Okay ................but - I don't know how old you are or if you have children but ......................................God forbid - if your 10 year old child committed and offence like that - would you disown him? Personally I'd be mortified but honestly and truly would look to myself as to how I'd gone wrong. Call me stupid/wrong or whatever but ...........................i couldn't/wouldn't simply abandon my 10 year old.

Soozy I am not saying they should not have stood by him...I am just pointing out how hard it must have been for them to accept what he did. According to venables solicitor Jons upbringing was totally different to thompsons, and Jon come from a loving family. I do beleive though that both sets of parents have to be looked at to find reason in this horrendous crime, but there have also been MANY horrific murderers who have come from very loving middle class families!!! Its a hard one I suppose. I know I for one cannot seem to get it straight in my own head, it is really beyond belief. But still I cant understand mob mentality, every time they show the scenes outside bootle magistrates court with a baying mob trying to get to the vans that the boys were(nt) in, it makes me ashamed to be a scouser. That for me was a very shameful day for my great city

BUT would you look on them in the same light again?.would you leave them to look after their siblings?..Would you love them the same way?..

Absolutely ... It would appear that even the horrific subject of child murder doesn't get in the way of ego.

Soozy,I'm 53,so not a young 'un,I was trying point out that no matter how moral and good you are as a parent etc,bring your kids up as best you can,however if they commit serious crimes etc,if you have treated them well,then it's not your fault.
I'm not for "The sins of the fathers" etc.
I brought my niece up since she was two,she is now 22.Her mum died when she was 2,her dad died(my brother) 3 years ago,so she is an orphan.She works and has been with her fiance since she was 16.
However if she did something wrong,I would be there for her no matter what.

Obviously not but .....................if it were your child - how could you desert them at 10 years old? Life would quite clearly be turned on it's head but ...............if you can't love and support your own child - who else will? Obviously you'd never look at your child in the same light - but - surely you'd try and make things as good as possible under the circumstances - wouldn't you? would you just wash your hands of your own child and leave him to the authorities?
Very, very difficult question but - I don't think I could do that. I think I'd try my damndest to try and do the best I could (as it's obvious that my previous attempts had fail;ed miserably).

That's all I was saying.

I've never been their so cannot say what I'd do..I could do the usual and say I'd be their no matter what but to be truthful I don't know, so I won't lie..
I love my children and like Katty I brought my nephew up aswell as my friends brother BUT I don't know what I would do, I know what they did to James and it repulses me to the core....

I'll say again,Harold Shipman was one of the worst serial killers this century,however he looked amiable was a GP ,highly middle class...but a total sociopath,we didn't have the level of outrage and "Hang him" that the tabloids froth about,Gawd knows how many he killed ,maybe into three figures....but they were old.....
Imagine if they were kids,,,! Scum tabloids would implode.

I think why people see it different is he did'nt torture or sexually abuse his patients thats why the out cry would have been different with him, apparently his brain became unhinged with the prolonged illness and death of his mother, maybe that made him think he was comitting uthenasia and not murder....

My daughter is 10 ... If my 10 year old daughter did what those two monsters did to Jamie Bulger at that age, then I don't see how I could ever either come to terms with that or conceivably understand HOW she could possibly have committed such a crime ... It's beyond my understanding how a child of that age is capable of such a thing ... if evil does exist and I do believe that it does, then surely the murder of a baby by two other children has to be a prime example of it ... ?

Stonks...still a bloody murderer! If that was my mum or dad etc..I'd be outraged!See his crime is still played down.

Just a note,that that the Scottish SSPCA (cruelty to animals) has noticed a huge increase in cruelty to animals,horrific,The FBI profilers state that there is where crime aginst people starts.They practice on animals first..

My children were of a similar age when it happened. I found it totally beyond my comprehension that children of that age could have committed such an evil crime ...............but - God forbid - if it were your child - would you disown them? Or wold you take a good look ay yourself? As I remember it .............i dont think either Thompson or Venables came from 'loving' families - it all seemed a bit dysfunctional on both fronts as I remember. Howevwer if venables family have stood by him - I'm glad. The two boys may have committed an unthinkable crime but surely to God - if they are expected to rehabilitate they need their parents and family behind them don't they?

True, same here, if anyone touched my family there would be no need for law but I was just showing how and why people see his as the less heighnous of the 2 crimes, we don't expect children to kill we've become accustomed to adults doing it....

Soozy we have to have humanity...or else we are lost.

By the sounds of it you have'nt read much on the matter and I'm not on about the red tops and as for rehabilitation your talking to the wrong person, they should have been punished and put on the sex offenders register....

Actually I've read quite a bit ............what did I miss?

soozy, "taking a look at yourself" dosent always provide the answers!!!TBH unless your child comitted such a crime you really cant say whether you would stand by them or not, you really dont know how you would cope with it

How do I know....

I may be misremembering things, but I don't recall Harold Shipman's crimes being downplayed at the time. IIRC, there was a huge outcry. His conviction was one of the very few where the judge recommended he never be released. The Sun (perhaps unsurprisingly) celebrated his suicide. (For those who don't remember, their front-page headline was "Ship
Ship hooray!" - curiously, not one of the front pages to make their 40th Birthday celebrations...)


If there has been a subsequently quieter period of reflection, it may be because (1) there was a realization that his death left a large number of possible murders unresolved (with obvious distress to the alleged victims' families) and (2) because the emphasis shifted to the General Medical Council and how they hadn't spotted him. Dr Phil Hammond (of TV and Private Eye fame) had some interesting things to say about that...

At 10 years old? I know I wouldn't desert my child ...................I know that I'd be looking to myself as to where it went wrong. FGS ........... at10 years old you are still moulding your child and nurturing them. Actually I know that a child of mine wouldn't have comitted such an atrocity because they were bought up with a conscience but .......as a parent - how can you simply wash your hands of your flesh and blood at ten years old? Who else will love them?

What I have tried to say is...that upringing can play a part,but not always.. the tabloids are quick to jump on  poor/social upbringing etc.THat is not always the case.

So unthinkable was the crime (let's not forget that legal quagmire in that a child of this age was considered incapable of committing such a crime), I cannot imagine the prospect of rehabilitation in the cases of Venables and Thompson ... Could I stand by a child who had murdered a baby in such a premeditated and chilling fashion ...?  I don't think so to be quite honest ... but then again, if I had to live with the thought of having given birth to a human being capable of such a thing, I'd be questioning everything I ever believed in ...

Who indeed ?  And more to the point ... how ..?

soozy upbringing does not ALWAYS provide the answers, as pointed out by many previously in this thread, and if you KNOW that you would stand by your child no matter what, could you please tell me what the lottery numbers will be on saturday, I am moving soon so I am a bit skint

Well,none of us have been there,thank God.So who knows?
What we think we might do etc...pales...

I think it was in this case. As for the poor part of it ...................poor doesn't always relate to money ............kids can have a 'poor' upbringing in the wealthiest of families. It's all about love and instilling love and care into children. Nothing to do with social status (although in this case it seems to be). You can have cold/indifferent/dysfunctional families anywhere along the social strata. Children learn from example ................I dont believe kids can be born evil .......they are who we make them IMO.

No I can't tell you that ..........ask your mum and dad if they'd stand by you though.
My children are everything to me and I can't see that they could do anything that would make me disown them.

Soozy I agree with that,how can folk state a babe is born "Evil",

I watched a documentary a while back about young kids taken from various African villages,kids basically,to train as troops and fighters.They had lost their parents,any family structures were wiped out.They trained them as robots ,,fight and state the line.A lot of then were 12/.16.

This show was trying to help them.Many of them had stated that they had hacked and killed many of their  "enemies"..



Man,we  are a fecked up race...sighs!

IMO what Thompson and Venables did is a life sentence crime. They should not have been let out. That is the crux of the matter. The whys and wherefor's of who soid or did thsi and that don't really come into it. Those two kids should never have been let out. They knew they had done wrong as they didn't admit to it freely. 'Hey everyone come hear what we did today', no they didn't.

"eye of the detective" on you tube makes interesting viewing. It plays the interview tapes of thompson and venables

Sorry Lockes but I don't want to see them

actually I should warn, that it contains distressing audio tapes

Maybe ,but there have been murderers etc that are let out,well before their sentance etc.We have adults  in plenty that have done worse to kids etc,but still we want more vengeance on kids commiting crimes...something is wrong.

Well you obviously feel I'm misinformed ...................you seem to know more than I do. I eas simply asking.

No ... that's not the point ... or at least it's not my point ... I'm not disputing in the least the fact that plenty more adults have committed crimes against children ... but the very nature and cirumstances of this particular crime make it impossible for me to merely view Venables and Thompson as 'ordinary' kids who should be punished in any conventional way of dealing with children's 'misdemeanours' ... How do you possibly say 'Well, Ok, you murdered and tortured a baby, but you're only children so you don't have to account for it'?

My daughter is everything to me as the phrase goes and fits, but if she killed someone and had no remorse, then I don.t think I could stand by her.

Has anyone actually said that? I believe that they should have been incarcerated (probably for longer than eight years) but one would hope that at ten years old there was scope for re education/rehabilitation and simply a way to improve their whole take on life. I can't see that they'd had any particularly 'good' or 'positive' influences in their lives up until that point otherwise they'd never have done what they did. Surely it was preferable to try and rehabilitate rather than really severe treatment and incarceration for life wasn't it?