Yesterday we heard the news that Jon Venables – the killer of James Bulger – may have his worldwide  lifelong anonymity order was lifted after Bulger’s father Ralph decided to challenge it on the grounds that he had breached it by being arrested for looking at child pornography.

Images VIA

Solicitor-advocate Robin Makin was speaking on behalf of Ralph today at the High Court, saying the following:

Venables’ identity is‘common knowledge and he should be identified because something has gone wrong with his rehabilitation.

There have been successive judicial findings … that there is a real risk of serious personal violence, if not death.

We submit there is no significant change since 2001.

The point is that (Venables) has been trained by the state to be dishonest and hide his identity, and to no doubt develop techniques for dealing with such matters.

In terms of the alleged ‘robust monitoring’ of Venables … how could there have been robust monitoring when the offending went back over a period of months?

The sad reality of the gruesome murder of James Bulger is that it did have sexual themes and that is quite a feature, given what has happened.

The lawyer said the ‘reality of the situation’ is that information can easily be found about Venables by searching online and that he has not been ‘damaged’ by that material so far.

I mean I guess they kind of have a point there. If people really wanted to know what he looked like right now it wasn’t exactly that hard to search Twitter about a year ago and see a few pictures of him and I’m sure they’re available somewhere on the internet now too.

Venables himself is adamant he doesn’t want his new identity revealed to the public though. His lawyer  Edward Fitzgerald QC said the following:

There’s a real risk of serious personal violence to my client if his identity is revealed.

There have been successive judicial findings … that there is a real risk of violence if not death.

Venables is begging that his identity is not revealed because of this.

I guess having his identity out there in the open would be slightly more traumatic and possibly dangerous for the guy, but then he shouldn’t be looking at child porn should he? Even if he hadn’t killed Bulger and people found out he was doing that then he would probably be a target, but it’s even worse given his history as well. Kinda think that it’s a bit of a cop out that he gets protected when other paedophiles have their details brazenly broadcast online, but I guess that’s a whole huge debate that I won’t get into right now.

Anyway, you reap what you sow buddy – we’ll see where you end up. A verdict on the case is expected tomorrow.

For more of the same, check out this woman who claims she went on a date with Jon Venables. What a stud.