18th Bithday
 

Just seen on Northwest News that today would have been murdered toddler James Bulger 18th Birthday. The problem I have with this whole affair is that Thompson and Venables are back out in the community and carrying on with their lives like nothing happened:mad:

Re: 18th Bithday
 

his birthdays on 16 march according to Wikipedia, but cant believe its been 15 years since his death!!

As for them "things".....one day revenge will come for them!!!....I hope!

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It still makes me go cold when I see the footage of James being led through the shopping centre, it angers me that the boys are now living normal lives too. Its a life sentance for the parents of James.

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Isnt one of them married now?...and apparently the ' wife ' doesnt even know who he is!!....yeh right:rolleyes:

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I know they have new identities but surely they would still resemble themselves?

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I read a book about the James Bulger case and found it very interesting and informative. Thompson and Venables did not have normal lives, they were latch key kids left to their own devices most of the time and abused by their parents the rest of the time.

It's easy for us to say that we and our children would know right from wrong at 10 years old but those boys had seen and experienced things that others haven't and didn't have normal lives

I'm not excusing what they did and only they know why they did it but surely we have to take their pasts and ages into consideration. I don't think they should have served life in custody although they have had their own life sentences in terms of having to live with their actions and when they have children of their own they will have to live with looking into their child's face and feeling the guilt of the little life that they snuffed out all those years ago. That guilt must be horrendous. That and the constant fear that their identities will be realised in their community.

We have to have faith that they are now rehabilitated and living honest lives.

Re: 18th Bithday
 

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Your right panther he would have been 18 this coming sunday accordin to what his mam said on the news earlier. she is trying to get the go ahead for a centre for bullied kids .. good on her .

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cannot agree Lilly, dont matter how yer brought up a 10 yr old knows right and wrong. sometimes i think its easy to make excuses for deprived backgrounds,one of me best mates, his dad was a drunken bully,his mum was not very nice either, suffice to say he was dragged up, latchkey,etc, - never been in trouble in his life, it dont work like that.

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'Give me a boy until he is seven, and I will give you the man.'

I have a real struggle to believe that a ten year old doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, whatever their background.

I hope Jamie Bulger's killers are tormented for the rest of their days, for the evil they committed.

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Life should mean life. no matter how old they are were when they committed the crime. They knew what they were doing.
This makes me so ANGREY!

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I agree with Lilly on this, though I would not excuse them of the crime, they certainly should not have been put in a prison of any sort.

They will most definitely feel shame if not guilt, and that will never leave them even if people don't realise who they are.

I wonder if they still have contact with eachother?

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apparently they havent been in touch with each other for quite a few years

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I find it hard to find emotion for stuff like this, mostly because they're a bit too old to have been in my time, but I have read the law report for this case as I looked at it last year at A level.

When you look at case reports you find it hard to be shocked or show compassion for the people in the cases. It's just completely different to the media. Most likely why I said a long while back that I wouldn't find it difficult to represent someone who is on trial for a serious crime. It's all very objective.

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i remember quite clearly when it happened all the hype and reporting of it - and then when they got found guilty the same night they screened a documentary of what hapepned. and it transfixed the nation....

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Brainwashed you mean.

I don't like the media.

I like documentaries though.

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*L* ur funny.

it wasnt brainwashing. it was actual statements that had been leaked out - or something along those lines.
i seen a good doc the other day - it was about the concorde that blew up in paris. how they found out the cause etc.

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Yes let's believe in 'leaks'. Why don't we believe in leprechauns as well in the spirit of the upcoming st patricks day.

I do actually believe in leprechauns, fairies, ghosts, aliens, neverland etc.

Re: 18th Bithday
 

HEY LEPRECHAUNS EXIST OK?!

clearly you've never seen that famous leprechaun danny devito or maybe gordon brown

but i think it'll be soon enough that the new identities of his killers will be revealed on teh net

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I said I personally believed in them.

Also, there identities wont be revealed because the people who reveal it WILL be found and they WILL be given a very very serious punishment, all for the sake of them being given new identities and whilst it makes life a bit more harder for them, it doesnt actually help anyone else, it just wastes resources that could be being used to help someone else.

Which is exactly the reason why police aren't held to be negligent very often :p

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see the reason i say they will be revealed is this - the protection law applies only to england and wales - no where else. with the advent of the internet i'm surprised it already hasnt.

just like the prince harry case to an extent and the diana pics this will be unveiled too

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The guy who revealed the info about prince harry was australian and he was bound by contractual agreement, not by ordinary legislation aimed at the public.

Pictures are also pretty different than a served murderers protected identity. It wont get revealed. If it does they'll just give them a new one and it'll be a cost to the tax payer. And it would've been revealed already.

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well it sorta did - someone went up to jamie's mum and gave her the address of one of the lads

she goes she went to see him and "froze"

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She wouldn't have known what he really looks like now anyway, so it could've been anyone.

People who I know from that age don't remember me now... don't you know people who knew you really well who you lost touch with who dont recognise you in the street?

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well the similarities to the face and given a specific address its good chance it was him.

they were 10 and then they were like 18 - its not that much of a difference - and who's to say she didnt stare face to face after all HE didnt know who she was...

i do tend to recognise them but i dont approach them incase they think omg thats mani ugh i hated him...

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Well thank goodness for that, now we can make allowances for you, ghosts I can just about subscribe to, as I have had a close encouter, but the rest http://content.sweetim.com/sim/cpie/...s/00020157.gif

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Ah well I have changed so much since I was 10 and am now 19, and I get people coming up to me all the time who I cant remember, and same back.

Fair enough I have changed my hair colour and things, but I imagine that when you're under a new identity then you do what you can to take on a new identity and not really stay the exact same person.

I don't think 'forgiven' would be the right word to use to say how I feel about them, but I personally could not find the anger or sadness in me if I met either of them to lash out physically or verbally, i would just accept them for who they are. I find it hard to feel anger towards people. It takes quite a bit to make me actually scream with rage.

Hmm... I get I would like to say I try to understand every angle of something, but of course I can never fully understand what they did, and why they did it. I just know that they were children at the time an did something evil to an innocent child, and that it is very rare for such a thing to happen.

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whilst i agree blazey,it is rare, nobody understands the mindset of people like this, the "Shrinks" pretend too, but i doubt it. what they did though is not the differance between Good @ Bad, its the differance between Good @ Evil, and i reckon everyone who is compus mentus knows that.

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You, or anyone else, has no way of knowing if thet feel shame and guilt, or not. Fact. Unless of course you've spoken of the matter with one, or both, of them.

Are you saying that all killers feel guilt for their crimes?

I fear you're not learning much on your law course, unless the syllabus hasn't yet covered the more famous cases of child killers, of the last hundred years or so.

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Don't make excuses for them.
Even at ten years old you should know right from wrong.
They are evil pure and simple and personally i think they should still be in prison.
Why should they be free to live their lives?
Jamie Bulger never got that chance.

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Blazey is nineteen, and we try to excuse her.;)

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LOL:)
Good point though i don't know why we bother!

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Very true, Garinda. We don't know that they feel shame and guilt. They might do, they might not do. Certainly not all killers feel guilt from their crimes. Apparently Rose West has yet to show any remorse for what she did.

I just think that the whole picture needs to be taken into consideration and that their backgrounds, which in no way excuse what they did, go some way to explaining how they came to do it.

I don't think that children should be tried in the same way and given the same punishments as adults. Like I said before, hopefully they are now rehabilitated and living honest lives just like Mary Bell who herself was the murderer of two ten year olds in the 1960s. She spent time in Red Bank and was released at 18. She is reported to be full of remorse for her actions, she too had a horrific home life and was abused by her mother. I read the book 'Cries Unheard' which Mary Bell contributed to and she said that she has always had counselling for what she did and still finds it hard to talk about. She is now living a quiet life with her husband and partner but she said she will never come to terms with what she did and especially since becoming a mother herself, she thinks of what she deprived those two boys' mothers of every day.

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Well Rindi we can only hope that when this young lady graduates, she is lucky enough to get a lucrative possition with a big law firm in London, miles away from Accy:rolleyes::DMaybe because she has a weird outlook on life as we know it, or is it that most of us on her have also been to university, the university of life

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i think we shud save this thread in the off chance that young lady develops into something more than just a big law firm player

then we can blackmail her!! :D

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shes all wind and ****;).............:D

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well shes thoughtless,tactless, sarcastic,n a wind up merchant too boot,so i reckon the young lady will do very well in life.:D;)

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Well when you put it like that cashy you might have a point, never did thee and me any harm:rolleyes::D

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Exactly......:D;)

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I didn't say I don't feel angry at them because I think they feel guilty, I can't say I feel anything towards them because I don't know what they feel, or why they did what they did.

Some people have very strange reasons for doing things, and its beyond my ability to try and imagine myself in the position of a child killer. Law teaches you to be as objective as you possibly can, and to think following legal principle rather than common sense.

Common sense would assume killers must be evil, but if you look at the law you see many killers who AREN'T evil. Some have understandable reasons for what they did and some have ones that are difficult to understand for many.

I know a few 'christians' who would probably do anything if they thought God said to do it, they're almost manic about their beliefs even when they contradict themselves. I am catholic and I find that hard to understand, as would many, and its the sort of behaviour you wouldn't link with christians, but you would easily link with a muslim, because at least they have a REASON behind why they want to do such things (though this may be disputed).

Point is, these people that do these things AREN'T monsters, they're ordinary people, and come face to face with them I don't think I could conjure up any emotion towards someone who I don't really know.

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In sad reality I am only sarcastic, so I probably wont be as much a success as I would like to be.

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Name me a killer that you can understand why they did it?
I cannot think of a valid reason for murder but please do enlighten me.

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Kiranjit Ahluwahlia....Sara Thornton.... just to name two people who have killed with valid reason. I'm sure there are thousands just like those people alone...

I do not feel sympathy for them either though just like I don't feel hate for venables and thompson.... they're just people who I dont know!

Re: 18th Bithday
 

Ok i will give you that one but killing an abusive husband is a lot different than killing an innocent child.

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Murder is murder, doesn't matter who you have killed. If we tried to make a law that made allowances like that there would be a lot of problems.

Some children are bullied or abused at home an have built up rage inside them that they then take out on others. Whilst I can't suggest that about Venables and Thompson because I don't know their case inside out, there are possible suggestions like that for when these things happen.

I just don't know enough to care, is that not a reasonable enough explanation?

Re: 18th Bithday
 

Please don't think i am getting at you i just can't understand how you can't care even a little bit.
Those two abusive husbands had what was coming to them but little Jamie Bulger was an innocent child who has been robbed of a life by two evil people.
That upsets me if not you.

Re: 18th Bithday
 

I just don't feel close enough to the story to cry about it or feel any emotion. I've only read a law report and whilst they can be disturbing, they are written in a way that avoids subjective emotion. If I cried about every child, woman, man who had had their lives taken from them in such a way would I ever find time to smile?

Why cry for one but not another? Same goes with the Madeleine story, how am I meant to feel sympathetic for her parents when there are millions of missing children and nobody is even looking for them? I should be happy if anything that someone has hope in their story and is giving them the time of day. Because sadly most don't get that. So I guess I feel sadder about the people who are in the darkness, or who are silent victims right now... but even then I can't say I feel a profound sadness.

Re: 18th Bithday
 

Fair enough.
I respect your point of view and will not push you further on it.