But after a year they let Ian out again. 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. He caused me such anxiety, the teacher later recalled of Jon in a statement given to the Merseyside police. If I wanted to kill a baby, Id kill Id kill me own, wouldnt I?. It was during this time that Susan, having suffered from clinical depression for many years, had experienced what were later described as two traumatic incidences, both of which Jon would have witnessed. He stayed away from school so often the local police called him a professional truant. Not surprisingly, Ann had also attempted suicide in the same manner, some months before. For she added: 'But he's not a murderer.'. 'I couldn't hear anything,' she said. It was the kind of family neighbours compare themselves against and then feel better. The teacher had a different perspective, saying that Susan was in fact aware of the issue, and had expressed deep concern. And in Lower Lane police station when he was being questioned about the murder she had to be told that her harsh words were inhibiting him from confessing. Her warnings arent being heeded, but 25 years on, I think she is probably right. In the first press conference she gave the day after her son was taken, this 25-year-old woman struck me as a girl, a desperate, grief stricken girl whose tired swollen eyes told their own story. His father, thin and balding, had a much gentler edge. The attitude when you live where we live is that you have to be tough or else you dont survive, she said. In the last few years she stopped drinking in the Top House and tried to keep things together. Jon's first year after he was moved was relatively successful. Less thanfive hours laterthe verdicts were in. For me, though, it is Susan and Neil Venables who stay most in my memory of that day. Jon's parents said they talked to their son about James after he was arrested, but had to stop. Not that he had any need to borrow his dad's. The atmosphere in the courtroom was oppressive as the tension of a month was about to break. Our feelings haven't changed towards him. I thought he was all right, Jon said of Robert during his police interviews. The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. It should certainly be moved up to 12; in some European countries it is 14," she said. When he played truant he was scared she would come and find him. 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. Robert passed this down the line bullying his eight-year-old brother into playing truant. Spidery and messy. They passed 36 people, with one recalling how they urged the boys to take their 'little brother' home because he was 'crying for his mummy'. His father, Neil, an unemployed panel-beater, was separated from his mother but they lived only a mile apart, saw each other every other day, and took equal care of the children. Facebook gives people the power. I feel so sorry for them. By now the Venables were reunited as a result of the court case. 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. Three years ago, after his mother walloped him, he went to social services and asked them to put him in care. Everyone called him Chubby, because of his round, cherub's face. Boy A - Robert Thompson - was the shorter and more rounded of the two. They rejected suggestions that he could have watched Child's Play Three, a film that his father had rented three weeks before James's death, which, it has been claimed, included scenes similar to those of the attack on the two-year-old. On the days he was at school he had a knack for stirring things up. He is one of those children that if you told him to put his hand in the fire, he would. School had no hold on him - there was no corporal punishment or other form of penalty that touched him. They were sent home to their mother at one point, but after attempting suicide with overdoses, were placed back into care. David Sharrock, Maggie O'Kane, and Edward Pilkington look at the lives of the rebels who turned to killing, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Susan and neil venables. His mother especially has been a tower of strength, says the source. Susan opted to remove him from the school then, and some months later, she reenrolled him in St. Marys in Walton. Just four years earlier, we had all covered the Hillsborough disaster and come together in grief. The other shops in the area were also armoured with mesh, including the Red Garden chipper where Robert used to pop in with his brothers most nights for a 25p bag of chips. Robert said 'If you tell anybody I'll get my big brother to batter you up'. Thompson was inscrutable in the dock as we heard his voice for the first time. . There was a pattern of bullying, with the older boys picking on their younger brothers down the line. Click here to find personal data about Susan Venables including phone numbers, addresses, directorships, electoral roll information, related property prices and other useful information. The shock in the city was plain to see, but it wasn't just in Liverpool that people stared at the CCTV pictures of the boy holding James' hand, while another led the way to the exit of the shopping centre where a frantic Denise Bulger would have been desperately looking for her child. Best of all, they would spend time on the Walton railway line where Robert had built a den close to the bridge. He liked to spend the weekend on the streets. Words with the drawing, full of spelling mistakes and grammatical. She said an educational psychologist had diagnosed hyperactivity in her son, who was bullied at his previous school. 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. I am not sure if in fact he was seen by the school psychologist, but I did complete a form for him.. Denise, James Bugler's mother, went with her brother's girlfriend Nicola to the Bootle Strand Shopping Centre and took James with her. They probably weren't out to kill someone, but they were probably out to ruin someone else's happiness. 'Provided you have no court orders for debts already,' the man on the phone would add helpfully. This time, curiosity took the upper hand: 'I wanted to see what it was like,' he said. Susan Venables Facebook: susan.venables.9 Lives in Mellor, Blackburn With Darwen, . We feel so sorry for him because he must be going through so much torment. I would get him something like a cartoon.". Heck, we don't even have murderers that young in New York.'. She visited regularly and they would hold family anniversaries in the, place where he was held. "Contrary to what the papers will tell you, he is not a little urchin boy. View the profiles of people named Susan Venables. This happened, more often than not, at night, when they refused to go to bed when told. A maudlin ballad about Liverpool was playing in the back- ground and she was cooking the dish known as Scouse. His mother was not so keen on the idea - they cost pounds 35 each. 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. But they shouldn't have been tried in an adult court because they were still children. The reaction prompted James' mum Denise Fergus to let supporters know she had nothing to do with the programme. Constantly fighting and battering one another, and possibly, too, being hit by their emotionally drained mother, the Thompson brothers often looked scruffy, and, on more than one occasion, were seen bearing bruises and bite marks. 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. After a while the 10-year-olds began to charge - a tenner an interview. Members of the Up Helly Aa 'Jarl Squad' parade through the streets in Lerwick, Shetland Islands, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon using a camera during her visit to BBC Studioworks in Glasgow, Passersby chat with the police as they arrive to see King Charles III and the Princess Royal attend a church service at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, Norfolk, People at a vigil at Lurgan Park in Lurgan, Co Armagh in memory of murder victim Natalie McNally and opposing violence against women, Firefighters use hoses to dampen down at the scene of a fire at St Marks Church in Hamilton Terrace, St Johns Wood, London, which has been destroyed by the blaze which began in the early hours of the morning, Huskies pull their musher during a training run before this weekends annual Aviemore Sled Dog Rally, in Feshiebridge, A knitted topper celebrating Burns Night placed on a post box in Alloway, Ayrshire, Deer graze during sunrise at Ashton Court Estate, Bristol, where clear misty skies and a cold morning brings frost across parts of the south west UK, Ambulance workers on the picket line outside the Donnington Ambulance Hub, at Donnington, near Telford, Shropshire. She got her drinking under control and began giving her murderer son the attention he. He said he was frightened of Robert's older brother. I just think of James and his Dad and about all that fun with his little boy, like I had with Jon.". The trial though didnt, and was never designed to, shed light on how two such young children could be guilty of such sustained barbarity. He didn't want to hurt James. The end of the court case was not the end of course. ', A psychoanalyst and child psychotherapist comes up with yet another possible explanation. She spent much of her time at the pub after that, and rarely stayed in for a meal. A sudden pause in the tapes and one of the officers appeared in person to describe how he asked Neil and Susan Venables to leave the room because he thought Jon wanted to tell him something. "It is hard to take in really. But viewers were shocked when experts "defended" the 10-year-old murderers saying they made "an awful mistake". There, he is terrorising a girl. In court, he hid his face again. After they became friends he initiated Jon into the delights of climbing into people's back gardens and the consequent thrill of being chased out by the owners. 'I can't read hard words,' he said. ", 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.".