susan venables pictures

Seeing at first hand the pain of a family who have lost a toddler to an act of brutal violence is almost unbearably moving. Best of all, they would spend time on the Walton railway line where Robert had built a den close to the bridge. she said. By now the two boys from Walton were part of an international freak show. It's high time they were investigated. Only two people can answer the question, and even their ability is doubtful. At the end of the street a mesh wire frame coverered the window of the money lenders. My young body must have been tense with the deep anxiety that permeated every inch of that courtroom. In Crosbies corner shop Ian, the next oldest to Robert, was able to tot up the shopping in his mind before the cash register rang up the total. So he came home. I know how I feel as a mother. He had left her to bring up six children alone. 'They would say 'take your son home'. Jon's parents said they talked to their son about James after he was arrested, but had to stop. Moments later, we were told, Jon Venables uttered the words, We did it. At the trialnine months laterI would learn that Robert Thompson had been among those people. Read about our approach to external linking. The Radio Merseyside newsroom, where I was working at the time, was full and everyone was on this story one way or another. Can Nigeria's election result be overturned? When shop keepers asked what they were doing they would pretend they were waiting for their mum. Half way through the 1992-1993 school year, Robert had already racked up nearly 50 unauthorized absences, and was falling significantly behind in his schoolwork. When she turned around moments later, her son was gone. The haunting words of Jon Venables' parents only interview have resurfaced, twenty five years after he killed tot Jamie Bulger. The boys lived off chips. The judge, in sentencing the boys yesterday, voiced his strong suspicion that exposure to violent videos had played a strong part in corrupting them. "I think about little James and what he must have gone through, how they must feel. Venables on the other hand was becoming increasingly agitated in the police interviews. yet, as Venables is back behind bars. The primary concern among the faculty was Roberts growing amount of absences. Not surprisingly, Ann had also attempted suicide in the same manner, some months before. They were sent home to their mother at one point, but after attempting suicide with overdoses, were placed back into care. He is one of those children that if you told him to put his hand in the fire, he would. But after a year they let Ian out again. Born on August 13th, 1982, Jon was the middle child of Neil and Susan Venables. Every day the public gallery was packed with students, pensioners, mothers, teenagers, all drawn to the courtroom spectacle as to a TV soap. Its beyond me," one viewer tweeted. Keep them apart or he'll get into trouble, they said. Ann Thompson and Susan and Neil Venables didn't need to imagine. The two had an aberrant relationship with one another, in the sense that it was almost as though they had never divorced. CCTV images revealed how James had been lured away by Thompson and Venables, who was also aged 10. His mother, Anne Marie Thompson, who is 39, got the house from the local housing trust after her husband, Robert, ran off with a woman from Stockport five years ago. A day later she would face much worse. King Charles III shakes hands with Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky as he welcomes at Buckingham Palace, in London, ahead of an audience during his first visit to the UK since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She was living in secrecy but always felt that she was walking around with a huge sign: mother of Bulger killer, above her head. The living versions on the floor of the court looked equally wrinkled and austere. There was almost total silence there apart from the sound of shoes on the ground. One of the new works by Banksy, appears to show a 1950s housewife, wearing a classic blue pinny and yellow washing up gloves, with a swollen eye and a missing tooth seemingly shoving her male partner into a chest freezer, the piece is set on a white wall backdrop in Kent. 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. The first time he asked Jon to play truant with him was last September, only weeks after they had become friends. si fs. He was pale in complexion and had watery brown, listless eyes. In the years between Venabless first return to prison and this latest conviction he was deemed to be living successfully in the community, when in fact he was working out ways to dodge his internet ban and hiding a computer in his headboard in order to download abusive images of children, including what the judge described this week as serious crimes inflicted on male toddlers. Express. One neighbour said she always let him into her home whenever his mother was out. Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both 10, murdered him in cold blood. For weeks, she stayed in bed, not bothering to tend to the children, and when she finally did reemerge, she readily admitted she drank from morning to night, but had stopped taking the pills. But I still kept him in if he was naughty or anything like that.'. This time, curiosity took the upper hand: 'I wanted to see what it was like,' he said. Asked later if he could recall a time when his brother had exhibited any unusually aggressive tendencies, Roberts brother said no: Hes frightened of his own shadow. Nonetheless, in hindsight, its safe to assume that by 1993, ten-year-old Robert was swiftly approaching crisis point., Alarmingly, some of the neighboring children later claimed to have seen Robert behave cruelly towards animals, and pull the heads off of baby pigeons, although this was never unequivocally confirmed. Teachers later reported that whereas the boys were manageable when separated, together their behavior worsened dramatically. She was a happy baby, much happier than her eldest brother had been, but as she grew older, Susan began noticing that she, too, appeared lazy, and was not as advanced as Jon. He didn't want to hurt James. The hardliners in the police have a simpler explanation. release. Many of us had dined together most nights throughout the trial, mulling it all over but distracting ourselves, too. I would say he was provoked. Without anyone in the family to turn to for support, he had to look outside for people whose swaggering aggression he could emulate. The other boy, Robert Thompson, we are told is now abiding by the conditions of his life license since he was released 17 years ago, and is doing well. He says 'I know, Mum'. I wish we could turn the clocks back,' Mrs Venables, 36, said. Venables was caught with 1,170 indecent photos of children on his laptop, the Old Bailey was told. Another added: "An awful mistake??!! In the last few years she stopped drinking in the Top House and tried to keep things together. They knew what they were doing," another wrote. fun to be with" and always had plenty of friends. Celestial. 'When you have got people in the area threatening to blow your kneecaps off every moment of the day - that's just the way they are. eb. By then, Robert and Jon had abducted James Bulger from the Strand and attempted to drown him in the nearby canal. A torrent of questions erupted from the moment the grim news came out that James Bulger's body had been found on a railway line in Liverpool and the last people seen with him were two ten-year-olds, captured on grainy CCTV footage. His response couldn't have been more different as he sank into the oversized blazer he was wearing. He has had his holidays like everyone else. Our feelings haven't changed towards him. It should certainly be moved up to 12; in some European countries it is 14," she said. Boy A - Robert Thompson - was the shorter and more rounded of the two. He denied having had any films that were not mainstream, or that were pornographic, in the house. I have cried for JamesBulgermany times, so God only knows the tears his parents and family have shed. On one occasion, he said, Robert ran off down the street laughing, "You can't catch me". It was this empowering chemistry between them that some argued set into motion the life-altering events that would devastate a family, challenge a community, and rock a nations core in the disquieting months that followed. In 1999, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the pair did not receive a fair trial and awarded costs and expenses of 29,000 to Jon Venables and 15,000 to Robert Thompson. Everton was his team. That's the thing that upsets me because obviously, where I was standing poor little James must have been not far . View the profiles of people named Susan Venables. You know, we just try and help him as best we can to try to come to terms with things. Jon spent Sunday to Thursday with his mum and the rest of every week with his dad. After spending just eight years in custody, Britain's youngest killers were released and given lifetime anonymity in the UK. They looked, moved, fidgeted, scratched, cried - even sucked their thumbs - just like any 11-year-olds. However, given that the tension in the household was persistent throughout the most crucial of Jons formative years, the belief that he had moved through the ordeal entirely unaffected is questionable. How could two small boys savage and leave a toddler for dead? Mrs Thompson said she was so often called to Walton Lane police station to retrieve her truanting son that they should have given her a job there. I'm warning yer,' she would say. Weeping, she said: 'I wasn't actually on the railway track because there is a fence, but I went up the side. Jon's parents, who sat in court for most of the trial, said they grieved for the Bulgers. S. Susan venables. In return, Jon would let Robert ride his bicycle, and from time to time he would suggest naughty deeds himself. It was a sign of such restlessness that he was unable to hang on to a football team for long - he kept shifting his allegiance like a floating voter. Who knows. The couple fought frequently as to their eldest sons troubles, which they later learned included mild learning difficulties, and Susan, at times becoming so exasperated by the situation, began to resent her sons presence. He was too scared to be naughty on his own. Then they had carried, dragged and kicked him along a two and a half mile journey, at times swinging him violently in the air or dropping him against the road, until they reached the railway where they stoned him with bricks, bashed his head with a 22lb iron bar, and left him dead across the tracks to be cut in half by a passing goods train. He had that odd combination of obsession with and disdain for possessions that is characteristic of children who have never enjoyed any of their own. "He is easily led. It is time to examine all this.". He believes these were evil boys. He caused me such anxiety, the teacher later recalled of Jon in a statement given to the Merseyside police. He would go to bed. however, as the incident in the playground shows, the ever-present threat of discovery cast a constant shadow over anyone related to the two murderers. Just four years earlier, we had all covered the Hillsborough disaster and come together in grief. As a new documentary is set to air on ITV, the haunting words of Jon Venables' parents have resurfaced. "'It wasnt fair to interview him. At 2:30 they went to the two-story shopping centre. The most agonising thing about the whole case was that so many people had stopped them and questioned them. James' mother Denise believes they should have remained in jail for life and has tirelessly campaigned against their rights to anonymity. Will you tell his Mum Im sorry?. Since his 14-year-old brother, Phillip , had already tried to stab him, the social services agreed. Pictures; Inside the Guardian; Guardian Weekly . Fiction Writing. He had been stripped from the waist down,. But Robert was stuck in Walton with his older brothers and the baby. re bz. Superintendent Kirby is a religious man. I don't think so. Last November he was arrested and recalled to jail on suspicion of possession of images of child sex abuse. The fathers of both Robert and Jon were without work. The couple, who are living together again after a partial separation, said their feelings towards Jon had not changed despite the terrible crime. The petition, that now has 14,682 signatures, reads: "We want a Public Inquiry into the James Bulger murder case. The days James was abducted, February 12 1993, I was a young reporter in my home city of Liverpool. The bleached houses were peppered with burglar alarms, the shabby ones did not look worth the trouble. Finally, in 1988, while on a family vacation, the breaking point came, when Big Bobby, then thirty-four, began an adulterous relationship with a friend and neighbor in her fifties. 'His mum was more strict. Such pleasantries were not for Robbie. A heartstopping moment came when the playing of the tapes in court was paused. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Parents of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson talk about their sons, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. ", 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.". Venables parents were divorced but still lived within a stones throw of one another and were both involved in their sons upbringing. The Rt Reverend Glyn Webster lights a candle in front of the newly restored Lady Chapel East Window at All Saints North Street in York, one of thirteen stained glass windows from the church undergoing conservation work at Barley Studio, Royal College of Nursing (RCN) general secretary Pat Cullen on the picket line outside Great Ormond Street Hospital in London during a strike by nurses and ambulance staff, Britains former prime minister Liz Truss leaves her home on February 5, 2023 in London, England. We will never be able to do the fun things any more . But they shouldn't have been tried in an adult court because they were still children. For a start, there were only three children, of whom Jon was the middle.

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