My James: The Heartrending Story of James Bulger by His Father

by Ralph Bulger

  In the first hearing of the case Mr Edward Fitzgerald QC, acting for both Thompson and Venables, challenged Mr Howard’s ruling, claiming that he had acted in response to public opinion instead of considering the relevant social and psychiatric reports on the boys to make his decision. He claimed that the coupons from the Sun and signatures collected from the family calling for whole life sentences should have been placed in the bin, and further insisted that Mr Howard acted to make an example of the killers in a blaze of publicity. Further, he said that Mr Howards fixing of the tariff had been unlawful.

  The purpose of the hearing was to seek a judicial review of the circumstances and to overturn the fifteen-year tariff. It was a huge body blow, but Mr Howard and the Home Office were prepared to fight the application and defended the decision. It seemed that it was one step forward and two steps back all the time. One of the major arguments that would come out of this long legal process was whether it was the job of the Home Secretary to fix a minimum tariff, or the courts, and a lot rested on the outcome.

  Much of this was very confusing for me, but we had recently instructed a great criminal lawyer called Robin Makin to help us pick our way through all the complicated issues that arose in the case. It was Jimmy who had suggested bringing Robin on board because he could see that there would be many obstacles that would need addressing, and we were not capable of doing it by ourselves. This was the kind of thing that Jimmy was brilliant at. He was having a hard time of things himself following James’s death, and yet he was determined to continue looking after me. The legal side of things was really up his street because he had a sharper academic mind than me, and with Robins help he was able to understand the system and explain things to me.

  Karen had by now given birth to their youngest child, and so she really had her hands full with three young daughters of varying ages, but she also had to support Jimmy, whose mental state had been shattered much like mine. I don’t think he ever got over seeing James’s body, and I think most people would have been damaged if they had to go through that. Jimmy’s escape was through drinking in the pub and so family life for Karen was extremely hard. Jimmy was in the pub a lot of the time while she remained at home with her family, trying to hold everything together. By his own admission, the drink turned him nasty and aggressive and the atmosphere at home was often tense and difficult. It shows Karen’s strength that she cared not only for her children but for her husband too, and she was determined to see things through. I would often sit and chat with her at her kitchen table, and I remember countless times when she confided how hard it was.

  ‘I can’t take much more of this, Ralph,’ she said to me once. ‘Life is a nightmare and the kids are suffering. I sometimes think I’d be better off on my own than living here with him. Most of the time he’s in the pub drinking, and when he’s here he’s miserable and narky to everyone. He’s changed so much that I don’t even recognize him any more.’

  I understood what Karen was saying, but I also found it hard to criticize Jimmy because I knew he was struggling and out of his depth. He was doing exactly as I had done by finding comfort in the drink. I knew he loved his family, but he had shut himself away from everything that had gone on and it was awful to see. He is a good man but he was also a victim of the things he had witnessed when James died.

  However hard things got, Karen refused to cave in and leave Jimmy. She felt that if her marriage broke up then she would be giving in to Thompson and Venables and that they would have won. She was not prepared to let them take anything else away from our family at any cost, even though the road ahead was to be very rocky for them.

  After the initial hearing at the High Court a judicial review was launched, and all we could do was sit back and wait to learn the findings. Robin was all over the case like a rash and he was outstanding at his job. He was, and still is, like a little terrier dog who refused to let go of something once he had got hold of it. He is only a small, thin man, with tight curly hair and spectacles, but he was like a giant when it came to legal matters. Without him we would have been lost, and while we tried to get on with our family lives and our grief, Robin remained in the background constandy working away for us. He knew the law inside and out, and he fought for us tooth and nail. In July, the Court of Appeal ruled that in setting the fifteen-year tariff Michael Howard had been wrongly influenced by the public petitions. One of the three judges, Lord Woolf, who had recently taken over as Master of the Rolls, said that this was unfair as it would be impossible to ‘test or match’ the material. The other two judges agreed and in addition criticized the Home Secretary for failing to give his reasons for raising the tariff to Thompson’s and Venables’ lawyers, as a judge would have done, so they could respond with relevant psychiatric and social reports.

  It seems significant to me that Lord Woolf in his judgement referred to two psychiatric reports on Venables, one of which showed he had had an ‘excellent’ response to the therapeutic work he was receiving. The other report had concluded that there would be major concerns for his wellbeing if he had to progress through young offender institutions to prison, which, Lord Woolf said, was likely if the present tariff was maintained.

  The decision of the Court of Appeal was a setback as it meant Michael Howard had to reconsider his tariff, but he immediately said he would appeal to the House of Lords, so I tried to keep my hopes up that we’d get the result we wanted in the end.

  Later that year, Eileen and I were blessed to have another daughter, whom I will call Bobbi. She was another very welcome addition to our family and both Eileen and I put all our energies into parenthood. I loved being a dad more than anything else and, while I might have failed in many other areas of my life, I always put one hundred per cent into my children. My family was growing and I couldn’t have been happier. It never took away my loss of James and I never tried to see my other children as replacements for him, but I loved all my kids as much as I had loved James. My children made my life worth living and they kept me going through some of the darkest days of my life. They were so innocent and vulnerable, the complete opposite of the darkness I carried around with me over James. That made it all the more important for me to split my life into compartments to protect them.

  It was a constant source of happiness for me to see the kids growing. Michael by now was a smashing little boy who was playing football with his dad at weekends, and Ree was toddling and making us all laugh. I would sit her on my lap and she would cock her head from side to side as she looked at me and laughed. I knew she was going to be able to wrap me round her little finger when she got older.

  It was in June 1997 that we would learn the decision of the House of Lords regarding the sentencing of Thompson and Venables. The law lords decided by a 4-1 majority that Mr Howard had acted unfairly and unlawfully by taking into account public opinion while reconsidering the sentences of the boys. They also said that home secretaries may not treat children detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure the same way as adult lifers. A new tariff for the killers was not set, but it was still a devastating verdict because Mr Howard’s fifteen-year ruling was now quashed. That only meant one thing to me: the boys were likely to be released far earlier than we had hoped.

  It was fair to say I was fuming at the outcome. All it did was refuel my anger towards James’s killers. I didn’t believe that justice was being served for my son. It was a terrible ruling for us and I felt that it was James who was being let down.

  I just couldn’t help thinking all along that no one wanted to punish these boys for their crime. They couldn’t see beyond the small schoolboys in the dock, but then they had never stood before the tiny severed body of my James, as his uncle Jimmy had. Perhaps if the system showed more interest in the crimes being committed and the victims who have to suffer, then things might be very different, but to me it all just felt like the law was one big game of chess, weighted in favour of the criminal. Unlike politicians, judges are not elected by the people of this country and yet they h
ad the final say on something as crucial as allowing James’s killers to be freed earlier than they deserved. The whole system sucked as far as I was concerned.

  It was a hard job to get on with family life with all this going on in the background. Sometimes the obsession with James and the legal system got the better of me and I could think of nothing else. I still woke every day with a feeling of dread, anger and fear, and it was so hard to shake, even though I really tried for the sake of my other children. But when you carry such enormous emotions around with you all the time, it is exhausting and eventually it takes you to breaking point. Whenever I got to that level of grief, I would take myself off fishing for a few days for a period of quiet reflection. It never made the suffering go away but it helped to calm me down.

  I had to find a balance between fighting for James and being a good dad at home. Michael was easy to please and a very easy-going boy. A knockabout and a laugh between dad and lad was all it took to put a smile on his face. I would make him little wooden toys to play with in the garden, a truck or a duck, and he would sit for hours, quite content with anything that came his way.

  I would make sure there were special treats for him on Saturdays too, which Ree also loved. The kids would have their meals but there would always be cakes and sweets and biscuits. Michael loved Ree too, and was very protective and gentle with her. They would play together in the back garden and follow each other around constantly. These were the times when I would shut my feelings for James away and smile and laugh with the family. I wanted them to be carefree in their lives. I wanted them to be everything I wasn’t.

  At the same time, I was determined to protect them at all costs. I knew that I was paranoid, but I couldn’t let go. Michael still lived with Denise and I know she shared my fears, which made her very overprotective of him, keeping him by her side and only letting family look after him. It was the same for Ree. She was only young, but Eileen and I never let her out of our sight and certainly never let her out of her pushchair in public.

  Alongside our very ordinary domestic life, the case of James Bulger was rarely out of the papers. It would be impossible to recall all of the many things that have been written about James and his killers — it must run into millions and millions of words around the world — but every time something was printed I would get a phone call from a relative telling me what was being said. They knew I wouldn’t go out and read a paper, but often it was to warn me in case reporters came knocking. If a newspaper printed something in the morning, very often it would be followed up in the regional papers, and by lunchtime bulletins would be running on the national and local television stations.

  The first reports that began to filter out described the life that Thompson and Venables were leading inside their secure units. I think this caused me the most anger because, far from being punishment, their lives appeared to be cushy and comfortable and far better than when they had lived at home. It seemed to me that the state was bending over backwards to give these boys every luxury they wanted, and all because they had killed a two-year-old baby.

  Newspapers reported how they were given their own bedrooms kitted out with not only a bed, but a desk and chairs and table, an en-suite shower and toilet and luxuries like TVs, games consoles and personal photographs on their walls. Other reports in the popular press described how they were also treated to the latest in designer trainers and clothing, were being given a five-star education and took part in leisure activities such as football and pool. I had no way to verify if these reports (and others since) were true or not, and the authorities have never commented one way or the other. So what was I left to think? I assumed the press had access to sources I did not, and so in the absence of any other evidence I have found myself accepting most of the reports that have come out over the years, and they have made my blood boil.

  It was also reported at this time that top psychiatrists and psychologists were employed by the Home Office to work with the boys to try to uncover why they had abused, tortured and murdered James. One journalist described these sessions as extremely intense and painful for the boys, and it almost made me want to scream. Compared to how they treated James, this was not pain. My son was the only victim who suffered pain and yet, somehow, I was supposed to feel sympathy for two kids who had put him through so much and were now having to undergo psychoanalysis.

  It was as if James’s family didn’t matter any more. Only once had Jimmy and I been offered medical or psychological help to overcome our trauma and devastation. Ever since Robin had started working for us, he had been trying to set up professional medical assessments, and it was during this period that he organized some appointments for us. It turned out to be a disaster, as Jimmy recalls:

  A young man arrived at our house to carry out an assessment on me and I couldn’t believe how events unfolded. One of our girls was still only a toddler and Karen was caring for her at home.

  The ‘shrink’ told me that no one could be in the house while he was talking with me and asked Karen to leave. I wasn’t happy, but I just wanted to get the whole thing out of the way, and so Karen agreed to go out. For nearly two hours she sat out the front of our house with the baby. It was a disgrace.

  The guy asked me loads of questions about my experiences and what I had seen when James was killed. I didn’t hold back and told him straight about the terrible sight of James’s body. I could see this young man wincing as he tried to digest what I was telling him and I knew he was not finding it easy to listen to. He then asked me a range of different questions about how I responded to what I had seen and I found that a lot harder to answer. It’s much easier for people closer to you to see you changing. I knew I was disturbed, but I just covered up my feelings by drinking.

  When the session was finished, the young man practically ran down our path and couldn’t get away quick enough. Karen came back in and immediately thought I had given him a flea in his ear, but I hadn’t.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘Not a lot,’ I replied matter-of-factly. ‘I answered all his questions and told him everything he wanted to know, and then he got up and left. He said he wouldn’t be coming back because he couldn’t cope with what I had told him.’

  ‘What? You are joking me?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m totally fucked, Karen, if even the head doctors can’t deal with what I have seen.’

  It was a ludicrous situation and I didn’t have any faith that there was anyone who could help us. Ralph was supposed to have an assessment, but he pulled out when he heard about what happened to me. After that our family just closed ranks and tried to muddle through the best we could.

  Some days were better than others, but there were times when I was like a volcano just waiting to erupt. Karen became adept at walking on eggshells, always trying to suss out what my mood was for fear of irking my rage. But it wasn’t her fault, ever. She just had to live with my anger and mood swings and, along with the problems I faced, I just felt incredibly guilty for putting her through such nonsense.

  I was very lucky that Karen was so strong and such a fighter. By rights I should have lost her years ago, but she stayed by my side and never, ever gave up on me. I am a very lucky man to have a wife who is supportive of her husband who behaved terribly sometimes. She was wise enough to know that I was badly affected by what I had seen of James, but it didn’t make life any easier for her.

  It was incidents like this that made the treatment of Thompson and Venables all the harder to stomach. I admit, we didn’t seek out psychiatric help, but neither did Thompson and Venables ask for it. They were automatically treated by the system because they were being looked after. I couldn’t help but feel that victims should have the same attention and that the system should make it their duty to provide care for people who have been affected by violent crimes. I was suffering, Denise was suffering, Jimmy and his whole family were suffering, and there was no safety net for us even though we had not committed any crimes. It all felt so unjust
that we were overlooked while Thompson and Venables were being mollycoddled instead of punished. I wasn’t saying that they should be taken away and beaten. We live in a civilized society and I wouldn’t want that replaced by some brutal regime, but I believed James’s killers should have a sense that they were paying for their crime, and I didn’t think that was the case. Surely punishment has to mean that they know they had done wrong and were treated accordingly?

  There was one man who clearly disagreed with me. About this time Robin made Jimmy and me aware of an American lawyer who had involved himself in this case from the other side of the world. Tom Loflin, from North Carolina, had taken a great interest in the trial of Thompson and Venables. He was, apparently, outraged that two boys as young as eleven had faced trial in an adult court and by their subsequent sentences. After their conviction he began writing letters to many people connected to the case. He lobbied the trial judge and Michael Howard, and then contacted the lawyers for Thompson and Venables to urge them to fight against their sentence to have them freed. He insisted their human rights had been breached and since 1994 had been travelling to the UK to work with the boys’ lawyers to strengthen their case. He also began to visit Jon Venables in detention and befriended him over a period of time. It has never been made clear exactly when he saw Venables, but he did speak with broadcaster Jane Corbin of his involvement in a television programme for Panorama. Here is what he told her.

  ‘I decided that it was just a monstrous injustice to these young children which had to be corrected. Something effective had to be done for them. I was shocked that a country that I thought was as advanced as the UK would actually be stooping to such barbarism as putting two very young children on trial as adults in public and engaging really in the fiction of the wishful thinking of saying they are adults when they clearly are not.’