Penny Booth: Bulger - and what happens next

Bulger -  and what happens next

The ‘Bulger killer charged over child porn' headline last week (as a result of a partial lifting of the reporting ban) brings to mind questions over what we do with children who have committed serious crimes - perhaps the better question is what we do next.

Jon Venables and Robert Thompson both aged ten at the time were convicted of killing James Bulger in 1993 and were released on licence in 2001. Venables was recalled to prison in February this year and is accused of downloading to his computer graphic and indecent images of children. Perhaps it is too simple to say that he has been accused but not convicted - not yet anyway - or even that he could have done this anyway with or without the Bulger name attached to his own. The latter point is one raised even in the ‘quality' press who are...

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