It was the chilling CCTV image that changed everything – and to this day, it remains imprinted on the national psyche.
Grainy footage showed missing James Bulger, two, being led from The Strand shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside, by two young boys on February 12, 1993. Robert Thompson and Jon Venables – then aged just 10 – would walk the toddler, with his hand trustingly placed in theirs, two miles to his violent and sadistic death.
When reporters were called to an urgent press briefing the morning after James’s disappearance, none expected to be at the centre of a story that would shock the world. Ex-Press Association journalist Mark Thomas said: “It’s not that unusual for a child to go missing and 99 times out of 100, they’ll turn up.
“On that night, everyone assumed that was the case. But when I went to the police station the following day, it was the first realisation that this wasn’t just a little boy getting lost. When we saw those blurry images, the assumption was that these were boys in their teens – maybe 14 or 15 – and that was because no one quite appreciated how tiny James was.
“We were hoping it was some sort of silly prank and it would all be resolved – and if it was more sinister, then our thought was there must be an adult figure in the background pulling the strings. Not in our darkest nightmares did we think these two young boys committed murder.” Venables and Thompson were seen by 38 people as they frogmarched James across north Liverpool. Some even intervened, only to be fobbed off with lies.
Mark, whose book Every Mother’s Nightmare tells the story of this unthinkable crime, said: “People thought they had seen two older lads with their younger brother. No one imagined that it could be anything other than a relatively innocent thing. I think it halted, for a long time, people’s perceptions of the innocence of childhood.”
On Valentine’s Day, 1993, all hope of finding little James was extinguished when a group of schoolboys playing near a railway line in the Walton area came across his body. The toddler had been attacked with house bricks and a metal bar, and his body crudely laid over the railway track to make it appear as if he had been killed by a passing train.
Mark said: “There was a real sense of shock and that turned to anger and suspicion in the days that followed. Everyone wanted to know who these boys were in the images and to understand what part they had played in James’s death. Everybody suddenly wanted to know where their children were and to keep them close and safe. Children were being kept literally on a very close rein with toddler harnesses.”
Retired Det Supt Albert Kirby, who led the murder inquiry, said in 2013: “The biggest thing we all faced as the evidence was coming in – the CCTV images followed by the various sightings – was having to accept the possibility that the people who murdered James were very young.
“We thought, from what happened with the body, that it had to be the work of an adult. It was very difficult to get our minds around that potential situation that we could be dealing with two young boys.” Venables and Thompson were quickly arrested and crumbled in interviews, despite insisting they were innocent at trial.
When Venables’ mum ordered him to tell officers the truth, he confessed: “I did kill James. Will you tell his mummy I’m sorry?” Mark was among the first reporters to see Thompson and Venables when they appeared in court charged with murder. He said: “I will never forget it. I remember being just absolutely shocked by how ordinary they looked. You would walk past them in the street and not give them a second glance.
“They were not big lads – they were small even for 10-year-olds. They looked so harmless, but obviously they were both deeply disturbed individuals.” Venables and Thompson became the youngest convicted murderers in a century when they were convicted at Preston crown court in November 1993.
In 2001, both were released at the age of 18 after spending eight years in young offenders’ institutes with new identities. Thompson, now 42, has not reoffended. But Venables was recalled to prison in 2010 and 2017 after being caught with child sex abuse images. He was turned down for parole in 2020. James’s heartbroken mother Denise Fergus has always fought to get justice for her son.
And last year, James’s brother Michael Fergus called for Venables to remain locked up. He said he could never forgive the killers and added: “They took away my older brother who I never got to meet. I would have loved to have looked up to him, asked him questions, talked to him about exams, cars, going to bars, normal stuff. But because of those two I never got the chance. They robbed me of my childhood, in a nutshell.”
Aaron Campbell
Little Alesha MacPhail, six, was dragged from her bed, raped and murdered by 16-year-old Aaron Campbell in 2018.
Alesha, from Airdrie in Scotland, was only a few days into a family holiday on the Isle of Bute when she was abducted and killed. Campbell was sentenced to life for the youngster’s murder, and ordered to serve a minimum of 27 years in jail, which was later reduced to 24.
Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe
The torture-obsessed killer of Brianna Ghey, 16, revelled in the “fame” of her horrific crime.
Scarlett Jenkinson and accomplice Eddie Ratcliffe lured the transgender teen to a park where they stabbed her 28 times. They were both aged just 15 when they brutally attacked Brianna in Culcheth, Cheshire, in February 2023.
A prison worker who dealt with Jenkinson while on remand told the Mirror she loved the “fame” of being a killer. They said: “Even though she wasn’t publicly named in the media, she had Googled her name and found people were talking about her. She loved the idea of fame. It was one of the only times I saw genuine emotion from her. It was like she was proud of what she did. It was chilling.”
Manchester crown court heard Jenkinson had become obsessed with killing after becoming warped by the dark web. Brianna’s trans identity was a secondary motive, judge Mrs Justice Yip concluded. Jenkinson was jailed for a minimum of 22 years. Ratcliffe was jailed for at least 20 years. Brianna’s mum Esther Ghey has since become a campaigner to enforce stricter online safety rules for children.
Mary Bell
By the time she turned 11, Mary Bell had already taken the lives of two toddlers. Her first victim, Martin Brown, four, was found strangled in an abandoned house in May 1968.
Two months later, she struck again, strangling three-year-old Brian Howe on a wasteland near their homes in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Mary later returned to Brian’s body and carved the letter “M” into his stomach.
In December 1968, she was found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and was detained until 1980. But Bell went on to start a new life under a protected identity and became a mother and grandmother.
The murder of Shawn Seesahai
Two 12-year-old boys were jailed after killing a man with a machete.
The pair – who cannot be named due to their age – set upon 19-year-old Shawn Seesahai in a Wolverhampton park in November 2023. They were both convicted of murder and given life with a minimum of eight years. Their sentences are to be reviewed under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme.
