Bulger killer gets off lightly

John Venables, one of the two murderers of two year-old James Bulger got off lightly with only a two year sentence for serious child pornography offenses.  This is despite the fact that he was already out on life license ("parole" to Americans) for the Bulger murder in 1993.

The amazing thing is that he seems to assume that he will be released on completion of his sentence - or even before that.  In fact, because he committed a crime while on license, he breached the terms of said license and consequently his license was revoked.  That means that he can only be released if a new license is issued.

Whether that will actually happen depends on the courage of the Home Secretary.  I suspect that somewhere along the line, we will be told that under a judicial interpretation of the European Convention of Human Rights, the mere act of putting him on a life license (for the murder of James Bulger) instead of a short finite sentence, was itself a "violation" of his "human rights."  While such a ruling would obviously be a misinterpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights, it is the kind of interpretation that I can see our criminal-friendly judiciary handing down before they retreat behind gated communities with their police bodyguard.

It is also the kind of argument that I can also see rolling off the tongue of some highly-paid, smooth-talking shyster - highly paid by the taxpayer that is.  But if it does happen, then it is only a matter of time before he re-offends.

On the hand, Robert Thompson (the other murderer of James Bulger)  is entirely different.  Although he received pretty soft treatment at the de facto boarding school to which the authorities sent him, he seems to have gone straight.  He is living with his girlfriend and baby and a close female blood-relative.  He is quite polite - on one occasion even letting me get on the bus ahead of him despite the fact that he was already at the bus stop when I arrived there.

He doesn't know that I am onto him - although I think he suspects.  But I have mixed feelings when I see him.  On the one hand I believe that he is a genuinely reformed and rehabilitated character.  But on the other hand none of this vitiates the fact that he has the blood of an innocent child on his hands.  Moreover it was a long drawn-out vicious murder, not merely a spontaneous lashing out with fatal consequences.  He saw his two-year-old victim suffering and heard him crying and pleading with him to stop: yet he carried on.  His rehabilitation does nothing to ease the pain of his victim.