h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The mother of Jamie Bulger has recently said that she has a right to know why one of her son's killers, Jon Venables, has been returned to prison.

It seems like there are questions here about the purpose of the justice system. I can see why she would have a close interest in Venables' case... but does she have a *right* to know?

Gif

Probably not, no, but whipping up a good old-fashioned English mob attitude doesn't do newspaper sales any harm.

No, not at all. Quite frankly its none of her bisuness, I can't see why anyone would think it was..
Its not only bad enough that certain aspects of the tabloid media are whipping themselves up into a pointless lather over this, but I'm astonished that the BBC radio news, esp on BBC radio four are giving it quite so much airtime over an utter non storey..

Life sentences with the lived on licence recall would I think be relative to the convictions for the crimes that attract that sentence, mean that there are plenty of lifers out on licence and I don't know the statistic, but how many of them are dragged back because of a break of licence. Some certainly so why do we not get so excised when any other murderer is hauled away back to jail?

Because it's a non-story as 2legs said - that's the system working - the only reason Venebles is getting all this attention is probably out of some misguided mwdia agenda to demonstrate that true evil never changes it's spots or something.

I sat open-jawed in disbelief when on BBC breakfast the other day Joshua Rosenberg the Beebs legal affairs correspondent started off proceedings by saying how nobody new anything so they had free reign to speculate - and that Venables would be heading back to prison which puts him at risk - and then said , and this I couldn't believe - apparently addressing the nations populations of convicts and wives - "if someone transfers to your prison today and is put in solitary confinement and looks a bit like this (the 10 year old photo of Venables) it's probably him - so prisons will be on the highest alert for trouble.


Yeah, they will *now* Joshua. You colossal idiot.

*bangs head on wall in response to that description of the BBC breckfast coverage*

I would have thought that she wanted any trace of Jon Venables totally obliterated.
Her question should be why was he released in the first place ?
It would seem that he has certain genes in need of modification.
Whether of not this can be achieved with sympathetic rehabilitation is the real question that the media should be asking.

Firstly well done Gif for starting this thread, I wanted to start something..but didn't know quite how to do it because of the sub judice problem. Hopefully this is fine. But I feel a bit treading on eggshells.

>a non-story < I disagree in terms of what's happened in terms of an arrest. The original story was one of the biggest of recent years. The idea of two youngsters, 10, I think it was..doing what they did to a toddler..half the details apparently were so shocking..they weren't reported, was bound to be massive. It seemed to me it was as big a story as the Moors murderers..and the Soham thing. So I think it very much *is* a story because of what went before. And yes it sells newspapers, of course; don't all big stories. If we don't like it as a society, we stop buying newspapers, and millions of people write letters of complaint to media companies like BBC.

Presumably the secresy surrounding it, is because of the fear of a lynch mob, the reason Hindley was never going to be released. Some things are just 'iconic' whether we like it or not.

In terms of her right to know. No, in Law, she has no more right than anyone else to know. And that's the non story aspect. And if that's what's meant, I agree

>Presumably the secrecy surrounding it, is because of the fear of a lynch mob<

Perhaps - or, how often do we get to hear Person A recalled to prison because of X, Y, Z violating the terms of their license. That's not public knowledge as far as I am aware.

As reprehensible as his crimes were, I don't see why Venables is any different.

That's why I look to the media for ramping up a complete brouhaha from what is at core a non-story: Murderer recalled from life of license for violating terms.

Those terms included I think contact co-convict Robert Thompson or going near Liverpool or committing a crime, that last bit being the standard part of being out on licence.

The clarion call: did he do something really awful? is just rubber-necking of the worst kind.

I don't care what it is he is supposed to have done now; I can't exactly think less of him as a human being - all the matters is that having done whatever it is, he's been re-arrested and is back where he belongs. End of story.

Should he ever have been let out at 18? Different argument.

By this gruesome fit the papers are in, with the news following lock-step behind (or apparently trying to get a lynch mob started pace Joshua Rosenberg is just hand-wringing for spectacle's sake and I'm not interested.

Oh come on Clive..you're looking at the whole thing as if we live in some sort of ultra logical, rational society..without a hungry media that needs to make money. We live in *this society* ruled by capatilism and a powerful media. In that context Of course this story is going to be massive and associated with a media feeding frenzy. And the bigger the feeding frenzy, the bigger the chance of a lynch mob when release occurs.

Are we to gag the media then? There's a million stories every day, I find non stories. But I know stories sell magazines, newspapers, web site subscriptions, etc. It's reality when its an iconic story.

'Where there's muck there's money'.

Gosh, I was tempted to avoid this thread because I assumed it would be the same old baying that I've seen elsewhere on the web. I applaud hootooers for their mature and measured responses.

Yes of course the original story shocked and horrified us all. The horrific aspect being that the perpetrators were mere children themselves. The fact that Venables is back in prison for breaking the terms of his license is enough: we have no RIGHT to know more, and what difference would that make?

Btw, prisoners being released on license and then breaking the terms of their release and going back to jail is not uncommon here in Norn Irn: many quasi "political" prisoners were set free under the terms of the Good Friday agreement. But thankfully the number of cases is small.

And, of course, he might not be guilty of whatever he's on remand for. Or it may be considered that its an insufficiently serious breach of his licence conditions.

This is pure speculation, of course.

I'm struggling to see how it's my fault if I point out the emperor's got no clothes on : we may live in a society that has mad monarchs and a complicit public and a rampant tendency to go from one moment of madness to the next, but doesn't change the facts he's starkers or this is a lot of obsession over something that on any other day wouldn't command 1/10th of the coverage this has gotten. Hence why it's to do with the narrative the media wants to paint of the matter in sensational and outraged headlines and less to do with the issues at hand of basically the functioning of the criminal justice system and one (albeit notorious) prisoner nor does it change the fact that the silence coming from authorities is I think entirely to expected and, incidentally, the right thing to do.

>>you're looking at the whole thing as if we live in some sort of ultra logical, rational society..without a hungry media that needs to make money. We live in *this society* ruled by capitalism and a powerful media. In that context Of course this story is going to be massive and associated with a media feeding frenzy.<<

Why "Of course"?

I know the media exist to make money, I'm not completely daft! I really just don't see why everyone is getting so het up about the licensing system apparently working as intended.

I was just in the supermarket and saw one lurid headline splashed on a tabloid which is sure to get tongues wagging and chests heaving with fury.

Maybe it's that, maybe not, could be better or worse - we are not better off for guessing, if any of it's true then he is exactly where he should be: in the hands of the authorities; in jail.

He could be The Devil Himself, and it wouldn't change that what is happening is exactly what should happen.


Just wake me when it's all over...

Sorry Clive. No insult intended. I was just looking at things as if standing outside the whole shebang of this society..and not finding what's happening the slightest bit strange.

Of course the Emperor has no clothes.

Maybe its different POV. (where's that POV gun? ).

No worries Effers. All is forgiven.

Hey Clive I really do think I owe you an apology, because I have just had to switch off the BBC1 10 pm news. It disgusted me so much, how tabloidy and emotionally manipulative it was. Showing clips of the mother wailing on some daytime telly thing. It was almost Daily Mail.

It's all very well for me to argue as I did earlier. I'd hardly heard the news today. I can't believe what the main BBC news has now come to.

In which case I accept. Thank you

I've banged my drum quite enough now, just to answer Gif's Op, whch I realise I may not have in the preceding.

No Jamie Bulger's mother does not have a right because in the larger context no-one in does if it isn't in the public interest or protection to have every incident of a licence breach announced particularly where it concerns serious offences.

There's nothing in principle I can think of, nor specific to Venables that should countermand that, no matter what the papers are reporting about what is actually happening (which I think - I might be wrong - but since he's breached his parole will mean his case is up before the parole board who have to assess whether he represents a risk to the public, which is the test, I believe, of what happens next and where the "serious" nature of the offence is a weighed up presumably leading to remaining on remand await a new trial any subsequent convictions and incarceration or sectioning appended to the life sentence in accordance with whatever the appropriate sentencing tariff is.

I think that's how it works and that's why it's all "situation: normal" as far as I can see regarding what is happening - the secrecy reflects not overwrought concern for Venables himself but that if he is later to stand accused of something that could send him back to prison what could scupper that is not receiving a fair trial, if the suspicions and accusations (which may afterall betrue) regarding his guilt or innocence were announced now.

I am loathe - LOATHE - to align myself with this man - but Alistair Cambell has said he finds it perverse that news journalism follows so closely the agenda of newspapers. Some days you have to wonder....

This is another chapter in a story about two youths who took a young boy and beat him to death. Unfortunately the story is fact and not fiction.
How should the story be concluded ?

If the public has a right to know who Venables is now then the public ought to be enlightened as to what possible use that information can be put to.

I can only think of two.

1. He can be lynched and strung up on the nearest lamp post.

2. Best case scenario. Everyone knows who he is, they tolerate it, but hey, who's going to give him a job?

So even in best case scenario he's more or less forced back into a life of crime unless he decides to live on the meager benefits society doles out to a single bloke with no home and no job.

How does that benefit anyone?

Start at the beginning.
Two youths take a young boy and beat him to death.
What should have been done ?

the Grauniad cartoon seems to be stirring a bit of feeling.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2010/mar/08/jamie-bulger-murder-venables-straw?showallcomments=true#comment-51

distasteful or very powerful way of making a point?