The most agonising thing about the whole case was that so many people had stopped them and questioned them. They played truant, they pinched sweets, they terrorised old ladies. They deal with drugs, they deal with everything. 'When the fisticuffs ended, they made friends.' 2023 BBC. When he played truant he was scared she would come and find him. Susan and neil venables. She found it hard bringing the kids up in the neighbourhood. Born 10 days apart in August 1982 in Liverpool. ", Her husband, Neil, said: "If you had a league table of children, you would put him at the bottom of the list for anything like this.". The first time he asked Jon to play truant with him was last September, only weeks after they had become friends. What's the least amount of exercise we can get away with? Jon was also mad on computers. she said. Now we waited. At 2:30 they went to the two-story shopping centre. Robert Thompson was born to Robert Sr. and Ann Thompson on the 23rd day of August 1982, in Liverpool, England. Facebook gives people the power. Depressed, Ann began drinking heavily and was taking narcotics which caused her to hallucinate. 'He always seemed perfectly well behaved and I think he looked on me as some kind of grandma. Will you tell his Mum Im sorry?. I just think of James and his Dad and about all that fun with his little boy, like I had with Jon.". . Constantly restless, his workbooks were empty, and he would often be denied recess because he was so far behind. Reporters from around the world ended up in the drab streets of Walton, cadging interviews off any 10-year-old boys hanging around in the streets. We feel so sorry for him because he must be going through so much torment. Thompson admitted nothing. "Just TV programmes and little things remind me of the good times we had together . He had an elder brother, aged 13, and a nine-year-old sister. The left will make play of social deprivation, unemployment, bad housing and general inner-city rot. By now the Venables were reunited as a result of the court case. There was a pattern of bullying, with the older boys picking on their younger brothers down the line. James' mother Denise believes they should have remained in jail for life and has tirelessly campaigned against their rights to anonymity. A pathologist later said that there were so many injuries - 42 in total - that not one could be isolated as causing the little boy's fatal wound. He didn't want to hurt James. Few had the patience to be friends with him, only his younger brother and a couple of lads who lived nearby. We have found 88 people in the UK with the name Susan Venables. School had no hold on him - there was no corporal punishment or other form of penalty that touched him. NEIL Venables was warned by friends not to let his son play with the other boy. During the Bulger investigation, police checked the details of 50 videos Mr Venables had hired in recent months. In the mean time, Susan, finding her new living conditions insufferable, soon decided to move back in with Neil until she could find another place of her own. Resentful of her husbands lack of involvement with the children, Susan conceded that the couple fought constantly, especially throughout 1983, but maintained that Neil had never been aggressive towards her, nor had she hit him. Mrs Thompson claimed she had been the victim of revenge attacks after her identity became known. A video still of James Bulger, aged 2 years old, being led away in the 'New Strand' shopping centre. What they did was exceptionally unpleasant and the fact that a little boy ended up dead is not something the nation can easily forget. Both parents hope was that he would make something of his life and eventually find some peace. So much happened whilst I was there involving Jon. His body, defiled and broken in two by a train, two miles from where hed been taken, was foundtwo days later. It worked. Haunting CCTV footage shows the pair leading the tiny, trusting boy . There was almost total silence there apart from the sound of shoes on the ground. "BULL**** about 'two frightened kids whod made a terrible mistake' The tapes said they kept stoning him, even when he kept getting up. Two boys who forged a friendship out of breaking the rules. si fs. I got on with my job, but months later the impact of that trial had sunk in and a difficult, tearful, confusing year followed for me. As the paedophile killer pleaded guilty on Wednesday to possessing more than 1,000 indecent images of children and a "paedo manual" - his parents words on their son's involvement make disturbing reading. Without anyone in the family to turn to for support, he had to look outside for people whose swaggering aggression he could emulate. He wanted a Rovers strip for his birthday present. Not their punishmentand exclusion from society for the rest of their childhood. One could draw some parallels between the film's plot and James Bulger's death. Susan Venables, now 53, suffered from severe depres-sion and struggled with her two other children, an older son and younger daughter, who suffered learning difficulties. Then they would hide their school satchels under a subway and set off on their adventure. Forensic and pathology evidence was a huge challenge for everyone, not least the jury who were shown pictures of James injuries. Thousands of members of Unison, Unite and the GMB unions are set to walk out across England and Wales on Monday as part of continued industrial action in the health service, Performers taking part in a parade involving costumes, lion dances and floats, during Chinese New Year celebrations in London, Everton fans hold up banners protesting against the board of directors during their Premier League match against West Ham at the London Stadium, A pair of swans fly over a frozen pond in Bushy Park in London, People take part in a demonstration in support of trans rights outside the UK Government Office in Edinburgh, A member of the Royal College of Nursing holds their dog whilst on the picket line outside Kings College Hospital in London, as nurses take industrial action over pay, The scene on the A39 Quantock Road in Bridgwater after a double-decker bus overturned in a crash involving a motorcycle, A man walks dogs in snowy conditions in a park in Hexham. At Radio City in Liverpool the calls were coming through from Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The two bumped into each other - literally - in the school playground in the middle of a fight. Mr Venables said: "He wouldn't watch horror. Mrs Thompson worked as an office cleaner until two years ago, when she got pregnant again by another man, who also left her. One of the focal points of the local community was QD Videos at the bottom of Robert's street, where the kids would browse through the horror stacks, discussing their favourites knowledgeably. At Preston Crown Court Thompsons mother Ann and Venables parents Neil and Sue sat side by side. I wish we could turn the clocks back," Mrs Venablessaid. Robert was number five of seven. They would sneak out during the morning break, hiding behind a wall before the coast was clear. "Throughout the conduct of the case there have been a number of issues that have been swept under the carpet. As a grim portrait of abuse, drunkenness and neglect emerged, the hatred and loathing for Robert Thompson and Jon Venables was also turned on their parents. According to the teacher, Jon would rock back and forth in his desk, making strange noises (this behavior was later speculated to be Jons jealous attempt to emulate his elder brother, in order to receive the same special attention), bang his head on the desk or walls repeatedly, glue bits of paper all over his face, wedge himself in between desks, throw himself on the ground, throw chairs across the corridor, rip projects off the classroom walls, cut holes in his socks, and intentionally cut himself with scissors. I would get him something like a cartoon.". It emerged that the Venables family had suffered the same fate in another area. Denise, James Bugler's mother, went with her brother's girlfriend Nicola to the Bootle Strand Shopping Centre and took James with her. This time, curiosity took the upper hand: 'I wanted to see what it was like,' he said. When she turned around moments later, her son was gone. Left to his own devices Jon liked to spend his playtime in fairly sedentary ways. qu fy. What happened to James Bulger? Ann tried to discourage this by hiding his shoes, or by taking him down to the Walton Lane police station and having the officer on duty frighten him into compliance, but to no avail. Celestial. By now, Robert had also stepped comfortably into the role of the aggressor, and, following in the footsteps of his elder brothers, began tormenting his eight-year-old brother on a daily basis. Sitting in the new class was a chubby boy with a cherub's face - Robert Thompson. His mother especially has been a tower of strength, says the source. This means that we may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. Can Nigeria's election result be overturned? portrayed him as the leader and evil one, says James Smith. Liked by susan venables. It is just heartbreaking.". I thought he was all right, Jon said of Robert during his police interviews. Mrs Venables said: 'I think it was because the class group was too big for them to go in . It would be a week before we heard their voices, in hours of taped police interviews, They stopped us all in our tracks. The most startling moment of the trial came when, in lieu of giving evidence in person, the boys' taped interviews with police - recorded just after their arrest - were played in court. It is time to examine all this.". "In order that justice can be done, no further details are being released at this stage and the proceedings are subject to reporting restrictions.". Just seeing the size of them that first time, the childish figures they naturally were, caught my breath. Meanwhile Robert Thompson always regarded as the ringleader and the most likely of the murderous duo to fall by the wayside is said to be doing well. This would have put Jon in a particularly arduous position, as the couples only excelling child, and as author Gitta Sereny observed from her time spent with the Venables in 1994, forcing this middle child, Jon, for a long time, perhaps unconsciously, to compensate his mother for her two problem children, put an enormous weight of responsibility on this child virtually from the time he was born., As Susan struggled to manage her two disadvantaged children day to day, Neil was the familys breadwinner, working as a forklift driver. Seeing at first hand the pain of a family who have lost a toddler to an act of brutal violence is almost unbearably moving. Ann denied the physical abuse, but later admitted to being cruel to the boys at times. Guilty of abducting and murdering James PatrickBulger. She got her drinking under control and began giving her murderer son the attention he.