LIFE STUDIES

On GMTV yesterday morning, Denise Fergus gave a live studio interview. Given the press interest in the continuing crime drama in which the woman played a leading role, this must be considered quite a coup for GMTV. In practice, the interview was something of a nightmare because Fergus is not living in the real world.

Fergus was previously called Denise Bulger and it was her two year-old son James who was bludgeoned to death by two ten year-old boys in February 1993. That the perpetrators were so young marked out the case and made it especially notorious. Moreover, there was plenty of material for the media to work on, beginning with the haunting CCTV image of the child being led by the boys from the shopping centre where they had spotted him wandering unsupervised out of a shop doorway. Once they were found guilty, the trial judge allowed the identities of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables to be revealed. Their police mug shots were also released. These photographs underlined the shocking youth of the boys, the youngest convicted murderers of the century in Britain.


Venables and Thompson: the mug shots

They were sentenced to a minimum of eight years in custody, quickly increased to ten by the Lord Chief Justice. Sections of the press then began a campaign to have the sentences increased further. The Home Secretary of the day, Michael Howard, took it upon himself unilaterally to raise the minimum tariff to fifteen years. The increased term was overturned in the Lords, where the Home Secretary was roundly accused of “playing to the gallery”. The two were released on life licences in 2001 and given new identities. The terms of their licences put strict conditions on their future behaviour, including that they not return to their native city.

That city was one more significant aspect of the case. The protagonists were all Liverpudlians. Consequently, the drama was more pronounced than it would have been had it taken place in any other British community. The people of Liverpool do nothing by halves, nor do they go in for subtleties, even-handedness or doubt. It has to be said that an element of vigilantism, vengefulness and justice-by-the-mob is not unheard of in that city. Once released, the killers would have reason to fear for their lives, if ever exposed.


James Bulger's grave

The headstone erected over the grave by Denise and Ralph Bulger would have seemed a little overstated had it marked the final resting-place of a head of state, even one hailing from Croxteth. For a child of two, it is – let’s not mince words here – ridiculous. Moreover, it is decorated with a legend that sets out to sound like verse but does not sustain the effort. The opening couplet reads: “There is not a day that goes by/That we think of you and cry”. You might agree with me in considering that a stonemason with a modicum of sensitivity (and, I imagine, a pretty hefty invoice) would take a deep breath and point out the egregious error there perpetrated to resound down the ages.

Fergus sat on the GMTV sofa with her present husband. He only got a word in at the end when invited to contribute by co-presenter Phillip Scofield. Fergus is an archetypically forthright Liverpool woman. She doesn’t go in for understatement, nor is she evidently bothered if her argument hangs together or not. She was there because Jon Venables (as was), now aged 27, has been taken into custody. “I’ve had sleepless nights” she declared, “I’m not eating again. I’ve had to pull my kids out of school. It’s just one massive rollercoaster for me and I can’t believe that they’re putting me through this” – this latter reference, I believe, is to “the authorities”.

Immediately, Fergus reveals herself as someone who has worked herself into a lather. A dispassionate viewer – me, for instance – is quickly given to wonder what the present situation has to do with Fergus at all, why she is being invited to play any part in the re-detention of someone against whom she had satisfaction 17 years ago.

The answer is that, during those years, Fergus has not let the matter rest. Two years before Thompson and Venables secured their release, their lawyers went to the European Court of Human Rights to argue that they had not received a fair trial. The Court upheld this appeal in part and also ruled that the action by Michael Howard had prejudiced any future appeal hearing in the case.

Meanwhile, Denise and Ralph Bulger had also gone to the European Court to try to establish a right for victims of crime – or, in this case, relatives of victims – to be permitted to exercise influence on sentencing policy, a gambit that was thankfully rebuffed. Until their release, the victim’s mother ran a campaign called Justice for James, the aim of which was to have the killers’ sentences extended.

Fergus believes she still has a grievance. “It’s about time now I started getting answers” she told GMTV. “I’m just fed up with them closing doors in my face. It’s about time they started telling me what I think I should know. As James’s mother, I have a right to know”. It was never entirely clear what it is that she thinks she isn’t being told, aside from a complete account of the charges being brought against the newly detained Venables. But whatever she thinks she has a right to know, she in fact has no rights whatsoever in the matter.


Denise Fergus campaigning

Fergus also says that “whoever’s been protecting and looking after Venables over these nine years of his release, I’m calling that they should be sacked”. By this I take it she means those responsible for monitoring his observation of the terms of his licence. Her judgment here depends on taking at face value all the speculation about the licence breach that has appeared in the press.

Scofield, who generally steered Fergus very competently and quite subtly explored the contradictions in her position, asked whether the killer should now be given a further new identity. “No, certainly not” she replied. “Why should we spend more money on him? There’s millions been spent on him already. I’d sooner give the money to kids that need it … There are more and more kids now killing other kids because of Thompson and Venables’ release, because they’re being rewarded for what they’ve done rather than punished. They’ve been given the best of everything. They’ve been treated and still are treated like stars”. Every part of this outburst strikes me as not far from being unhinged.

The difficulty for the “authorities” including Jack Straw, the Justice Minister (who gamely met the Ferguses later yesterday) is that it would take very little to allow Venables’ lawyer to argue that he cannot receive a fair trial on whatever turns out to be the new charge. The press has been typically irresponsible in its speculation about the circumstances in which Venables finds himself in detention. Fergus is clearly not someone whom Straw could entrust with any confidence about the case, even if he thought she deserved to know anything. But the woman is a loose cannon. She thinks she has entitlements that simply do not enter the equation. And I rather suspect, in fact, that it is she who is being treated – and expecting to be treated – like a star.

If Venables has committed some serious crime – as the media evidently believes – or even some minor breach of his licence, he should be subject to the same exacting standards of justice as anybody else. The trouble is that, in their thirst for ammunition with which to attack him, both the press and Denise Fergus are making it less and less likely that Venables will ever end up in jail.