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What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 2:54:17 AM   
stella41b


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Status: offline 		The tabloid press in Britain are at it again, doing what they do best, which is stirring up hysteria and emotions and getting people all upset. If you're in Britain and your newspaper is less than full sized or has a red or orange rectangle on the front then you will know all about the tabloid press being obsessed with one of Jamie Bulger's killers, Jon Venables. It appears that The Sun and The Daily Mirror have taken it upon themselves as part of a 'national service' to uncover his new identity. The Sun earlier claimed to have done this when they ran the story 'Bulger killer cover blown.' The newspaper also invites readers to call their newsdesk if they know 'why Venables has returned to prison'.

Well excuse me, I might be mistaken but I'm still labouring under the impression that a 'national service' is something which benefits the country, as in the majority of people, in some way. I don't see how uncovering Venable's new identity can in any way be seen as a national service to anyone. It could cost another £100,000 for a new identity, not to mention the security measures and such involved, and I don't see either The Sun or The Mirror picking up the tab here. No, it'll all be forgotten about and again it will come out of public money.

Last Thursday a YouGov poll commissioned by The Sun indicated that three out of four people want the reason for Venables' return to prison confirmed, even if it puts him at risk. Yes that's right, 'want'. But you know 'want' doesn't carry the same thing as 'need' and although many of us may want to know, I don't think there's any of us who really needs to know. It's not going to help us get over the shocking and disturbing nature of his crime. It's certainly not going to bring anything good to the Bulger family. It's nothing other than to satiate our curiosity and thankfully this isn't the way the law operates.

The only interest this could possibly serve is that of the media who .. surprise surprise, are instigating another witch-hunt in order to sell more copies of their papers.

I'm not saying that there aren't things which would be beneficial knowing, such as 'is he a threat to society?', 'how closely is he being supervised?' and 'on what terms was he released in the first place?'

But what did he do to be taken back to prison? This has been the subject of much speculation in the tabloid press but as far as I'm aware nothing has been confirmed, and the question is a presumptious one. He might not have done anything to have broken his licence. This might be concerns over his mental health, which would be enough to see him back behind bars.

But this isn't stopping the tabloid media one bit. It's also interesting how Venables is constantly labelled as evil because he took a child's life whilst he himself was a child. This even caused The Sun's legal expert to state that his crime 'redefined the extremes of evil.'

Oh please. Not that I'm debating here whether Venables is evil or not, as I feel his crime speaks for itself. But a commentator and author Will Self pointed out that 'surely it is more evil for an adult - who fully comprehends the consequences of his actions - to take a life than a 10 year old boy, who can't fully understand what he is doing?'

You see Anthony Marsh was last week charged with killing his 24 year old partner and 10 month old baby. If Marsh is convicted I would be interested to see if he is treated with the same level of hatred and vitriol as Venables. However I'm pretty sure that he won't be, simply because it's a more common occurrence for a man to kill than for a child. This hasn't got anything to do with 'levels of evil' - as ever, but this has to do with what shocks us the most. See the difference?

This isn't a 'national service' at all, this is instigating witch-hunts, getting everyone all stirred up and upset and trying to whip up mob rule into a frenzy so it can sell papers.

If this was a 'national service' the media would be hounding the government with all sorts of allegations and questions over the way they handled crime, this would be a media campaigning for stiffer sentences and tougher laws so that less people would feel less afraid about going about their business and more people would have faith in the police and the criminal justice system.

But no, that would require thinking and knowing stuff like facts, which aren't usually among the strengths of our tabloid press.

Just remember this in May when they're telling you who to vote for.


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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 3:28:57 AM   
Aneirin


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Status: offline 		Oh, the red rags, what I used to call the red headed comics, and like a rag, they are good at mopping up the filth for all to see. The scary thing is, these papers can influence people and they do it for nothing more than money, they have real power, it will indeed be interesting to see which candidate these papers push for the election when it happens.

But the venables saga, it has been reported that there are allegations of child pornography to answer, that was revealed on Sunday's mid day BBC1 politics show. If it is, then just like any other who is accused of the same, behind bars they go until the truth is known.

The interest in this issue, well when the crime happened, the media were all over it from the start, remember the papers then, they are just continuing what they started, they no doubt made lots of money then and influenced many, as they continue to do so. If it were not for the media one has to ask, would life be better for us, we could go about our business in relative peace not fearing all the time, expecting trouble around the next corner, yeah there is bad things in Britain, but do we really need to know about them, the red rags act as the old hue and cry, judge and jury and executioner all rolled into one, yet controlling the press is out of the question it seems.


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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 5:07:43 AM   
LadyEllen


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Status: offline 		It is essential that his new identity and the reasons for his return are kept confidential. Any revelation may well prejudice whatever legal action may now be required. Should he be found innocent and released then he ought to be able to return to his life under licence and if found guilty then sent to prison without his former crime very likely earning him a death sentence from his cellmates.

As for the tabloid newspapers, I would close them all down tomorrow if I had the chance, along with the Mail and Express which behave likewise, despite their protestations to the contrary. Again and again what ought to be a valuable national resource is turned instead towards the whipping up of public emotions that would utterly undo society if allowed to do so, not to inform or educate but to sell shoddy journalism to credulous idiots.

E

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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 6:05:05 AM   
susie


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Status: offline 		I have been bothered by this from the start. Veneables was given a completely new identity when he was released from jail. A large amount of money was spent securing this identity. How was his new identity found?  Are the press that good at finding people the government have spent money hiding or was there a leak.

With his new identity this crime should have passed under the radar as it would with any other person in the UK. How did the press find out in the first place?

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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 6:59:16 AM   
DarlingSavage


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Status: offline 		A while back, I saw a film called Boy A. Is this the same guy? It was about a kid that killed another kid and was sent to prison, when he got out, they changed his identity and helped him out quite a bit. However, he found an accident and went to help the people, the media published an article about his heroism and posted his picture in the paper which is how his identity was discovered. Is this the same person?

Also, isn't page 3 of the Sun enough to garner sales?

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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 7:03:15 AM   
kittinSol


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Status: offline 		You can read the whole sad tale here . James Bulger, two, was murdered by two children who were ten years old at the time. It was in 1990. It shook the entire country.



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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 8:22:24 AM   
pahunkboy


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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 8:36:31 AM   
kittinSol


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quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

Oh the yellow rose of Texas LA la la lalalaa


Woah... you're getting more and more fucked in the head, do you know that  ?

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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 8:51:53 AM   
susie


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quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

Oh the yellow rose of Texas LA la la lalalaa


WTF?

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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 9:48:02 AM   
Phoenixpower


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quote:

ORIGINAL: stella41b

Just remember this in May when they're telling you who to vote for.



thanks for that tip, but in regards to voting I am biased as the party from my ex always gets my vote (he is trying to get elected again and I hope that he will succeed again, even when on a personal level I could not care less over here; for that I am still much more interested on what is going on at home and vote there with more interest then here).

And in regards to venables I don't quite care why they do bother to give new identities anyway...or well...ok maybe in their case fine as they were kids, but they even spoke about giving Baby Peter's Killers new identities once they get released and I could not care less about that fuss as after all, they were certainly old enough to know what they are doing and I doubt that many would care if something would happen to them because their identity isn't disguised...but thats just my personal blunt opinion.

< Message edited by Phoenixpower -- 3/8/2010 9:52:43 AM >

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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 10:23:05 AM   
DarlingSavage


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

You can read the whole sad tale here . James Bulger, two, was murdered by two children who were ten years old at the time. It was in 1990. It shook the entire country.




Thanks, that was not quite the same thing that happened in the movie I was referring to, that is quite a bit different. I can see why this shook the country. I think in the movie I saw, they changed up the actual crime to not be so brutal. I'll have to look it up, it's been a while since I've seen it.

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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 10:44:08 AM   
susie


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Status: offline 		I have just watched James Bulgers mother on the news this evening. She has been very vocal in her demands to know what Venebals was taken back to jail for. She also insists that if Venebals goes to trial for this latest arrest that she will be in court. Why?

I know Venebals and Thompson did a terrible terrible thing when they killed James Bulger and I can fully understand how much his mother must hate the 2 of them. But this arrest has nothing to do with the killing of James. Does James Bulgers mother have more of a right to know the details of the case than any other member of the public?

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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 11:38:34 AM   
kittinSol


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quote:

ORIGINAL: susie

Does James Bulgers mother have more of a right to know the details of the case than any other member of the public?



I'd say the answer is 'no', but don't forget the power of public opinion. Wasn't it public opinion that swayed Michael Howard's decision to extend Thompson and Venables' sentences? And how come they were tried as adults?

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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/8/2010 1:43:47 PM   
Aneirin


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From: Tamaris
Status: offline 		I would also say no too, simply because she despite the fact that it was her son that was sadly murdered, she is just a member of the public now too. She has not got any special privilages, she is not threatened, so she does not need to know.

If there was any suggestion that her son's murderers  had ideas about going to get her and they were on the run and quite possibly might turn up, then the mother might need to know, but if that was the case, ideas, desires or any disgruntlement made towards the murdered childs's mother, maybe the authorities might not have released them, as they were still a threat and even if they did and these people were unlocatable, she might then be told of the possibility of seeing them in which case one hopes police protection would be given until they were caught.

But she has no more right than anyone else in this matter and if for some vague reason she  was made party to the  information, could she be trusted to keep schtum, I think not, especially as there are powerful newspapers out there willing to spend vast sums to get the information they desire, she would be the weak link in the chain of discretion, beyond the obvious and hidden leakers of information that leaked the information in the first place, but they are anonymous, they might not be sniffed out and held responsible.


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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/9/2010 7:12:39 AM   
RCdc


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quote:

ORIGINAL: susie
Does James Bulgers mother have more of a right to know the details of the case than any other member of the public?



Absolutely not.

the.dark.

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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/9/2010 1:35:18 PM   
stella41b


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Status: offline 		Thank you for your responses. I don't feel that Jamie Bulger's mother had a right to know.

But then again I'm still struggling with the concept that Jon Venables is evil or 'innately evil' as some papers have described him. You see if Jon Venables was born evil, then surely he would not be responsible for the killing of Jamie Bulger? Being born evil, like being born with anything else, is something you can't help, like being born with cystic fibrosis or green eyes. Those who condemn Venables as evil are in my eyes unwittingly letting him off the hook.

Evil to me doesn't just mean horribly wicked. Evil is something beyond wickedness, and those deemed evil are those who destroy simply for the hell of it. Human happiness is anathema to them, which is why they want to tear it apart. The only way they can feel alive is by the sadistic delight of annihilating others.

Then again being plain bad can be much worse than being evil. Joseph Stalin and Mao didn't murder for the hell of it. They killed their enemies for political, practical reasons. There is a distorted sense of logic to their crimes. They killed a lot more people than Adolf Hitler, and far more people than Jon Venables.

If you wanted to talk about evil you might be closer to the mark when discussing Hitler. Hitler's actions could be seen as evil because there was no point in the Holocaust. In both military and political terms the Nazis got nothing from it. Jews were killed simply for being Jews, something totally irrational. I suppose looking at it from this angle then yes, Venables together with Robert Thompson appeared to have killed Jamie Bulger simply for kicks, and this could be seen as evil.

However evil deeds are not always committed by evil people. Let's flip this over for a moment. In order to be a saint you need a bit more than a simple act of kindness. It takes a bit more than a simple act of charity to even come close to being considered a saint, much less a hero, and I would argue that the same is true when we are talking about evil. Evil to me is a way of life, a dedication to destruction, such as with Fred West, or Ted Bundy. There is no doubt in my mind that Venables did a wicked thing and the crime itself was heinous. But we have no evidence that he would have embarked on a career in killing had he not been stopped in his tracks.

People are horrified I guess because this crime was committed by a child. Children after all are only half-socialized individuals still learning the complex language of morality and the finer nuances of right and wrong. They have less rational control over their emotions than most adults do and for this reason we see them as being less responsible than adults for what they do.

Part of the anger I guess comes from the assumption that children are innocent. But just how innocent are they? If you have ever read anything by Freud you might have your doubts and way back even the Victorians couldn't decide whether children were Oliver Twists or Artful Dodgers. The truth is is that just like adults they are a mixture of the two.

Thankfully child killers are rare, because for one they have less capacity to kill than adults. They have less muscular strength, less access to weapons, less money but more than this they lack the two main motives for killing - money and sex.

But in extreme circumstances, however, children will kill as readily as adults. During the Warsaw Uprising the head of the Nazi Party in Warsaw was killed by a 13 year old boy, and this is also something which is made perfectly clear in Lord of the Flies. But Venables and Thompson do not appear to have been in such circumstances. But what they did have, as have many children, a lot of spare time with not much to do.

Enter the Devil with a bit of work for idle hands.

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RE: What good can come from finding Venables? - 3/9/2010 2:02:13 PM   
LadyEllen


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From: Stourport-England
Status: offline 		Agreed Stella.

I believe this taboid obsession with describing the two of them as evil is utterly unfounded and even dangerous. Yes, what they did (and there is a lot more to it than what was ever reported) was simply awful and possibly indicative of some form of psycho-sexual instability in one or both of them, but it is a longstanding principle that we judge the deed and not the perpetrator since this leads to more satisfactory justice should we believe sense and reason are part of a civilised society. We then sentence the perpetrator according to the deed in a way that will best protect public safety on the facts available, not the emotions the deed provokes, again referencing sense and reason in order to try to promote a civilised society. Of course this seems cold to those affected, but it is as it must be unless we wish to return to barbarism and the hue and cry.

I also wonder, how many of us as children did things that were plainly stupid and could have gotten out of hand, or even things that could be described as evil? As a child, I thought it a great idea for three of us to have a camp fire - in a corn field. I burnt the whole field to the ground before the fire brigade arrived and stopped the fire entering the neighouring housing estate. We three escaped unharmed and unsuspected, but if it had gone further and someone had died, would I have been portrayed as innately evil, a mentally disturbed and homocidal arsonist?

Now, its clear to me that there was no intention to bring about either the actual or the possible result of having a camp fire, so notwithstanding age there ought not to have been a conviction at law, but if we have trial by tabloid and sentencing by the unwashed and emotional masses, such considerations ought to be ill provided for at best. In the case of Thompson and Venables we may never know for sure, on the information released at least, whether what they did was something that got out of hand or whether they deliberately and intentionally set out to do what they did. That they were convicted must imply intention to kill or intention to crimes that would result in death, the latter of which provides the more worrisome and particular aspect here in my opinion; whether or not they knew at age 10 what the consequences of their actions should be is the question and it is one best left to the justice system and its associates to deal with and resolve, not some tacky tabloid and certainly not the general public.

E

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