Jon Venables

Jequ0n · 22-09-2023 3:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121143517#Comment_121143517

You don’t need to have empathy to know right from wrong and to understand that decisions are will have a negative impact on your life. Just because someone doesn’t have empathy does not mean that they are dangerous.

Yeah Right · 22-09-2023 3:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121141170#Comment_121141170

James.

His name is James Bulger and he was never known by the name Jamie at all. When the story broke and the tabloids were riding on the crest of emotion that followed, some unscrupulous editor decided "Jamie" sounded better for some reason and went with that against her wishes. She has always maintained that his name is James and not Jamie. I don't know how this isn't more widely known.

JP Liz V1 · 22-09-2023 3:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121143426#Comment_121143426

I think a child's murder especially does stay with you, I know I still think of poor Santina Cawley and Robert Holohan, shocking that his killer only served 3 years

I wonder can Jamie's parent(s) still provide a victim impact statement to the parole board even though it for another crime with their disapproval

22-09-2023 3:53pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121143067#Comment_121143067

Not possessing empathy doesn't mean you will commit awful crimes. In fact you can go about your life quite successfully on many fronts. My own capacity can be tested where I'm left scratching my head at a person's stupidity.

In saying that I need to think about whether or not it matters. Like you say as long as the rules of life are followed then what of it. But I have thoughts to figure out.

Venables and Thompson however had zero empathy when they murdered James. I can't make sense of their actions otherwise.

Patrick2010 · 22-09-2023 4:22pm

To those who say as 10 year olds they didn’t fully understand what they were doing, when I was 10 I wouldn’t have liked having paint poured into my eyes or being battered with concrete. Equally I couldn’t imagine inflicting the same on another child.

Become Death · 22-09-2023 4:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121143011#Comment_121143011

Ha, I didn't mean there was a pick out of the three.

I meant I have seen people ask if they would let x babysit their child on three separate threads

But to answer your question:

Depending on the age and sex of the child.

I certainly wouldn't leave a teen girl with Brand. But he would be my pick of the three for any other child demographic

22-09-2023 4:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121143635#Comment_121143635

Karen Harrington had no history or previous convictions for violence. What happened to her that night that led to her murdering little Santina. It's baffling.

I would love the opportunity to talk to them - Harrington, Venables, Thompson, Ana's killers - just to get a tiny glimpse in to their psyche. Would they chat away the same as any of us or would it be obvious something is amiss.

Fascinating.

Odhinn · 22-09-2023 4:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121140896#Comment_121140896

Are you still beating your wife?

JP Liz V1 · 22-09-2023 4:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121143851#Comment_121143851

You could be the Irish Louie Theroux visiting prisons

I'd be afraid if I'm honest

22-09-2023 5:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121143979#Comment_121143979

The dream! 😁

Would you Liz? Afraid they might hurt you?

JP Liz V1 · 22-09-2023 5:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121144009#Comment_121144009

I would be thinking of their crime all the time and be frightened

22-09-2023 6:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121144091#Comment_121144091

Of course. That makes sense. Just being in the presence of someone who you know has done a terrible thing can be unsettling.

Rubberchikken · 22-09-2023 8:00pm

Releasing him hasn't worked but neither will 'just lock him up and throw away the key ' mentality.

I remember hearing it on the.news the first report. When it was mentioned that two children were to blame it was truly hard to believe.

The picture of that little boy being led by the hand by a child not much older but with evil in his heart (I really believe) is haunting.

Ive no answer to what to do with him. I feel if he's released he'll offend again.

I find it very difficult to try to understand people like this.

Xander10 · 22-09-2023 9:32pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121143592#Comment_121143592

Madeline McCann was only ever known as Madeline. Again, it was the tabloids that dubbed her Maddie, and looked to profit by running constant stories about what happen, who abducted her, false news of breakthroughs etc, for their own murky gains.

touts · 22-09-2023 10:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121140814#Comment_121140814

We'll all know their identities when they inevitably butcher some other poor women.

22-09-2023 10:19pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121145005#Comment_121145005

"Ah sure they were kids, they just made an innocent mistake, sure it could have been any of us who did that as kids"

John_Rambo · 23-09-2023 12:13am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121145088#Comment_121145088

Said nobody.

23-09-2023 12:59am

Some choice quotes from this discussion. Remember, the "bad choice" they made was to kidnap, and then torture a toddler to death. Dwell on that for a moment... now read:

I have an unpopular view, I am against jail sentences for children in all circumstances.

They were 10 years old and made some bad choices.

It’s so nice and convenient to think that these were just 2 bad eggs, right?

He served his sentence and deserves a second chance. Get over it.

I don't accept the concept of criminal responsibility for children

I think if society dumps two 10 year olds into a trash can and washes their hands of them then that says a lot about what that society really is.

"lets see what happens if we do this" is an excellent way to sum up childhood tbh. Thats how people learn and grow. Most of the time the things they do are within normal boundaries, but sometimes, as in this case, they are not.

TokTik · 23-09-2023 2:12am

There are certain crimes that deserve a maximum enhanced punishment.

Bulger and Kriegel are 2 of them. If society today is too soft to bring back execution, then life, meaning entire life, imprisonment should be the sentence. And it should be as solitary and sparse as possible. A bed, a toilet, a shower in their cell, 3 meals a day, an hours exercise and maybe a preselected list of books.

Nobody that depraved and evil, 10 or 110, should be allowed back with the general public, for society’s sake and safety. They have forfeited their own human rights when they have done something that vile to another human.

GSBellew · 23-09-2023 3:24am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121144539#Comment_121144539

We do not need to understand, they are evil, they are not owed rehabilitation, the death penalty I do not agree with but they should never leave a cell, same as James Bolger will never see the light of day again.

23-09-2023 11:35am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121145646#Comment_121145646

Yeah, I find it odd that in certain cases there seems to be more sympathy for the murderers than the victims.

Murder should simply be life in prison. As in the rest of your life. You took a life in a way defined as murder, so you pay for it with yours. That is justice.

dam099 · 23-09-2023 12:23pm

Our whole society is based on the premise that children are not as developed mentally as adults, a 10 year old cannot

Purchase alcohol or nicotine
Enter a contract
Consent to sex
Vote
Join the military
etc.

All these are for good reason, yet we have posters here saying to treat them like an adult and lock them up for the whole of their life.

I don't believe children who commit serious crimes should get a free pass either but there has to be balance and some attempt should be made to rehabilitate and I expect mental health intervention should form part of that. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to some sort of sentence which lets them out on licence (after appropriate rehabilitation) which would make it easier to incarcerate them if their subsequent behaviour suggests they still pose a theat.

23-09-2023 12:33pm

I wonder if James understood what was happening to him in his final moments.

Boggles · 23-09-2023 12:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121145576#Comment_121145576

I have an unpopular view, I am against jail sentences for children in all circumstances.

This isn't some daft throw away comment or some untested theory.

Children under 15 can't be criminalised in Norway.

It's quite controversial but not for why you would think.

23-09-2023 12:41pm

No one is going to convince me to feel any sympathy for the murderers of this case.

I could possibly understand a child killing another accidentally, like if they were play fighting and it went too far. Then yeah, I don't think a child should be charged with manslaughter.

But some of you are appealing for clemency in the case of a toddler being kidnapped and tortured to death. I will never be on your side. It will never happen no matter what you say.

Patrick2010 · 23-09-2023 12:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121146384#Comment_121146384

Thompson has been out for 20 years

Fr Tod Umptious · 23-09-2023 1:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121146463#Comment_121146463

Yes on a life long license, so if he ever reoffends again for anything he's back in jail.

To the people who want the names of the killers of Anna Kriegel to be made public do you think Thompson's current identity should be made public?

And if so what would be the benefit to the public?

Str8outtaWuhan · 23-09-2023 1:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121141179#Comment_121141179

There was an entire school responsible, it's wasn't just those two lads who treated her thus. Unfortunately that school had form for breeding psychopaths from what I remember when I lived in leixlip.

OscarMIlde · 23-09-2023 2:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121146674#Comment_121146674

Boy A went to the same primary school as me. They weren't long in the secondary school, so while the secondary school should be held to account for the dreadful treatment Anna received in school, I'm not sure you can claim much role in him being a psychopath. And as someone who attended that primary school years ago, it was even worse at dealing with bullying than the secondary school was. In that school anyone being bullied was treated as if they deserved it due their innate character flaws. I know people still traumatised over their treatment there.

Str8outtaWuhan · 23-09-2023 3:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121146871#Comment_121146871

Interesting, I wonder if the leixlip gang rape perpetrators went to same primary school. They definitely went to same secondary as Anna's killers

Jon Venables

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