“Jon Venables did wicked things but he is not evil” - Terry Eagle, The Evening Standard

I beg to differ.

Jon Venables, along with his then-friend, Robert Thompson, savagely tortured, terrified and killed James Bulger. James Bulger was an innocent, trusting, unknowing toddler. This happened.



Statement One: “Was Jon Venables born evil? If he was, he was not responsible for killing James Bulger.”


What is evilness? Evilness, according to this report, is something that one is born with and cannot help. As if comparing innate evilness to a helpless African child who is sworn to a short life having been born with the killer HIV disease – something that is out of that individual’s control. I could go into the nature/nurture debate here, but I only want to say one thing: when I was 10 years old, I knew the difference between right and wrong.


Fair enough, kids get into trouble, make mistakes, do things they shouldn’t – and I am learning that adults are the worst perpetrators. But at what point does one decide not only to abduct a child, of whom is a complete stranger, and then further utterly destroy their life, body and family?


Whether Venables was born evil or not, he did something psychotic, disgusting and innately wrong. And he knew it. I can make this statement, because I was once a 10 year old child. All I was concerned about at the age of 10 was riding my bike, what was on the school dinner menu that day and getting home to watch Nickelodeon or CBBC.




Statement two: “We have no evidence that [Venables] would have embarked on a career of carnage.”


A boy of 10 takes the life of a young child. Perhaps I am too judgemental. Perhaps I have a disabling inability to jump into the mindset of a murderer. And I am definitely not a psychologist. But if you are capable of thinking-up and carrying out unimaginable, unthinkable, repulsive and outright gut-wrenching things to do to a fellow human being or, for that matter, any living thing on this planet, at any age – I think it is a sign of trouble ahead.


I am intelligently superior to a 10 year old child (though, perhaps vertically challenged!). I have more knowledge of the world – of both the good and the bad. I have done things that I am not proud of in my relatively short life. But never, ever could I dream up anything even vaguely comparable to what those boys did to James that day. It is just not in me, and it is not in 99.9% of human beings.


And to think it was taken even further – to actually take the life of someone so vulnerable in such a sick way.


True, we have no evidence that Venables would have done this to other children if he were not incarcerated for eight years. But we are now 17 years on since the death of James, and Venables has been cited as struggling with drug addiction and with maintaining his anonymity. He finds himself back in custody for a second time having breached the terms of his sentence, possibly on paedophilic grounds as stated in various newspapers over the last few days. Why am I not surprised this man did not relish his opportunity to start a good and remorseful life?


Statement three: “What children do have is a lot of spare time with not much to do. And the devil, as they say, makes work for idle hands.”


Essentially, Venables and Thompson may be excused - because they were bored. When adults kill, it is often for love, sex or money. But these two were children who, on that day, simply had nothing better to do?


I am struggling to accept this as a possible explanation.


Conclusion


There is black and there is white, and there is good and there is bad. Bad is evil and it is wrong. Evil is hurting someone, physically or emotionally. Evil is taking the life of a baby boy. Evil is taking the life of anyone. Venables (and Thompson) did all of these things. Venables is evil.