James Bulger’s dad demands killer is stripped of anonymity & says: ‘We must flush out the truth’
JAMES Bulger's dad has again demanded child killer Jon Venables' anonymity is revoked to protect other kids.
Ralph Bulger, 55, also renewed calls for a public inquiry into his son's killing and the aftermath to "flush out the truth".
James, then two, was murdered by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, both aged ten, in a brutal killing that shocked the nation.
, 39, will be given the chance to appeal at a hearing this year to determine whether he can once again be released into the public.
Ralph told the : “A public inquiry is long overdue so we can flush out the truth about so many issues.
“But top of my list must be why Venables is still one of the very few people in this country who still has lifelong anonymity despite his repeated offending against children.
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“I don’t buy the argument that his life would be in danger. If that was the case, they would have to give secret identities to every child abuser and killer in the UK.”
Venables and Thompson abducted and mutilated little James in Bootle, Merseyside, in 1993.
The toddler had been led away by the pair while Denise was in a butcher's shop at the busy shopping centre.
They took James to a railway line and tortured, beat and sexually assaulted him.
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The monsters also poured modelling paint into his eyes, stoned him and clubbed him with bricks, before leaving him on the railway line to be hit by a train.
Both Venables and Thompson were jailed and handed lifelong anonymity and new identities following their release from prison.
Thompson has not re-offended since being released on licence when he was 18 years old.
But Venables has been recalled to jail twice since he was first released in 2001 for possessing indecent images of children.
Ralph now wants to know why the killers were released after just eight years.
He also argued the attack on James was sexual but the evidence was “swept under the carpet” because the killers were just ten and “no-one could get their head around it”.
'BRINK OF DESPAIR'
Ralph said: "The public deserves to know everything about this case including why those in authority believed they had been rehabilitated.
“James’s murder took me and my entire family to the brink of despair and yet we got nothing. No counselling, moral support, or help.
“Yet James’s killers were treated with kid gloves, given every luxury, and looked after by the best psychiatrists, doctors and counsellors in the land.”
He continued: “There is a mountain of issues to address and the truth needs to come out.”
A public inquiry was rejected by the government in 2018 despite an online petition receiving almost 214,000 signatures.
But the murder is now set to be debated in Parliament in the coming weeks.
Ralph who lost a challenge to Venables’ anonymity order in 2019, said: “My family has been lied to by the authorities for nearly 30 years and we owe it to James to know what really went on.
“I have so many questions that need answering and only an open independent inquiry can address them.
“All victims and their families should be treated with more respect and dignity and at the end of the day, I want to see true transparency in this case.
"I want answers to the questions that have burned inside me for almost 30 years.”
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Earlier this month we revealed how child killer Venables hopes to win parole before new laws allow Justice Secretary Dominic Raab to veto his release.
It means the killer could be set for a full hearing as early as September.
