James Bulger's mother calls for children's commissioner to be sacked
James Bulger's mother calls for children's commissioner to be sacked
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By Darren Estwick. |  |
Sunday, 14, Mar 2010 11:41
By Richard James.
The mother of James Bulger has called for England's children's commissioner to be sacked after comments she made about the prosecution of her son's killers.
In an interview with the Times newspaper on Saturday, Dr Maggie Atkinson claimed the two boys, aged ten at the time, should not have been prosecuted due to their age.
Dr Atkinson also called for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised from ten to 12-years-old claiming those under-12 did not fully understand their actions.
The government later rejected the calls, however, and Mrs Fergus also responded by attacking the children's commissioner for her "insensitive comments".
"This woman owes James and me an apology for her twisted and insensitive comments. Then she should resign, or be sacked," she said.
"To say that his killers should not have been tried in an adult court is stupid.
"They committed an adult crime - a cold-blooded murder that was planned and premeditated - and they were tried accordingly."
Mrs Fergus continued: "It is a shock to people like Dr Atkinson that children can be truly evil by ten.
"But it is a fact and I fear there will be more of them and we need laws to be tightened up so we can deal with them."
On Saturday, Dr Atkinson criticised the current system of prosecuting children in Britain, claiming the situation throughout the majority of western Europe was very different in that it was much more about reparation instead of locking children up.
She added the fact that Jon Venables, one of the boys convicted of James' murder, had been returned to prison in recent weeks was proof the system was nit working at present.
Dr Atkinson said of Venables and Robert Thompson (the other boy convicted): "What they did was exceptionally unpleasant and the fact that a little boy ended up dead is not something the nation can easily forget. But they shouldn't have been tried in an adult court because they were still children."
Mrs Fergus responded to the comments, saying: "To describe the murder of James as 'unpleasant' is an insult to his memory, and a downright lie.
"To say that James 'ended up dead' is callous and almost makes it sound like an accident. I am furious about the way she has described his murder."
Dr Atkinson released a statement following the publication of the interview on Saturday saying she wished to "to be clear and to put into context my views on such terrible atrocities".
She added: "Children who carry out such atrocities and other serious offences need to understand the severity of their actions. They should undertake intense programmes appropriate to their age in secure facilities where they are helped to make positive and lasting changes to their behaviour."
Venables and Thompson were found guilty of murder after snatching two-year-old James from a Merseyside shopping centre in 1993. The pair are said to have walked him two miles to a railway line where they then beat him to death.
They were given new identities upon their release eight years later.