Toddler’s Killers Win Gag Order on New Identities

A judge has barred the media from disclosing the new identities of two teenagers who will soon be eligible for parole in the torture slaying of a toddler--one of the most notorious killings in recent British history.

In an unprecedented order Monday, Judge Elizabeth Butler-Sloss said she was convinced that Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, both now 18, would be in danger if the public knew who they were and where they lived.

Venables and Thompson were 10 when they abducted, tortured and killed 2-year-old James Bulger in 1993. They are eligible for release this year, and new identities will be created for them.

“These young men are uniquely notorious and are at serious risk of attacks from members of the public as well as from relatives and friends of the murdered child,” the judge said.

Media organizations that opposed the order were granted permission to appeal. The order applies only in England and Wales.

Ralph Bulger, the victim’s father, said last year that he intended to take revenge against the men if he could find them. His attorney, Robin Makin, said Monday that “if there were adequate punishment, the furor would die down and society would feel less unhappy about the situation.”

Denise Fergus, the victim’s mother, protested that the decision trampled on the family’s rights.

“As children, one can understand them being given some protection, but what right have they got to be given special treatment as adults as well?” she said in a statement read by Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust.

Thompson and Venables were convicted in 1993 of taking the toddler from a shopping center in the northern England town of Bootle, near Liverpool, to a railway line two miles away, where they beat him to death. They were identified from a shopping center security videotape.

In 1999, Venables and Thompson won a European Court of Human Rights ruling that their trial was unfair and that their rights were violated when a politician--then-Home Secretary Michael Howard--overruled the judge and nearly doubled their minimum sentence. In October, the original minimum term of eight years was reinstated.