OMG!! I just got this disgusting email... please read and fwd on

Do you remember February 1993 when a young 3 yr. old was taken from a shopping mall in Liverpool NY by two 10-year-old boys? Jamie Bulger walked away from his mother for only a second and Jon Venables took his hand and led him out of the mall with his friend Robert Thompson. They took Jamie on a walk for over 2 and a half miles, along the way stopping every now and again to torture the poor little boy who was crying constantly for his mommy. Finally they stopped at a railway track where they brutally kicked him, threw stones at him, rubbed paint in his eyes and pushed batteries up his anus. It was actually worse than this... What these two boys did was so horrendous that Jamie's mother was forbidden to identify his body. They then left his beaten small body on the tracks so a train could run him over to hide the mess they had created. These two boys, even being boys, understood what they did was wrong, hence trying to make it look like an accident. This week Lady Justice Butler-Sloss has awarded the two boys anonymity for the rest of their lives when they leave custody with new identities. We cannot let this happen. They will also leave early this year only serving just over half of their sentence. One paper even stated that Robert may go on to University. They are getting away with their crime. They disgustingly and violently took Jamie's life away - in return they get a new life.

Please read it carefully... then add your name at the end... and send it to everyone you can! Please add your name and location to the list and send it to friends and family. Please copy this e-mail (highlight text, right click, copy and paste into a new email) instead of forwarding so we do not get arrows at the beginning of the sentences. If you are the 220th person to sign, please forward this e-mail to [email protected]> >and attention it to Lady Justice Butler-Sloss. Then start the list over again and send to your friends and family. The Love-Bug virus took less that 72 hours to reach the world. I hope this one does as well. We need to protect our family and friends from creatures like Robert and Jon. One day they may be living next to you and your small children, without your knowledge. If Robert and Jon could be so evil at 10 years old, imagine what they could do as adults!

please email this
and start w/ number 129

This happened a while ago, and I believe they are already out and living anonymous lives...

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/bulger.htm

this is so sad but true...except for its Liverpool England...not NY and the batteries went in his mouth...not his anus.

Oh, too bad they didnt petition sooner then
I got it this morning and it had like 128 names already on it

On 8 January 2001, the High Court of England guaranteed both Venables and Thompson lifelong anonymity plus an unprecedented open-ended injunction barring any publicity about them. Each of these young men were released in June 2001 when they were 18.

The e-mail states: 'They will also leave early this year only serving just over half of their sentence.' That statement is false. Although there is no theoretical maximum length of sentence imposed, a sentence of a minimum of 8 years has been set. And that 8-year minimum has been satisfied.

The boys were detained 'at Her Majesty's pleasure' (without a maximum fixed term). HMP (Her Majesty's Pleasure) sentences are imposed only in cases of murder and manslaughter committed by children under 18. In these cases, the judge sets a tariff (minimum term, defined as the period required for retribution and deterrence). Once the tariff has been satisfied, the prisoner is assessed on the basis of the likely risk he will pose to the outside community. Therefore, a killer sentenced to such a term is eligible for release once the tariff has been served, provided he does not impress the court as posing a danger to society.

The judge at Venables' and Thompson's November 1993 trial set an 8-year tariff. In early 1994, Lord Taylor, then Lord Chief Justice, recommended increasing this minimum to 10 years. Michael Howard, Home Secretary, imposed a 15-year sentence on Venables and Thompson in July 1994, but his actions were ruled unlawful by the High Court and the Court of Appeals in 1996 and struck down. Lord Woolf, the current Lord Chief Justice, ruled in fall of 2000 that the killers' tariff was 8 years, a term that was reached on 21 February 2001.

Venables' and Thompson's sentences are thus 8 years each, and they have been served. Had the sentences unlawfully imposed by Michael Howard been upheld, the claim made by the e-mail would make sense.

The anonymity guarantee and publication ban were set in place by Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, president of the High Court's Family Division. She is convinced the pair would be genuinely at risk if their identities and locations were disclosed, hence her ruling. 'Although the crime of these two young men was especially heinous, they have the right of all citizens to the protection of the law.' She said people other than James Bulger's family 'continue to feel such hatred and revulsion at the shocking crime and a desire for revenge that some at least of them might well engage in vigilante or revenge attacks.' She may well be right, especially in light of threats received.

Dame Butler-Sloss banned the media from publishing any information leading to the identification or disclosure of whereabouts of Venables or Thompson, including photographs and descriptions of their appearance. She also banned, for 12 months, publication of information about their eight-year stay in local authority secure units. Even after that, confidential information relating to their treatment and therapy cannot be published.

The judge has admitted she is aware the injunctions she has imposed might not be fully effective outside England and Wales. She has banned the domestic media from giving wider circulation to material from the Internet or media elsewhere if it is likely to breach the injunction.

The media can launch an appeal of her publication ban ruling in the Court of Appeals. However, for such a case to be successful, Butler-Sloss' verdict would have to be overturned on a point of law, not upon the media saying they don't agree with the decision as handed down. Even if the publication ban were overturned, the guarantee of anonymity would still be in place.

This isn't the first child murderer to have been granted this sort of identity protection. A similar order protected Mary Bell, who was 11 when she killed a three-year-old and a four-year-old in 1968. After she was released in 1980, her new identity was shielded.

Is it right Venables and Thompson be protected from the public? Some say yes, that otherwise they'll be torn limb from limb (and that would render society no better than those it would prosecute for such crimes), or that children (which they were at the time of the Bulger murder) cannot be held accountable for a crime — even a heinous one — in the same manner that we hold adults. Some say no, that the public has a right to know where potentially dangerous felons are, and others on that side of the fence lay claim to there being some crimes which cannot fully be expiated by time served.

Is there a right answer in all this? Only one — that it makes no sense to forward a call to arms agitating for a course of action that has already been ruled out. Venables and Thompson were released in June 2001, and they have been granted lifetime anonymity. All the e-petitions in the world cannot change that.

do they at least evaluate them for physciatric disorders??? what if as an adult they become serial killers
so sad

A perfect example for the death penalty!!