Jon Venables

On 12 February 1993 in Merseyside, two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson (born 23 August 1982) and Jon Venables (born 13 August 1982), abducted, tortured, and murdered a two-year-old boy, James Patrick Bulger (16 March 1990 – 12 February 1993).

Thompson and Venables led Bulger away from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, after his mother had taken her eyes off him momentarily.

His mutilated body was found on a railway line 2+1/2 mi away in Walton, Liverpool, two days later.

Thompson and Venables were charged on 20 February 1993 with abduction and murder.

They were found guilty on 24 November, making them the youngest convicted murderers in modern British history.

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) at the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle on 12 February 1993 showed Thompson and Venables casually observing children, apparently selecting a target.

The boys were playing truant from their local primary school, which they did regularly.

Throughout the day, Thompson and Venables were seen shoplifting various items, including sweets, batteries, a troll doll, and a can of blue Humbrol modelling paint.

One of the boys later revealed that they were planning to abduct a child, lead him to the busy road alongside the shopping centre, and push him into the oncoming traffic.

That same afternoon, two-year-old James Patrick Bulger, from Kirkby, went with his mother, Denise, to the New Strand Shopping Centre.

Whilst inside the A.R. Tym's butcher's shop on the lower floor of the centre at around 15:40, Denise, who had let go of her son's hand to pay for her shopping, realised that her son was missing.

Thompson and Venables had approached Bulger, took him by the hand, and led him out of the shopping centre.

The moment was caught on CCTV at 15:42.

Thompson and Venables took Bulger to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, around 1/4 mi from the New Strand Shopping Centre, where they dropped him on his head, and he suffered injuries to his face.

The boys joked about pushing Bulger into the canal.

An eyewitness said that when he saw Bulger at the canal, the boy was "crying his eyes out".

The boys went on a 2+1/2 mi walk across Liverpool; they were seen by around 38 people, but most bystanders did nothing to intervene.

Two people challenged Thompson and Venables, but they either claimed that Bulger was their brother, or that he was lost, and that they were taking him to a police station.

At one point, the boys took Bulger into a pet shop, from which they were ejected.

Eventually, the boys arrived in Walton.

With Walton Lane Police Station across the road, they hesitated, then led Bulger up a steep bank to a railway line near the former Walton & Anfield railway station, close to Walton Park Cemetery.

One of the boys threw the blue paint that they had shoplifted earlier into Bulger's left eye.

They kicked him, stamped on him, and threw bricks and stones at him.

They placed batteries in Bulger's mouth and may have inserted some into his anus, although none were found there.

Finally, the boys dropped a 10 kg railway fishplate on Bulger.

He sustained 10 skull fractures as a result of the bar striking his head.

Pathologist Alan Williams stated that Bulger suffered so many injuries—42 in total—that none could be identified as the fatal blow.

Thompson and Venables laid Bulger across the railway tracks and weighted his head down with rubble, hoping that a train would hit him and his death would be ruled an accident.

After they left the scene, his body was cut in half by a train.

Bulger's severed body was discovered by a group of children two days later.

A forensic pathologist testified that Bulger died before he was struck by the train.

Police suspected that the boys had sexually assaulted Bulger, as his shoes, socks, trousers, and underpants had been removed.

The pathologist's report, which was read out in court, found that Bulger's foreskin had been forcibly pulled back.

When Thompson and Venables were questioned about this aspect of the attack by detectives and a child psychiatrist, Eileen Vizard, the pair were reluctant to give details.

When Venables was let out on parole, his psychiatrist, Susan Bailey, reported that "visiting and revisiting the issue with Jon as a child, and now as an adolescent, he gives no account of any sexual element to the offence."

The police quickly found low-resolution video images of Bulger's abduction from the New Strand Shopping Centre by two unidentified boys.

They were sentenced to indefinite detention at Her Majesty's pleasure, and remained in custody until a Parole Board decision in June 2001 recommended their release on a lifelong licence at age 18.

Venables was sent to prison in 2010 for breaching the terms of his licence, was released on parole again in 2013, and in November 2017 was again sent to prison for possessing child sexual abuse images on his computer.

He remains in prison in 2023 after his appeals for parole were rejected.

The Bulger case has prompted widespread debate about how to handle young offenders when they are sentenced or released from custody.