The Sleep of Reason: The James Bulger Case (37 page)

Assessing Bobby’s current and future needs, the report suggested that Bobby’s emotional and physical development was being impaired by his placement at the unit which, in the opinion of the authors, was quite inappropriate for such a young boy. He had no same-age peers and his main activity was playing video games on his own. The unit gym was equipped for older boys and he could not join in physical activities, nor find flat, open spaces inside the unit on which to play roller boarding or other active games.

Dr Vizard and Colin Hawkes were concerned about Bobby’s increase in
weight. It was not, the report stated, a trivial matter, and had implications for his future physical health. Clinical experience suggested that obesity in children was often associated with the early onset of puberty, for which Bobby should receive counselling or therapy.

They were gravely concerned over the absence of any therapeutic work with Bobby or his family since the arrest. There might or might not have been legal advice about the need to avoid compromising or contaminating Bobby’s defence by pre-trial therapy, but Bobby’s best interests needed to be actively considered alongside his status as an alleged juvenile offender. In the opinion of the report’s authors, Bobby’s capacity to instruct his lawyers and testify in his defence had been impaired by the residual, untreated symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

He had not been able to express his feelings about the alleged offences and this might be more difficult in the future. It was also likely that his family’s attitude towards Bobby and the offences would become fixed in a legal perspective and it would be harder for the family to benefit from therapy.

There was an immediate need for Bobby and his family to be helped to begin talking about the offences and the likely effects on the rest of his life. The report also recommended that Bobby should not be allowed any unsupervised contact with younger or vulnerable children, because of the serious risk of Significant Harm which he posed.

25

Monday, 1 November 1993 was not the first time Bobby and Jon had been to Preston Crown Court. They had been driven there in police vans, one after the other, on Sunday, 3 October, to familiarise themselves with the setting in which they would be tried for murder.

The court had been busy making accommodations to the ages of the defendants and the infamy of their alleged crimes. Two rooms had been set aside – one, the female officers’ rest room – where the boys could go with parents and social workers in the breaks between sittings. Already, court staff had been turning the lights on in these rooms early in the morning, so that new activity would not be identified and associated with the boys by press photographers outside the building.

A wooden platform nine inches high had been knocked together and painted black. The boys would sit in chairs on the platform in the dock, so that their view would not be obscured by the dock’s brass rail.

The usual rows of free-standing chairs in the public gallery had been replaced by seats that were screwed to the floor, in case anyone was tempted to throw them.

The boys’ visit, that Sunday morning, had been unusual, and unlike all their subsequent daily trips during the trial. The vans had not entered the court complex, but had pulled up at an outside door. The boys had taken a few steps along the street to enter the building.

The Wednesday of the following week was the day of Home Secretary Michael Howard’s rabble-rousing speech on law and order to the Conservative Party Conference. The speech was widely reported in Thursday’s national newspapers.

The front page of Thursday’s edition of
The
Sun
gave a single left-hand column to Michael Howard. SUN SPEAKS ITS MIND. YES, CRIME MINISTER.

It was, said
The
Sun
, a joy to hear a tough-talking Home Secretary say he couldn’t give a damn if more people ended up behind bars. Never mind three cheers, he deserved one hundred and three for yesterday’s declaration of war on the muggers, robbers and rapists who made our life hell. Bail bandits, young yobs the law couldn’t touch, guilty men freed because they
stayed silent in court. They were all about to be whacked with a very large stick.

The rest of
The
Sun
’s front page, alongside this column, was consumed by a photograph of Jon, carrying a lollipop, being led into Preston Crown Court by a policeman with his hand on Jon’s shoulder, taken the previous Sunday. Jon’s face had been digitalised and was obscured by fleshy cubes. It would have been contempt of court to identify him. SUN PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: Arm on shoulder, lollipop in hand, the boy accused of Jamie murder. Continued on Page 12.

Page 12 described in some selective and spurious detail the boys’ luxurious lives in their units as they awaited trial. Page 13 was two more photographs from Preston. One of Bobby and another of Jon, again with their faces obscured. They were, respectively, captioned: Good life … one of the boys charged with Jamie’s murder, escorted here by a PC, has put on weight. Sweet treatment … the second accused lad clutches a lolly as he is led into court to view the dock where he will sit.

It appeared that
The
Sun
had waited four days to use these pictures, alongside its comment on the Home Secretary’s speech. It was not unreasonable to speculate that someone had been compensated for their loss of time in betraying the advance information of Bobby and Jon’s trip to Preston to
The
Sun.

There was no opportunity for snatched photographs on 1 November, when the vans drove straight through the open gates of Preston Crown Court and into the secluded courtyard. A handful of people stood still and silent at the gates as the vans passed by. There were legions of press photographers and television news crews. There were eleven people queuing for seats in the public gallery.

Bobby and Jon were led to their respective rooms. There they sat, waiting. They were not in the dock when Court One rose at ten o’clock to greet the Honourable Mr Justice Morland for the first time in the trial.

Who’s
Who
1993

MORLAND, Hon. Sir Michael, K.t 1989; Hon. Mr Justice Morland; a Judge of the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, since 1989; Presiding Judge, Northern Circuit, since 1991;
b
16 July 1929;
e
s
of Edward Morland, Liverpool, and Jane Morland (
née
Beckett);
m
1961, Lillian Jensen, Copenhagen; one
s
one
d.
Educ.
Stowe; Christ Church, Oxford (MA). 2nd Lieut, Grenadier Guards, 1948–49; served in Malaya. Called to Bar, Inner Temple, 1953, Bencher 1979; Northern Circuit; QC 1972; a Recorder, 1972–89. Mem., Criminal Injuries Compensation Bd, 1980–89.
Address:
Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, WC2.

The Lord Chancellor’s Department in London had earlier issued a press release, announcing that the judge would address the media at ten o’clock on the first morning of the trial. It was like a summons to appear, and the
court was overflowing with journalists. There were more media representatives than press seats, so it was standing room only for the judge’s address.

Morland, who was not yet fully robed, outlined the orders he had drawn up, which would restrict reporting to protect various interests and avoid prejudicing the trial.

It was no longer R – v – T and V, Regina versus Thompson and Venables. It was R – v – A and B (two children). For the purposes of reporting, Bobby was now Child A and Jon was Child B.

Nothing which was said in court in the absence of the jury could be reported before the verdicts were given. The boys could not be identified, and neither could any child witnesses. No witness or defendant, or any member of their families, could be harassed, followed or interviewed until after the verdicts.

To cope with the sheer volume of press interest, a court annex had been set up at Crystal House, a high-rise office building across the square from the court. Morland and the Lord Chief Justice had discussed the possibility of providing a video link from Court One to the annex. It had never been done before in a criminal trial, and they decided not to do it now. A sound link had been set up instead and, Morland explained, the annex was now subject to the same rules as the court. No tape recorders, no laptops, no bleeping pagers, no mobile phones.

Morland excused himself if he seemed schoolmasterish. He said he would be happy to help if there was a problem. Any breach by anyone of the orders should render that person liable to a substantial term of imprisonment and a fine. There was a short break, for everyone to find their seats and settle down. The judge went out, and came back in again.

In accordance with ancient ceremonial tradition, Morland was now wearing a long red gown, with black sash trimming, and a horsehair wig. He carried a pair of white gloves and a folded black cloth. It was the same black cloth cap that judges had once put on their heads to pass a sentence of death. It was 162 years since John Any Bird Bell had been sentenced to death in Maidstone, the last child to be hanged for murder. The concessions to informality introduced in modern youth courts would not be allowed at this trial.

At twenty to eleven, Morland said, ‘Let the defendants be brought up.’ Bobby and Jon emerged from the cell area below the court, up a row of steps leading into the dock They were led by a bullet-headed prison warder with tattoos on his arms. There were four chairs on the nine-inch raised platform. Jon took the first and his case worker the second. Bobby’s case worker took the third chair and Bobby the fourth. Later that day Bobby and his case worker swapped seats. Boy, adult, boy, adult. And, with one exception, these were the positions they kept for the duration of the trial.

The judge spoke to the boys. ‘Are you Robert Thompson?’ Bobby held
up a finger, as if he was answering the register in class. ‘Are you Jon Venables?’ A nod from Jon.

It was immediately apparent that the benefit of the raised platform on the floor of the dock was double-edged. It gave the boys a clearer view of the court. It also gave the court a clearer view of the boys, raised up in the brass-railed dock like a pair of caged animals, where they could and would be subjected to the most intense scrutiny.

Both boys had grown, upwards and outwards, since their last public appearance in a court. They looked significantly older, and bulkier, than 37 weeks ago when James Bulger had been killed. Jon, puffy-faced and anxious, as if he was between tears, wore black trousers and a black jacket with two vents. Bobby, his head newly shaven, looked dressed for school, and was indeed wearing his school tie under a grey V-necked sweater. His neck was crammed into a size 14 shirt. His counsel suggested, privately, that he had the appearance of a butcher’s boy, and someone recommended the purchase of some bigger shirts. Tomorrow Bobby would be in size 15.

Bobby began as he evidently intended to continue, giving nothing away if he could help it. His face revealed no sign of distress, anxiety or any other emotional reaction. This was to be swiftly interpreted as the impassivity of an unfeeling psychopath, or the boredom of indifference.

The boys had been followed up the stairs by Neil and Susan Venables. Ann Thompson had not come to court, because she could not cope with the thought of being there. She was severely stressed, was taking a cabinetful of pills, and had recently begun seeing a psychiatric nurse. Talking to the nurse had brought all the pain in her past to the surface.

All three parents had sought the support of Aftermath, a voluntary group set up to help the families of those accused of serious crime. Aftermath had tried to bring Ann and Neil and Susan together but, as with their sons since the arrests, there was more mutual antipathy between them than any sense of shared suffering.

Neil and Susan could not sit in the dock with their son and walked out of it, through a gate, following the aisle that ran the length of the court in front of the public gallery. They walked round to the far side of the dock, and sat in a pew next to Jon, where Aftermath’s Shirl Marshall was waiting to take Susan’s hand in hers.

Their walk had taken them past the front left row of the public gallery which was filled with members of the Bulger family, including James’s father, and flanked by the family liaison officers from Merseyside Police, Jim Green and Mandy Waller. Neil and Susan Venables, he in a grey flecked suit, she in funereal black, kept their eyes to the floor. They sat down, shoulders hunched over, heads bowed, Neil’s face drawn skeletal tight They exuded an aura of abject humiliation and shame.

There were 48 seats in the public gallery, and only eight of them allocated
to the Bulgers. It was not always full, but there would usually be only a scattering of empty seats. Many were taken by foreign journalists and assorted members of the British media who were passing through. Others went to law students, lecturers, curious Preston people and a young man from London who’d had a difficult childhood and was thinking of writing a novel based on the case.

The gallery was separated from the rest of the court by an iron rail. After the rail came the aisle, and after the aisle a long central pew of press seats which backed on to the dock. To the left sat the Merseyside Police, Albert Kirby and Jim Fitzsimmons in the front row on a cushion which Jim carried to and from the court every day.

Behind Neil and Susan, on the immediate right of the dock, sat three representatives of Liverpool City Council Social Services. In front of Neil and Susan were defence solicitors and their clerks, and, in front of them, two long rows of pews, with junior and leading counsel for the prosecution on the left, Bobby’s counsel in the middle, and Jon’s on the right.