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Cheers - AE

Sunday 7 March 2010

Which is it?

First we're left to speculate, then it was thought that he tried to contact the Bulger family or Robert Thompson, then it's drugs and fighting, then it's a sex crime according to the Currant Bun, but officially we're still left to speculate. So which is it? Hard to see anyone confusing a taste for Bolivian marching powder with a sex crime, though the sex crime theory is naturally appealing. It's easy to associate the murder of a child with a sexual motive, though that means putting aside the horrific deaths from boggo physical abuse and neglect. Recalling what was reported back in 1993 Jamie Bulger's murder seems to have been more about a couple of semi-human sadists abducting and killing a child simply for shits and giggles. Monstrous, yes. Evil, yes. Twisted, yes. Perverted? Not in the sense we usually use. That's not saying that Venables isn't a nonce - he might well be - but that many people would like it to turn out that he is.

If I'm honest that includes me. It's a narrative that seems to fit because it would make him more fundamentally and irredeemably evil, and would justify all the outrage that everyone felt that a pair of child killers was released so early. That I'd quite like it to be true is a good reason to be wary of seeing the latest reports and assuming that they're right and the earlier ones wrong. Of course all this speculation and wondering could have been avoided with a simple decision by Jack Straw. Sadly it's probably too late now and any scales falling from eyes and sudden conversions to the principle of openness will look unconvincing. How will we ever really know the truth when the government has done its level best to keep it from us?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

One small point - it's very possible that the reason why what he's done is being kept secret is that it might lead to a trial. If everyone knows his new identity and what he's been accused of how could that trial ever be fair? I don't want to either see him convicted of something he didn't do, or get away with something he did.

Angry Exile said...

Now that's a very good point and the most plausible reason for not being open about what's happened. However there's just a couple of things. First it would be a very inconsistently applied principle - compare men accused of rape having their names released along with other details when there have been no shortage of cases where the alleged victim has fabricated it. Secondly, being on licence for life does he still have the right to a trial? Or is he subject to summary justice, one step out of line and it's in the clink? The law has enough inconsistencies that the first point might well mean nothing at all but the fact is Venables is already back inside without having been charged, much less remanded. This special hearing that's being talked about might be all that's legally needed to decide his future, though if whatever he did involves a victim then I'd agree there really ought to be a trial.

JuliaM said...

"...though if whatever he did involves a victim then I'd agree there really ought to be a trial."

I suspect this is the answer. If, as is now being speculated on all over the MSM, this involves a sexual assault, there'd be hell to pay if the authorities decided 'Nah, no need for trial'...

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