Jon Venables, the man who helped murder two-year-old James Bulger when both he and his accomplice were just ten years old, stands on the verge of another parole decision that has once again plunged the Bulger family into profound distress. As Britain’s most notorious child killer prepares for yet another Parole Board hearing in early 2026, the prospect of his release has reignited national outrage, reopened old scars, and forced society to confront uncomfortable questions about rehabilitation, risk, and the limits of forgiveness.
February 12, 1993 remains one of the bleakest dates in modern British history. Inside the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Merseyside, Denise Fergus briefly turned her attention to the butcher’s counter while paying for meat. In those few seconds, her lively two-year-old son James disappeared. CCTV footage later revealed the heartbreaking truth: two truant schoolboys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, had taken the toddler by the hand and led him away. The grainy images of tiny James trusting the older boys as they walked him out of the mall have haunted the public imagination for more than three decades.
What followed was an ordeal of almost incomprehensible cruelty. Over the course of roughly two and a half miles, the boys took James through streets and alleys, at times dragging him when he resisted or cried. Multiple witnesses noticed the unusual trio—a crying, injured toddler with two older boys who gave conflicting explanations—but none intervened decisively enough to stop what was unfolding. Eventually they reached a railway line near Walton Lane goods yard.
There, in a remote and derelict spot, James Bulger suffered unimaginable violence. Forensic evidence later showed he endured 42 separate injuries before death. Bricks, stones, and pieces of rubble were hurled at him. A heavy 10-kilogram (22 lb) iron fishplate—a section of railway track equipment—was repeatedly smashed against his head and body. Blue modelling paint was poured over his face. Batteries were forced into his mouth. He was kicked, stamped on, and beaten with such ferocity that medical experts described the assault as prolonged torture. Finally, the boys placed his broken body across the tracks in the hope a passing train would disguise the crime. A freight train severed the toddler’s body two days later.
The nation was stunned. When Venables and Thompson were identified from CCTV stills and arrested within days, disbelief gave way to horror that children so young could commit such an act. Their trial at Preston Crown Court in November 1993 drew worldwide attention. The defendants sat on raised platforms so they could see over the dock. After ten days of evidence, the jury found both boys guilty of murder—the youngest murderers in modern British legal history. Mr Justice Morland described the killing as “an act of unparalleled evil and barbarity” and sentenced them to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
After serving eight years in secure accommodation—where they received extensive psychiatric support, education, and therapy—both were released on licence in 2001 at the age of 18. New identities were created at enormous public expense, and a lifelong anonymity order was imposed to protect them from vigilante attack. Robert Thompson has largely stayed out of the public eye since release. Jon Venables, however, has repeatedly breached the trust placed in him.
In 2010, aged 27, Venables was recalled to prison after investigators discovered a collection of child abuse images on his computer. He had downloaded and, in some instances, distributed some of the most serious Category A material—images depicting the rape and torture of children. He received a two-year sentence and was released in 2013 under even tighter supervision.
The pattern repeated. In 2017 police discovered a further cache of 1,170 indecent images, 392 of which were Category A. Also recovered was a so-called “paedophile manual”—a detailed instructional guide on grooming, abusing, and evading detection when committing sexual offences against children. At the Old Bailey in February 2018, Mr Justice Edis described the manual as chilling evidence that Venables was “at least contemplating the possibility of moving on to actual sexual crime against children.” He was sentenced to 40 months’ imprisonment.
He has remained in custody ever since. Now 43, Venables faces his latest parole hearing. The Parole Board’s last review in 2023 refused release, concluding that he continued to present a high risk of serious harm to children and lacked genuine insight into his offending. Yet the board must periodically reconsider his case. If the upcoming panel reaches a different conclusion, he could be released on strict licence conditions: electronic tagging, exclusion zones, no unsupervised contact with children, and lifelong monitoring.
Denise Fergus has spent more than thirty years campaigning for her son’s memory and for tighter controls on Venables. She has made her position unmistakable. “He’s not a frightened ten-year-old anymore,” she has said in recent interviews. “He’s a grown man, physically strong, streetwise, and he has been taught—and has become very skilled—at lying and manipulation. If he walks out, he loses the structure and protection of prison. He will be constantly looking over his shoulder, knowing there are people who would like to find him. He won’t cope with that pressure. My greatest fear is what he will do to get himself sent back inside—because he knows prison is safe for him.”
Her words reflect a deep anxiety shared by many. Psychological reports over the years have described Venables as having a complex personality structure, elements of narcissistic and antisocial traits, and a persistent sexual interest in children that has resurfaced despite years of treatment. The presence of the paedophile manual is especially alarming: it is not passive consumption of images but active study of how to perpetrate contact offences.
Public reaction remains intensely hostile. Online petitions demanding that Venables should never be released have repeatedly gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures. Social media commentary frequently calls for the anonymity order to be lifted so the public can identify and avoid him. Breaches of that order—posting supposed images or names—still lead to swift contempt proceedings, fines, and occasionally prison sentences. Yet the anger is understandable: for many, the repeated offending feels like a betrayal of the extraordinary leniency already extended to him.
The financial cost of protecting Venables has been enormous. New identities, relocations, identity documents, and security arrangements are believed to have cost the taxpayer several million pounds over two decades. By contrast, support for victims’ families has often felt inadequate. Denise Fergus established the James Bulger Memorial Trust to help other bereaved parents, but she has spoken movingly of the contrast between the resources poured into safeguarding her son’s killer and the limited help available to those left behind.
The Bulger murder itself reshaped aspects of British criminal justice and child protection. It prompted a review of the age of criminal responsibility (which remained at ten in England and Wales), tighter rules on truancy, and changes to how very young offenders are tried. Yet the case also exposed deep divisions about whether monstrous acts committed in childhood can ever be fully outgrown.
Forensic psychologists point out that while the majority of juvenile homicide offenders do not go on to commit further serious violence, cases involving a sexual component in adulthood are far rarer and far more worrying. Venables’ repeated return to child abuse imagery places him firmly in that high-risk category.
If he is released again, licence conditions will be among the strictest ever imposed. He would likely live in a probation-approved premises initially, subject to constant checks, curfews, internet monitoring, and polygraph examinations. Any breach—no matter how minor—would trigger swift recall. Yet history shows that determined offenders can sometimes find ways around even intensive supervision.
The Parole Board must weigh these risks against the legal principle that indeterminate sentences are not indefinite punishment. Every prisoner, no matter how grave the crime, is entitled to periodic review. The board’s decision will turn on current risk assessments, progress in custody, and evidence of genuine change.
For the Bulger family, each hearing is another forced confrontation with trauma they have never escaped. Denise continues to attend hearings when permitted, delivering victim personal statements that remind decision-makers of the human cost behind the legal abstractions. James’s father, Ralph Bulger, has described decades of depression, broken relationships, and a sense that justice slipped away long ago.
Whatever the outcome in the coming weeks, one truth remains unchanged: James Bulger, a bright-eyed toddler who loved his toy train and his mum’s cuddles, will never get to grow up. He will forever be two years old—frozen in time on a railway track in Walton while the rest of the world moved on.
The question now is whether society will once more gamble on Jon Venables’ capacity for change, or whether this time the protection of potential future victims will outweigh any claim he may have to liberty. For millions of people who still remember the CCTV images of a trusting toddler being led away by the hand, the answer feels painfully obvious.
