last 20 years; all part of the plan - as no doubt Mr Neather would tell you - and Mr Nelson would ignore.

I've registered my doubt of Cameron's fitness to lead the Opposition. But it's too late now for a change of Leadership. Let's just turn out en masse and get the Tories in, and ergo this diabolical administration out, even if we have to spend the next five years kicking the Cameroon conservatives into shape. They cannot possibly be worse than what we have suffered for the past 13 years. Anything to see that insufferable little shit Straw not dictating Criminal Justice in this country any more. We've registered our concerns. DC has been warned. Now once least heave - out with Brown and all who sail in her! And I personally vow to spend the rest of my life metaphorically kicking seven colours of the proverbial out of Cameron if he doesn't shape up. Hold your nose and vote conservative. None of this UKIP, BNP, LibDem pussyfooting around.

As for you DC: get a fucking grip man! Earn this rallying cry and stop arsing about trying to be all things to all men. It won't work. Go for the core vote; promise to snatch back powers from the EUSSR; close the borders to all except those that want to be part of our erstwhile culture and work for their living or contribute to its wealth; restore HM Constabulary to it role as an independent arm of the CJS and most of all encourage the markets to invest in Britain, as opposed to the NWO. Seempull!

David Ossitt

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

“Why the horror at putting murderers down? I could use "kinder" contemporary language and say "let them be put to sleep". In a society where innocent unborn babies are destroyed by medical personnel, who use the term "terminated", and some of the terminally ill or others unhappy in this life want assisted suicide, what's the big deal of ridding the world of rabid murderers?”

Anne I wish that I had written that.

Ke H

@Vulture 1601.
Rest assured dear Vulture a return to prison will certainly see that justice is done sooner or later. He is unlikely to evade his fellow inmates in the long term.

Zoo keeper (Elephant House)

My earlier (rhetorical) question to Mr Hoskin : whether the above article concerns a "Bulger" tragedy or a "Venables" tragedy, was not posted.

As the word "Bulger" did not appear once in the above article, and the word "tragedy" was employed, I took the liberty of assuming that it's author was commenting on the "Venables" tragedy.

"... so similar mistakes and tragedies cannot happen in future".
I would like to know to what particular mistake and/or tragedy Mr Hoskin is referring.

Slim Jim

Frank P @ 7:28pm - Bravo, Sir!

Andy Leeds

Frankly I am amazed and disgusted at some of the posts on this thread. You have to go back to the VERY early 18th Century to find the last time a child was hanged for murder. We are talking of a child of 12. Under the Children's Act of 1908 no child under 16 could suffer death and in 1933 the age was raised to 18. No one under the age of 18 was hanged in the 20th Century. Some of you should be ashamed of yourselves.

John David Barnett

Some of these comments - starting with Verity's - are quite disgusting and unworthy of the Spectator, a magazine which resolutely opposed the death penalty in its great days.

radgie gadgie

The public need to know exactly how many breaches of a licence do the authorites allow before they will consider a recall. The public need to know exactly what the Offender Management authorites consider to be a rehabilitated person. The public needs to know exactly how many chances and clear slates they will allow evil, violent, or disturbed characters.

The authorities need to know that the public will have a modicum of oversight while they hold the public's opinions in utter contempt and its safety even lower.

David Ossitt

John David Barnett

“Some of these comments - starting with Verity's - are quite disgusting and unworthy of the Spectator, a magazine which resolutely opposed the death penalty in its great days.”

These are not Spectator opinions or comments; they are the opinion of some who post here.

What you bleeding hearts who are opposed to the death penalty fail to recognise, is that a very large proportion of the population are in favour and so, we who are in favour never see what we consider justice being done.

And yet many of you who are opposed to the death penalty, are perfectly happy to see so called terminations of pregnancy at twenty four weeks.

I call that infanticide

General Zod

Some of you show your true colours here. He's a convicted killer who committed his crime whilst a child. He is now accused of serious offences as an adult.

Leaving aside the question of whether we should have a death penalty (and the vast majority of advocates of capital punishment would think Verity an abhorrent hag for wanting to execute a ten year old), it is a fundamental principle of our criminal justice system that a jury should assess the evidence pertaining to the case in point and not be swayed by knowledge of previous convictions.

I you want to leave that principle behind, then why bother with a trial?

K Keeling

it's terrifying to see how many would-be child abusers like 'verity' and her ilk - people who were thrilled and excited by the though of seeing the two 10 YEAR OLD perpetrators subject to the same level of violence they purported to be condemning - have been drawn out of the woodwork now this case is once again in the news

Frank P

GZod

Let me then pose another imaginary scenario that emerges from this type of story. I know not whether you have children. But for the sake of debate, let us say you have a 21 year old daughter. She meets a bloke called Joe Blogs at a local coffee bar; he is a few years older than her and she strikes up a relationship with him. The relationship develops and they decide to move in together. Neither is too fussed about marriage and despite your chagrin they have a child together: your grandchild of course. Soon afterwards, the police knock at the door of your daughter's family home one day with a warrant to search the house for illegal pornography involving children and confiscate the home computer after discovering that it is replete with filth of the worst kind. Your daughter has no idea what her husband has been up to when she is at work. As police are about to remove them both from the house, he breaks down and tells her that he is not really Joe Bloggs, but David Smith. He further confesses that he did something really terrible as a ten year old, he killed a baby and served a long prison sentence. He was released 5 years ago under a new identity to allow him to start a new life without being 'lynched by the mob'. He insists that he picked up the porn habit while in detention and it is only for 'fun' because he was 'curious'.

She tells you all this in her cell in the police station, as police are not yet satisfied that your daughter is not involved in the child porn-ring. Your grandchild is in the care of the local authority, pending enquiries.

How do you feel about the criminal justice system and 'fair trials' and 'relocation', now, Zod?

And if that doesn't make you less certain about naive liberal social workers and 'ooman riytz', contemplate what the father of the 17 year old murdered girl felt like today after he discovered that the pervert who murdered her had a string of convictions for sex offences and was 'on licence' from prison because some liberal shrink of dubious mental stability himself/herself deemed him to be 'no danger to the public'.

It is a plausible scenario that arises from 'relocation and official false identity allotment ', particularly as in both these cited cases there has obviously been lack of proper supervision of those on license or parole.

How about employers? Can we be reassured that anyone who employs them is aware of what is involved? The government cannot be allowed to cloak these affairs in secrecy. Why should we trust the crooks that comprise our current government, with anything? Jacqui Smith? Jack Straw? et al? We know these people are deliberately trying to undermine our traditions and nation. Read Alinski's Rules for Revolutionaries. Read Gramsci's prison notes. Read any history of the last 50 years of creeping covert communism.

Now discuss 'principles' and this time lace the discussion with just a tad of pragmatism. As I said in my earlier post, there are some people who are born bad – some would say ‘evil’ but that is a religious connotation that I would avoid, I've met them by the score, and dealt with some of them (and I'm not just talking about the fucking politicians):-)

Remember we have closed down mental institutions and filled the prisons with psychotic animals but, I'm sorry to report, we have let far more out on to the streets under 'Care in the Community.' I forget the statistics, but I am sure one of the CH-ers can produce the stats for the number of innocent people killed by strangers who have been previously convicted for serious offences of serious violence, in some cases previous murders, during the last decade or so. All this in the name of 'principles' and 'compassion', you insist.

There is no reason whatsoever in this day and age that a jury cannot be trusted to exercise objectivity in a trial with due direction from the Court. In my honest opinion it is unjust for the jury not to know that a defendant is a persistent perpetrator of violence if he is charged with a violent offence. The jury is not in possession of all the facts otherwise. We bend over backwards for lying wicked defendants, yet blithely ignore the welfare of honest victims. That could be one definition of gross injustice and lack of principle, in my opinion. But also as I said in my earlier post on this thread, there's no need for him to be tried for anything less than another murder. Just return him to stir, tell the public why - and throw away the key, with a promise that this time it means 'life'.

Vulture

Lest there be a misunderstanding, my position is not that Venables should have been executed when he was 10, but that he should be executed now that he is 27 and has demonstrated that his sadistic paedophilia is incorrigible and incurable.

Anyway, let's hope that the inmates of whatever jail he's in do what society is too depraved and decadent to do.

Andy Leeds

Vulture, your position is wrong. When we had capital punishment for murder if a person was under 18 at the time of the murder they were not executed even if at the trial they could be sentenced to death. For those under 18 the sentence remains the same today as in the 1950s - 'That you be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure'. That is how it should be.

If you want a target to vent your fury I suggest you look at the ECHR. It is they who have ruled that the Home Secretary cannot be involved in determining when a murderer is released. Thus any public role has been removed from such cases.

EyeSee

There is a spectacular amount of rot spoken on this subject (not least the sneering and arrogant assertions by Will Self on QT). Information about alledged crimes before trial is rightly withheld. After a trial it should be published. Law and the justice system exist to protect the majority from being preyed on by a minority determined to serve only themselves. Liberals (like Self) squeal like stuck pigs that criminals should be looked after and protected and that victims have no rights. But when you make the choice (and it is a choice) to go outside the agreed laws for the good of all, then they are the ones who put aside all their rights. Venables lost his rights when he chose to murder (Self says he didn't know what he was doing, which is a really desperate attempt to have your way). The liberals, renewing their squeals say that we must endlessly support Venables because of the brutes of society (which I imagine is the stockbroker belt, little old ladies and Mail readers, definitely not Labour voters though) will lynch the poor unfortunate. He would be shunned by people who don't want to live near, drink, work with or be the focus of his attention. Can a 'girlfriend' find out about him from the sex register? Or is her life worth less than his wellbeing? Venables made his choice; if he had in any way, ever, had to live with the consequences of his actions he would have learned a lot, he may have had a chance to make a better life. But his better life has been achieved through the murder. Self asserts that Venables IS serving a life sentence because, despite having anonymity, housing, a fresh start, he is not really free. And in what way is anyone else responsible for that?

So yes, the public have a right to read reports of crimes such as those committed by famous child murderers, on release. That life is not easy for criminals might, in a society not muddled by the likes of Self (until I suspect, he is sinned against), see less crime. Maybe too, children who extensively torture and kill a two year old should not be given comforts they couldn't otherwise expect and a very short 'sentence'. A different regime might also expect criminals to rehabilitate all on their own, keen not to return. And finally, again against the all-knowing Self, when was the last time people, naturally less enlightened than him, lynched anyone? Indeed. Self and his ilk are suffering from moral panic. And a lack of care.

General Zod

Frank P, do you really think Venables would be allowed to marry and have children? He is closely supervised (not sufficiently it appears), but enough to deal with major undertakings such as getting married and having children. the solution is to make sure that he cannot do these things, not to execute him.

John Lea

THX-person - "At almost the same time as the Bulger killing, three 10 years old boys killed a little girl in Norway and buried her body in the snow, within three months they were back at school."

You're absolutely right. We're just far too hard on our child murderers in this country. Serving 8 years in a warm prison with access to the internet and open university degree courses, whilst receiving the odd bit of counselling, is just barbaric!

General Zod

PS, Frank, I do have children. My elder son is the age James Bulger was when he was killed. It makes recalling the horror of that murder particularly acute for me.

Frank P

GZod

I didn't suggest that he should be executed, but 'life' should mean what it says - for the crime he committed, I've been against CP all my life but have recently have become increasingly uncertain that I was right in that regard.

In any case, there is no excuse for loosing a psychotic on the public once he has committed brutal murder. And how do you know he would be debarred from a sexual relationship by his minders? It would appear from the leaks that he has had a very long lead indeed and the 'assessors' are up for the three card trick any day, anyway; now that he's back in prison - THAT'S the issue that should be addressed: who fell down on the job of keeping a tight rein on this animal, rather than buggering about with new trials and tip-toeing through the minefield of 'innocent until proved guilty' crap - while we're tut-tutting over principles, innocents are getting whacked by perverts who are seemingly being protected by other 'official' perverts. He was proved guilty a long time ago and should have been sectioned, rather than cosseted. Certainly any misdemeanor (including and more serious than farting in church) should have resulted in his feet not touching the ground on his way back to the flowery dell. God save us all from idealistic do-gooders and their Utopian sentimentality. When it's not hypocrisy, it's just plain stupidity, or even worse, political engineering to destroy whatever is left of our culture and country.
It's all of a piece - join up the dots!

General Zod

Frank, I may be in agreement with you then. I'm not at all sure they should ever have been let out, but then I'm not an expert psychiatrist with the knowledge and experience to determine whether such a crime commmitted at such a young age precludes rehabilitation.

Verity

K Keeling - This is libel: "'verity' and her ilk - people who were thrilled and excited by the though of seeing the two 10 YEAR OLD perpetrators subject to the same level of violence they purported to be condemning ..."

One flaw militating against your stream of malice, I didn't know about this case when it happened. I was living overseas and this was before the days of easy access to foreign newspapers and TV on the internet. I know Little Englanders such as your good self imagine that the rest of the world eagerly follows British domestic news, but they don't. So I could not have been "thrilled and excited by the thought of seeing two 10-yr old perps subjected to the same level of violence they purported to be condemning" ... At the time all this was going on, I was totally unaware of it.

I started following the story, as a newcomer to the story, a few days ago, therefore did not experience the emotions 15 years ago, or whatever it was, that you have libellously assigned to me.

Apology, please.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

K. Keeling: This is the first time I have seen a posting from you on this blog. I am, therefore, unable to judge the level of your education or your mental and emotional level, so correct me if I sam wrong. I believe your comments to "Verity and her ilk" were a Freudian Transfer.

K Keeling

Hi Verity! In your own words, posted above 'It is an offence against innocent people that this individual was not put down all these (sic) years ago'. A pretty clear call, I think, for violence to have been done to Venables as a child. You wish violence had been inflicted on a child.You said so your self. And if you really did, as you say, only start following this story 'a few days ago' - and therefore presumably know little or nothing about it, why are you publicly calling expressing regrets that the protagonist wasn't executed as a child? Either way, it is you that should be apologising - for your monstrous attitudes. And 'Anne Wotana Kaye 1': I am similarly unaware of your educational level etc also - but you evidently know nothing about Freud

AngloWelshDragon

What a relief to know CH contributors are being assessed on their mental, educational and emotional prowess by Anne Wotana Kaye. We can all sleep easy in our beds.

Verity

K Keeling writes, with predictable drab socialist triumph, from his/her bedsit: "Hi Verity!"

(Only socialists address strangers with "hi!". For the pronoun "me", do you say "myself"?)

Here is what you wrote yourself, addressed to me:

"In your own words, posted above, 'It is an
offence against innocent people that this individual was not put down all these (sic) years ago'. A pretty clear call, I think for violence to have been done to Venables as a child".

"Have been done?" No. That wouldn't wash in court. I didn't specify how many years ago I
was referring to. You are inferring, and that doesn't count as fact.

Hindsight is a wonderful, and useless, thing. So, in this instance, is inference.

You specifically wrote, under the misapprehension that I lived in Britain at the time referred to, "those years ago": "how many would-be child abusers like 'verity' and her ilk - people who were thrilled and excited by the though of seeing the two 10 YEAR OLD perpetrators subject to the same level of violence they purported to be condemning - have been drawn out of the woodwork now this case is once again in the news".

To repeat: "how many would-be child abusers like 'verity' and her ilk ..." Stated as fact. Libel.

Grotesque and spiteful imaginings. Inference published as fact. Libel.

Grovelling apology, please.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

AngloWelshDragon: I actually wrote with irony, realising what a dreary bleeding heart socialist K. Keeling sounds in her self-righteous blog. Anyway, if you are sleeping well, either in or out of your bed, then I am happy.

K Keeling

Hi verity! How many years ago did you mean, then? What did your statement 'It is an
offence against innocent people that this individual was not put down all these (sic) years ago' mean, if you weren't refering to Venables at the age when he was convicted? What other age did you mean? Why? How did you pick that particular age? And surely you must realise how ridiculous your efforts to frame your childish counter arguments - trying to insult me by calling me a socialist: how old are you?! - in quasi legal terminology make you look? It doesn't matter how much you squirm now - you said you wish violence had been done to Venables as a child. If you regret saying it, that's fine . Good. You should regret it - it was a dreadful thing to think and say. Just don't try to pretend you didn't think and say it. Face up to the truth, and do a little soul searching. You can call me a 'socialist' as much as you like, if that's your idea of an insult. It doesn't make you any your fantasies about violence being done to a child any less inhuman.