{"id":730659,"date":"2026-08-07T18:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T18:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/730659\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T18:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T18:04:09","slug":"hold-james-bulger-killers-parole-hearing-in-public-mum-demands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/730659\/","title":{"rendered":"Hold James Bulger killer&#8217;s parole hearing in public, mum demands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The mother of murdered toddler James Bulger has demanded that the upcoming parole hearing for her son&#8217;s killer be held in public. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jon Venables was 10-years-old when he and Robert Thompson, also 10, tortured and killed the two-year-old after luring him away from his mother Denise Fergus as she was shopping in Bootle, Merseyside, on 12 February 1993. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Venables was first released on licence in 2001 but was recalled to prison twice after being found guilty of possessing indecent images of children in 2010 and 2017. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fergus has argued that a public hearing would help the public understand the process and combat &#8220;disinformation&#8221; which has &#8220;retraumatised&#8221; her family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Venables, now 43, had a parole bid denied in 2023 but in January this year Fergus was told he would have the chance to argue his case again. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A date for the hearing has not yet been set.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kym Morris, speaking on Fergus&#8217;s behalf, told the Mirror newspaper at the time: &#8220;Once again, Denise Fergus has been forced to confront a process that reopens unimaginable trauma.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Denise was hoping for a redirection, allowing her a measure of peace and protection from further distress. That hope has now been taken away.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mother of murdered toddler James Bulger has demanded that the upcoming parole hearing for her son&#8217;s killer&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-730659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}