The Sleep of Reason: The James Bulger Case (32 page)

Neil had owned a video recorder for a couple of years, and regularly rented films for himself and Susan to watch in the evenings, after the children had gone to bed. He would also rent videos for the children, and sometimes respond to requests from Jon.

Neil was member number 4548 at the Videoscene rental shop on County Road. It was only a pound a night for each tape at Videoscene, and he usually went there in the late afternoon to choose a film, returning it at lunchtime the following day. He had joined the club at another shop, Video Gold, in Hale Road, but their rental was two pounds a night, and this was a bit too expensive.

When he was renting videos for himself, Neil liked horror or action adventure movies such as
Ricochet
,
Manhunt
,
Dolly
Dearest
,
Predator
2
and
Freddy
6.
He wouldn’t let the children see these films, though Jon sometimes got up early in the mornings and went downstairs by himself, and turned on the television and the video. It was possible he could have seen them then.

Jon and his brother and sister saw films such as
Hook
,
Critters
,
Bill
And
Ted
’
s
Bogus
Journey
,
and
Turtles
2.
Jon really liked
Goonies
,
and would watch it all the time, but if he asked for a film it would usually be a martial arts movie, such as
Suburban
Commando
or
Double
Impact
,
both of which he saw. Sometimes, Jon imitated the karate kicks that they used in those films.

The day after they had run out of school, Jon and Bobby were told off by Ruth Ryder, who was deputising for Irene Slack as head teacher.

Joan Rigg told them they were making their parents unhappy, upsetting their schoolwork, and making her unhappy, because they had broken her trust. Bobby began crying and promised he’d never do it again, and would try harder with his schoolwork. Jon promised too.

Michael Dwyer was asked to speak to the boys and Bobby told him they stole from shops while they were playing truant. Jon told him Bobby stole from shops. They said they also went to the reservoir, and Dwyer pointed out the risks they were running. Someone might take them and injure them, or they might drown, he said, apparently unaware that the reservoir was a grassy hill.

At the following week’s staff meeting they discussed Jon and Bobby’s truanting, and decided on a containment policy. The boys would be separated in different classes, and not allowed out at playtimes, when they would again be kept apart, under supervision.

Susan Venables went to the school with Jon to discuss the problem with
Irene Slack, who tried to explain to Jon that what he was doing was wrong, and left it to Susan to shout at her son.

There was also a meeting with Ann Thompson, who said Bobby had run off from home the night before, and she had hidden his shoes so he wouldn’t do it again. She said she would collect him from school herself in future.

Ann took Bobby to Walton Lane Police Station for another talking to. The cells were pointed out to him. That’s where you’ll end up if you don’t behave.

In his bedroom at home Bobby was building up quite a collection of trolls. Most were bought for him, but some were thieved on his excursions down County Road. Sometimes Bobby robbed so much in the Kwikkie that he had to throw it all behind the freezers in the shop, and collect it later, or just abandon it. Often he was robbing for the sake of it, and not because he particularly wanted the things he stole.

People who knew him did not think of Bobby as a violent boy. Ian Thompson thought his little brother was frightened of his own shadow. He just occasionally tried to act big, that was all.

Once, Bobby was playing up at the Top House, running in and out of the doors, making a nuisance of himself. When the landlady challenged him he said fuck off you twat, and ran away calling out, you cunt, you slag. Another time, the landlady found Bobby and a little blonde-haired girl hiding under the seats in the lounge. They started fooling around, saying they were with their dads, and, not long after they had gone, Bobby came back in and said a glass had been smashed outside. The landlady said she was going to tell his mum.

Despite the mischief he made, Bobby could be well-behaved at home, attentive towards Ben, helping his mother with feeding and caring for the baby, spending ages in the kitchen baking cakes. He and Ryan appeared to be close to each other. Bobby was always sucking his thumb and at the same time rubbing his ear between the thumb and first finger of his other hand. He’d sit on his mum’s lap and suck his thumb and rub her ear. At nights he and Ryan would sometimes lie together in bed, and Bobby would suck Ryan’s thumb instead of his own.

Bobby and Kelly, the ten-year-old daughter of Ann’s friend across the road, Lesley Henderson, were like boyfriend and girlfriend. They often played out together, sometimes with Kelly’s seven-year-old brother, Christopher, with whom Bobby was protective and sensitive, defending him when he was picked on by bigger boys.

When he was not sagging, robbing or skitting, Bobby was often out on his rollerboots in the neighbouring streets. On match days at Everton he contributed to the local kids’ protection racket of minding cars. There was always a white BMW parked outside his house, and Bobby was in charge of it, receiving a small reimbursement in return for the car being in one piece
when its owner came back from the game. Ian was down there one evening, from his care home, and was standing by the BMW while Bobby was elsewhere. Ann came out and ‘kicked off’ at Ian, thinking he was doing Bobby out of his job.

In the first week of January there were a series of minor disturbances at Ian’s care home. Two of the young female residents stayed out overnight on the Sunday, and in the early hours of the Tuesday morning, the police were called to help the staff impose some order. There was a row between a few of the residents and the police, and the officers went back to the station, followed a short time later by Ian and three other teenagers shouting abuse. After Ian spat at one of the policemen they were all arrested for disorderly conduct, though later discharged. In the early hours of the Wednesday morning, two of the women were found by police under the Breeze Hill flyover. They dropped an eight-inch knife when the police appeared. They said they wanted to stab the police. Later that day another girl took an overdose of Paracetamol, and had to go to hospital.

An officer who knew Ian went round to the home to try and calm things down. It seemed that one of the first policemen who had gone to the home had asked Ian his name and, on hearing it, had said, oh, right, you’re one of those Thompsons. Ian had kicked off at this insult, and now, explaining it to the officer who knew him, Ian seemed upset and a bit weird. The officer asked Ian if he was all right. Yeah, said Ian. No, he’s not all right, said one of the other residents, he’s taken 20 Paracetamol. Ian was taken to hospital. He survived.

Philip got picked up by the police two or three times after Christmas on suspicion of various offences he hadn’t committed. He and David were held for the burglary of a flat which was rented by a friend of David’s. The friend had gone away, and given David the keys to look after it. David had been in hospital with pneumonia over Christmas and was still recovering.

Then Ian and Philip were stopped and held. Philip had a bottle of 25 paracetamol in his pocket, and when he was released he took the lot. He went into hospital and came out and took another overdose. Ian took another overdose. Ann had both of them in hospital in the same week. A neighbour came round and said Philip had nicked his tracksuit off the washing line. Unlikely, said Ann, he’s in hospital with an overdose.

Ann had never again thought of taking too many pills. Not even after big Bobby went. Especially after big Bobby went. She wouldn’t kill herself over him.

*

For Bobby and Jon, 1993 did not begin auspiciously at Walton St Mary’s. They ran out of school at lunchtime on their first day back. Jon was
returned later in the day by his parents, who had found him nearby.

The containment policy was maintained, but one afternoon towards the end of the month the school received a phone call from the Strand Shopping Centre. Ryan was in the manager’s office there, alone and in tears. His class teacher, Jacqueline Helm, went down to collect him, and Ryan explained that he had been bullied into sagging with Bobby and Gummy Gee. Bobby had told Gummy to hit Ryan if he refused to go with them. They had gone down by the canal, and Bobby and Gummy had run away and left Ryan on his own.

The last video rented from Videoscene on Neil’s membership before the killing of James Bulger was
Child
’
s
Play
3
,
which was taken out on 18 January 1993.

Child
’
s
Play
3
tells the story of a Good Guy doll, Chucky, which comes to life possessed by the soul of a psychopath, the Lakeside Strangler, and embarks on a series of murders: ‘Don’t fuck with the Chuck’. There are seven killings, played out in vivid detail, including a long close-up of a man’s face as he is being strangled, a barber whose throat is cut by his own razor, and a youngster whose body explodes when he jumps on a live grenade.

The film climaxes at a fun fair, inside the ghost train. The rail tracks are wreathed in dry ice, and surrounded by various objects of gothic horror. Chucky’s face is stained with blue paint from an earlier war game battle with paint guns, and as he pursues his intended victims across the tracks – ‘This is it kid. End of the line’ – half of his face is chopped away by the Grim Reaper’s scythe. Chucky loses various limbs, before being shredded in a wind machine.

On 26 January, Bobby and Jon were thought to be sagging with another boy. Someone from the Education Welfare Office went round to the home of Susan Venables the following day. There was no answer at the door and the EWO representative left a letter, which never received a reply.

At around this time – he would later be unable to remember the exact day, only that it was the end of January – a man was shopping in the Strand during the lunch break from his work at the Girobank, and saw two boys standing outside TJ Hughes, looking excited and lively as one of them tapped on the glass front of the store. The man thought they were up to mischief and he stopped to watch them. The boy tapping on the glass was evidently trying to attract the attention of a small child, a toddler, and was beckoning him towards the door of the shop. The child walked forward a few paces, and then went back to his mother. The two lads made off.

Several weeks later, at an identification parade, the man picked out Jon as one of the two boys he had seen.

On 4 February, Ann went to the school for a network meeting with the staff, a social worker and an Education Welfare Officer. The School’s usual EWO had been off sick since May, but there was emergency cover provided
by another EWO, Julia Roberts, who had been involved with Bobby’s family in the past. At the meeting Ann agreed that the only sure way to get Bobby into school was to take him herself. She’d already padlocked the back door and screwed the windows down to stop him running off.

In spite of the problems, Bobby was due to begin secondary school next September.

Bobby and Jon’s supervision and separation at school continued. They were even watched when they went to the toilet. Jon was often in the classroom next to Jacqueline Helm’s, when he was kept in, and she always made a point of talking to him, touched by his sweet air.

On Thursday, 11 February, Jon was with Jacqueline Helm, helping her lay out paints in class. She told him he was such a good and helpful boy and asked him why he couldn’t behave like this all the time. Jon agreed with her that it was wrong to sag. She asked him why he did it, then. I don’t know, said Jon.

24

Over the weekend after they had been charged, the identities of Bobby and Jon became an open secret in Walton. One man, the father of a boy who usually sat next to Bobby in class, heard the names while he was out in the village and went home to tell his son. The boy said that Bobby and Jon used to ask him to sag off. They used to say, do you want to be in our gang, we’re going to kill someone. The boy went quiet for a while and then said, I’m not sitting next to him on Monday.

On Monday, and throughout that week, the school was besieged by the press and unsettled by its new notoriety. Another classmate sat in Bobby’s chair and bounced up and down, singing, I’m in the murderer’s seat, I’m in the murderer’s seat. Reporters stood at the school gates hoping to interview the children, and barraged the head teacher with phone calls. Some pretended to be parents who had lost a copy of their child’s school photograph and wanted to acquire a replacement.

The photograph which included Bobby and Jon was hanging from a wall in one of the school corridors. The mother of a pupil took the tabloid shilling to try and steal it. When she discovered that the picture was fixed to the wall, the newspaper supplied her with a small camera, and the mother practised with it, timing herself to remove the camera from the pocket of her anorak, hold it to her eye, snap the picture and return the camera to her pocket. When she had got the timing down to about 12 seconds, the mother went round to the school to meet her boy, and he led her to the corridor where the school photograph was hanging. She had her hand in her pocket, poised, but the school was one step ahead. The photograph had already been removed.

Bobby and Jon remained in custody at their respective police stations until Monday morning, when they were driven to Bootle, to appear at South Sefton Magistrates Court. The two boys fidgeted their way through the remand hearing, which lasted for two minutes, and then left the court and Liverpool. They would be taken to separate secure units, where they would spend the next year of childhood.