Family of murdered toddler James Bulger ‘threaten legal action’ after being barred from his killer Jon Venables’ parole hearing
The family of murdered toddler James Bulger are believed to have threatened legal action after being barred from attending his killer’s parole hearing.
Two-year-old James was tortured and murdered by Jon Venables and his accomplice Robert Thompson at a shopping centre near Liverpool in 1993.
Venables is set to have his latest bid for freedom heard in private, more than two years on from his last appeal.
It comes despite a request from James’s family for the hearing to be held in public to help combat ‘misinformation’ about the case.
Previously, James’s mother Denise Fergus, her husband Stuart Fergus and James’s father Ralph Bulger were told they would be able to attend the hearing.
But the parole board has now decided Venables will no longer face a public hearing – insisting this would increase ‘the risk of identifying the prisoner and of sensationalising the case’.
Lawyers for Ms Fergus have reportedly written to the parole board demanding answers on the U-turn.
A source close to the family told the Sun: ‘For months Denise and the family have been preparing themselves to face Venables, and this has been emotionally exhausting.
Jon Venables (pictured) was 10 when he and Robert Thompson abducted, tortured and killed two-year-old James Bulger
The murder of James Bulger caused shockwaves nationally both due to the horrific details of the attack and the age of his killers
‘But now they have been told that they will not be allowed access to the hearing and they have been left feeling devastated and let down.
‘The only option they had was to issue a legal letter to the parole board demanding answers on why they reversed this decision.’
They added the family are ‘outraged’ by the decision and feel ‘let down beyond belief’.
At Venables’s previous parole hearing in 2023, the board rejected his bid for freedom, finding that he still posed a danger to children and could go on to offend again.
Venables was jailed alongside Robert Thompson after the pair of 10-year-olds snatched James from a shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside, in February 1993.
The killer was released on licence in July 2001 and recalled to prison in February 2010 after indecent images of children were found on his computer.
In August 2013, he was freed again – but then called back in November 2017 for the same offence, with parole judges considering his case again in September 2020.
A spokesman for Ms Fergus previously said her application to observe the hearing had been granted.
Denise Fergus, the mother of murdered toddler James Bulger, outside the Old Bailey in London in 2018
Victims have been able to attend parole hearings held in private under reforms rolled out nationally in April, amid efforts to boost confidence in the justice system.
But the board said a public hearing would make it ‘very difficult for Jon Venables to give evidence’ because he could be ‘being listened to by people who are seeking to get information so that they can kill him’.
Venables was given lifetime anonymity over his new adult identity, appearance and location.
Sir John Saunders, on behalf of the parole board, wrote on the decision: ‘I note that a high bar has been set for a public hearing to be in the interests of justice and I have decided that this high bar is not met in this case.’
