Robert Thompson

[twiglet4frog]

It was in the People paper (although probably made most of it up) that RobertThompson that tortured and murdered Jamie Bulger (with an acomplice Venebles) was now dating a girlfriend and was keeping his secret hidden.

Should the Police or Courts be allowed to intervene and force him to reveal his past to anyone he is romantically involved with?

I am not going along the chain of thought of "he should never be allowed to live a normal life for what he did" arguements but more a case of he was convicted of killing and torturing a young child with serious malice and the girlfriend he is with doesnt know about this and wants to marry and have children with him. Should she be allowed to know about him before she has a child by him and hands the young child into his arms, or leaves him to babysit it? Or does he still have the right to keeping his identity safe now matter what the circumstance as the courts and governemnt have said?

Do we do enough to safeguard and protect the innocent or do we allow the rights of terrible criminals to get in the way?

[libertie]

These were not two children brought up by decent caring familes and taught how to behave within a normal society, these were two children who had been dragged up by selfish and irresponsible adults, who should have been made to stand up in the dock with them!  Both children had poor attendance records at school, were allowed to watch very violent and pornographic films from the age of three and one of them had a mother who brough a constant steam of men home for sex!  While not condoning what they did, society should accept that they have done their time and that maybe now they deserve the chance in life that they were denied when they were young.

  And yes I do know that not all children who have had a bad upbringing resort to murder etc, but equally I also know that not many children from happy stable backgrounds go on to commit this type of crime!

[MargeB]

Can someone please explain to me what is meant when someone is 'evil'? How does it physically manifest itself in them? Can it be reversed? Can evil people do good things? Can good people do evil things? If they do what someone else thinks is evil but they think is good, does that make them evil?

[butter1]

Example of evil.  Robert Thompson, Fred and Mary West, Charles Manson....examples of evil just to name a few.  Charles Manson had a bad upbringing, was put into rehab, young boys homes and still grew up to be a nasty piece of work.  I know all cases are different though.  I don't think good people would even contemplate torturing and murdering little boys..  Do you consider yourself to be a good person?  Of course  you do, so would you do something nasty like that?  The fact of the matter is though whether they are evil or not I think they should have served more of a sentence then what they did.  Poor James' parents have to live through it for the rest of their lives....the loss of a loved one, taken away in the most disgusting way.

[Lillabet]

The last post really backs up my argument that Thompson should be allowed to remain anonymous.All you have done is list some disgusting cases that gained a certain notoriety.

As I said earlier more children in the UK are killed before their 1st birthday than at any other time. People on this thread have talked about how vulnerable and young James Bulger was. These children are as innocent - but the tabloids aren't on those killers' doorsteps.

How James Bulger died was horrific. There are many cases which involve comparable levels of sadism and pain. 2 women a week die at the hands of partners and ex partners. Many have been tortured and abused for months or years. Yet again these killers aren't by and large hunted by tabloids.

There are acts that seem intended to cause nothing but harm. I would describe the extreme acts as evil but don't believe that people are without hope of redemption. I mentioned Mary Bell earlier as she is a good example of someone who carried out an evil act (twice) but did reform.

I simply believe that the judicial process should be as impartial as is possible. The media act to try to unbalance that when they make certain people icons of evil or hate. Those who become notorious are seen as somehow more evil than others with less of a profile as your list indicated.

I do not excuse what he did. However had he killed his younger brother in the same way, and the police arrested him straight away, he would now have been released but without you or I ever knowing of him. He would not be on a list of 'evil'. If other people who have killed can be released and rebuild their lives then so should he be able to.

[Lorcan]

I would consider cost - if someone told Thompson's girlfriend about his past she may be horrified aand tell more people. This would cost the State another false identity.

The boys (now young meen) are very unlikeely to reoffend and, now that they have been releaseed, should be left more or less alone.

I do, however, think they should have beeen jailed for over eight years.

[Lorcan]

* should read men and been.

[butter1]

Lillabet, I have never questioned Thompson should remain annoymous.  I think that its best for his sake and the people around him that he does.  The papers had only made us more aware of what they did... just goes to show everyone has a difference of opinion.

[Lillabet]

butter1, I wasn't criticising you. I was just saying that your list is a good example of the fact that there are certain people who received wide media coverage and so became iconic evil figures.

When asked for examples of evil and how it manifests itself instead of listing acts like genocide, rape, torture etc most of us will list people. Unless they have the misfortune to have a personal experience of an evil act we will list those cases which the media covered and about which we have a shared consciousness.

As such Thompson isn't a man who at the age of 10 did something evil. He is the devil incarnate - a shorthand for all that is wrong. His name is dangerous. I was saying that your list is a good illustration of this and that many others who have carried out evil acts are not given this additional burden. Not assuming that you took any position on anonymity.

[Dom Tuk]

Some posts here mention 'the conscience' and that that is something they will carry with them for their lives and hence is some sort of punishment. How do you know that in his conscience he is not living every moment of the killing and deriving great pleasure from it. I cannot say he is and neither can you say he is not. We will never know, but the fact that he was very young when he did the horrible act ( was he not the principal perpetrator) does not in my opinion mean that he will have forgotten the cat or realised the magnitude of its devilishness.

However to answer the main question, do we let his girlfriend know. It is a tough one and i cannot see how we can protect his identity after letting the grilfriend know. I truly believe that his identity should be protected and that he should be given every chance to make something of his future.

[oxeyedaisy]

oneeyedvic..of course i would want to know if the person i was with had a criminal record of any kind..and then it would be down to me to make the decision of whether i wished to continue or not with the relationship..in this case it would be not..the woman he is seing is being conned she is going out with someone with a very large skeleton in his cupboard..he is not the person she thinks he is..and should definately be told..us females do have minds of our own and we are quite capable of making the decision..i could not live with him as i still feel desperately sorry for jamie bulgar and his family..his mother must still be suffering...and the whole thing stinks..they would still be locked up if it was down to me..as for the fact that some innocent woman not knowing who she is dating! well that sickens me also..

[eupraxia]

I had a partner who did have a secret from his past. I never knew anything about it. Consequently  my daughter paid for it. Yes this girl should know. And no not every one learns from their past mistakes.

I feel for Jamies mother in all this. her little boy will not have his life and she will not see him grow up. You take a life the way Thompson did you lose your rights.

It makes me so annoyed to here all the 'let him have his lfe and live it'. what about the life he took.

[smudge]

Eupraxia - you & a couple of others have echoed what I wanted to say.

I truly believe his or any other murderer's girlfriend/s should know about his/their past - I would certainly want to know.

Fancy sleeping in the same bed as someone, having children with someone - then finding out at a later date that they'd killed another human being for kicks - it just doesn't bare thinking about. That's my opinion for what it's worth.

[Oneeyedvic]

No one seems to have taken into account the age of the kids when they commited this crime.

Just curious as to why a lot of people seem to think that a 10 year old boy can be evil with no chance of repenting.

I certainly did some things at 10 which I regret now - I stole something from a shop - but then at 10 I am not sure i would have known what i was doing in the same sense as an adult decision.

Getting back to the orignal subject - should there be full disclosure - how many of you woman can honestly say that the man you are with now has fully disclosed every single bad thing he has ever done - from having had 3 pints and driven 10 years ago, to shoplifting when he was a kid, to being part of a gang when he was at school and bullying a kid at school, through to how many sexual partners he has ever had in his life up til now?

[sandbach99]

If this relationship follows it's natural course and they have a baby, which then suffers an injury and is taken to hospital where the staff suspect it may not be accidental and report it to the child protection team. What will happen then? will some official know or suspect who the father is and put the child on the at risk register for no reason, will someone let it slip who her childs father really is, could he cope with the knowledge of what has happened in the past might now resurface. The injury may be entirely accidental and he may be the most perfect father there is, but will officials who know let the matter drop?
Also if he becomes a father. and the child reaches the same age as Jamie was and he realises how wonderful a child is at that age, will this effect him to know what he destroyed, could he cope with this?.
Maybe if it becomes likely that the relationship will take it's natural course, that a meeting could be set up where she is told he hurt a child in the past but has received treatment etc, without telling her the whole truth to see how she reacts and if she continues the relationship, she still would not know who he is if she walks, if she stays further meetings could then explain the child died and if finally who he was. I think she would walk out after the early meetings and nothing would be revealed 

[elgroucho]

BigDogsWang, well actually it would appear that serving time has helped them because both are now leading normal lives and have not re-offended.

If you look to my earlier posts I do not condone what they did at all, but you and everyone else must respect the law and the fact that they have done their time.

I suppose you probably think they have the 'evil gene' and cannot be cured because they are 'inherently evil'. This is of course not true and people can be changed.

The fact is that once they were released it was up to them who they told about their past after all you couldn't expect every convict to have to tell everyone about their past. Serving the sentence means they have paid their debt to society and you must respect that, as it is the way our justice system works.

If we didn't have these rules there would be anarchy. I'm not saying the rules are right or wrong I'm just saying we have to have them, and must respect them. Obviously the comeback to that is that they didn't respect the laws by commiting that disgusting murder in the first place, but again I would refer you to the fact that they have done their time. 

[Sasha13]

Can I just say that this is a cracking question in terms of the moral and ethical issues that it raises. The simple answer to it, from my perspective, is that I don't know whether his girlfriend should be told. At the end of the day, he is only 22 and I am guessing she is of a similar age. We could therefore (perhaps wrongly, I know) assume that the relationship will not result in marriage and children. Should she therefore be told? I'm not sure... at the end of the day, telling every girlfriend that he may or may not have would surely result in him having to change identity many times to protect him if the girlfriend decides to wage a vendetta when/if they split up - at huge expense to me, the taxpayer. But if I were "the girlfriend" I would want to know, simply so that I could make my own decision as to whether or not he had changed and whether I wanted to enter into a serious relationship with him - but I think that he should be the one to tell her, not the media or police. When she should be told I don't know at the end of the day my feeling is that, if the relationship is long term, she's going to find out somehow, someday. As a matter of interest, how would people feel if there husband/wife told them that they had done something similar many years ago? Would it change your feelings for them?

[Sasha13]

Can I just say that this is a cracking question in terms of the moral and ethical issues that it raises. The simple answer to it, from my perspective, is that I don't know whether his girlfriend should be told. At the end of the day, he is only 22 and I am guessing she is of a similar age. We could therefore (perhaps wrongly, I know) assume that the relationship will not result in marriage and children. Should she therefore be told? I'm not sure... at the end of the day, telling every girlfriend that he may or may not have would surely result in him having to change identity many times to protect him if the girlfriend decides to wage a vendetta when/if they split up - at huge expense to me, the taxpayer. But if I were his girlfriend I would want to know, simply so that I could make my own decision as to whether or not he had changed and whether I wanted to enter into a serious relationship with him - but I think that he should be the one to tell her, not the media or police. When she should be told I don't know at the end of the day my feeling is that, if the relationship is long term, she's going to find out somehow, someday. As a matter of interest, how would people feel if there husband/wife told them that they had done something similar many years ago? Would it change your feelings for them?

[Sasha13]

sorry, don't know why that posted twice!!