A DECISION is to be made within weeks on whether one of the two men who killed three-year-old Jamie Bulger in Merseyside in 1993, when they were just 10 years old, is to be kept in jail indefinitely.
Jon Venables, who is now 27 and living under a new identity, was rearrested in recent days after breaching the terms of the release order he was given in 2001 with his accomplice Robert Thompson.
Justice secretary Jack Straw said details about the rearrest could not be given, adding that the parole board of England and Wales will decide within 28 days whether he should remain in custody.
“I have no interest in gratuitously or unnecessarily withholding information, but there are good reasons to withhold it at the moment and that is in the public interest,” Mr Straw said.
Venables and Thompson battered the toddler to death near a railway line in Bootle in Merseyside, after they enticed him to leave a shopping centre, where he had been with his mother, Denise Fergus.
The two were initially jailed for eight years, later increased to 10, but an attempt by the then home secretary Michael Howard to add a further five years was vetoed by the courts.
In March 1999, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that they had been denied a fair trial. They were released under licence and new identities in March 2001, though subject to life-long rearrest if they committed new offences.
Last night, the toddler’s mother, who had been informed about Venables’s rearrest before it was made public, said: “Jon Venables is where he belongs tonight – behind bars. This is my son’s justice.”
Relations between the justice secretary and home secretary Alan Johnson were strained yesterday after Mr Johnson said that the public did have a right to know why Venables had been put back in jail.
“I believe the public do have a right to know and I believe they will know all the facts in due course. But I must in no way prejudice the future criminal justice proceedings,” said Mr Johnson, though his officials quickly back-tracked.
A worldwide injunction was put in place after Venables and Thompson were released barring any reporting – including on the internet – that would identify either of them or their locations.
However, lawyers said the decision to detain Venables indicated that he has committed a number of offences, since the justice department would be unwilling to risk identifying him for minor problems.
Supporting the calls for extra information, Det Albert Kirby, who led the Bulger investigation, said: “They wouldn’t – using football parlance – have given him a red card and go to prison for one infringement.”
Venables and Thompson were barred from contacting each other on their release, and both have to stay in frequent contact with senior probation officers, who have had to swear an oath to protect their identities.
However, it has been suggested in the past – but never confirmed – that Venables had been involved in a fracas after a man allegedly tried to speak to his girlfriend, and that he had been allowed to join the British army.