Mintball wrote:
On Venables....

He was nine when the murder was committed.


Thomson and Venables were both 10 when the murder was committed and 11 when they were tried. Tried, incidentally (and shamefully), as adults in an adult court.

At what point do you draw the line where do they become culpable, the abuse they suffered as children is not an explanation.

I have had a couple of cases recently which illustrate the pointlessness of your argument.

3 children growing up in a house full of Domestic violence. The best example is the dad who poured petrol on the the family cat and then set it on fire in front of the kids to scare and intimidate the family.
The eldest is 4 . When in foster care he tried to drown his sister aged 3 in the bath. Should he have been prosecuted for attempted murder

. Is his abuse not an explanation



3 children aged 7, 4 and 3. Living with a nutter ( my term rather than the PC version) who is mad on the military, martial arts etc. Brought his kids up to be tough. wants to go and live in America so he can get guns and live in a log cabin waiting for armageddon.

Kids in foster care now BUT are so violent towards each other they can NEVER live together or with other children, they have big problems at school fighting etc. The 3 year old has been assessed by child psychologist as having NO internal controls on his behaviour and an inability to respond to external controls. Are they to be prosecuted for what they have done

is there abuse an explanation.



In response to your comment about not every child who is abused goes on to abuse you are right. BUt reserach does show that of adults who have gone on to abuse children ( sexually) 50% were abused as children and 50% were not. It does however raise the issue of what else went on in their childhoods. It is not a justification but it is an explanaition of why things go wrong with kids.


Just out of interest a squaddie who comes back from Afghanistan suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome ( PTSD)and commits an offence is his PTSD and army experiences an explanation or a mitigation

This is stating the obvious, but despite that fact, sadly it isn't obvious to very many. The clearest example I can give is comparing abuse with religion. A child brought up within a fundy religious environment will very likely be a fundy religious case themselves. It is not genetic, it is learned behaviour. So I'd say that a child which learns that violence and torture is OK in that their parents do it, and/or is the way adults deal with things to get their way, may well grow up ingrained that that's just how life is, and that that's normal human behaviour.


It might to a degree be part of both, but I'd say suffering from serious PTSD would tend to stop the unfortunate squaddie from functioning normally or from interacting with society normally. The sort of crimes which might b associated with it would be crimes relating to loss of control. It isn't a "defence" in our system unless you can (and want to) prove "insanity" - not often a plus - so yes, mitigation and explanation is what it would be.

I've never understood this. Would accommodating a penis suddenly change a person's outlook on such matters? Does your outlook change in degrees according to the amount or size of the penis? I think we need to know.

I enquired about certain other delicate issues relating to this episode yesterday.


I believe they were removed from public consumption.

Few years ago, i wasn't sure where i stood on this issue.

Where they old enough to truly realise, was the punishment sufficient, was the pure hatred towards them justified? I was completely on the fence as i weighed things up. The fact is i didn't know what the justice system knew about them or their team of shrinks so just took for granted they knew best.

I think giving them new identities was the correct thing to do unfortunately because of the lesser class societies thirst for vengeance.
I also think that given their second chance that Venables should now be locked up until deemed fit for release and that Thompson should be left alone to live his life, a punishment was given and whether we agree or not it was served.

An interesting aside, has anyone seen a film called 'Boy A', it's very loosely based on this case in that two boys commit murder and it deals with the reintroduction of one of the boys back in to mainstream society.
It made me think long and hard on the Bulger case and probably changed my outlook on it.

Two photos appeared on my facebook last night. I don't know if they were legitimate or not (the alleged one of Robert Thomson bore the most similarity to that of the photograph of when he was 10). What if these two pictures were NOT of the adult Thomson and Venebals, if anybody sees the pictures and know who they are there could be serious trouble.

Should people really be spreading these pictures without any thought or is there just no reasoning with some people? There would probably be some who say 'it's their own fault for looking like them'.

Recently pictures have appeared on my Facebook feed of these two as they are now. Problem is I've seen two completely different people in photographs of venables.

Maybe these two didn't know or weren't fully aware of their acts all those years ago and maybe they deserve another chance but conversely I don't want them having that opportunity of a new life near me or anyone I know.

Not sure the poster's argument is pointless. You're taking a bit of an arrogant stand there DG, aren't you? You can cite examples. Good. That has shown some of us how terrible life can be and how behaviour can be nurtured.

But. You can give as many examples as you like and there are always other examples. We can only share our own experiences. And as you seem to be from a social science background, you probably know in psychology nothing is ever really black and white. There can be three sides and not two to a story.

I'll self-disclose something for the sake of this very interesting thread. I grew up in a DV environment. I have two older siblings. We grew up in an abusive environment. Myself and sister have been affected by it. I have responses that are nurtured. (Thankfully I'm not violent.) BUT. My brother hasn't. And there in one fell swoop shows that your examples are different to my own personal experience. Who's right? We both are.

As a result of my childhood, I have PTSD. This is why I have such a fascination with psychology.





As he is right, why didn't you just stop it at "you are right". You've then just CORRECTLY pointed out using stats, that the people who are found to abuse, were abused. But we don't know how many DON"T go on to abuse do we? Because that figure is not collected.

Again this is the fascinating debate of Nature v Nurture. Some people have it in them, some have learnt how to do it.


I do have to say though once again, that people do seem to have an understanding of how nurturing can produce murderers and people on here seem to understand how it "might" be a reason as to why a child kills another, but can't see that nurturing argument and have no compassion, when it involves people who have grown up having a different political opinion to theirs. Be they left or right wing.

Somebody chopped their cocks off?

I believe Amanda 'Lorena' Kendal was possibly the culprit.

here he is again, school holidays and his social workers let this manc twaaaat loose on the internet yet again.when will they ever learn about giving idiots like him access to computers.

and again. so predictable.
thats mancs for you though.

Bless.

In amongst this lake of crocodile tears, it is surprising to read that not one of our easily offended and concerned posters has stepped up, and boldly proclaimed that they would be happy to see either Venables, or Thomson standing on their doorsteps alongside one of their daughters.

And I'm sure that it is concern for future property values, nothing else, which prompts others to wave the NIMBY flag. No Really.

Ironic is it not, that it is only the much maligned Kirkstaller, who I suspect has the courage of his convictions (no pun intended), who would actually have no problem with having a neighbour like the child killer Venables, whose CV includes an arrest for affray after a drunken street fight ; was cautioned over possession of cocaine; convicted of distributing indecent 42 images in February 2008; convicted of distributing indecent photographs in February 2010; convicted of loading 57 pornographic pictures of children oto his computer between February 2009 and February 2010;
Was ordered to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years as a convicted paedophile, and is subject to a sexual offences prevention order for five years.
have been barred from working with children for life. (Thanks to FA for info)

As an agnostic myself, whilst I think he is wrong, I have to give credit to him for the strength of his Christian compassion, which contrasts sharply with the rank hypocricity displayed by the other Talking Heads.

Which means that vigilantism is fine, does it?

He's that tough, he'd be leading the posse.

It means exactly what I have written. An oasis of common sense in a dessert of hypocritical platitudes, with no mention of vigilantism, or anything else which may upset the more delicate amongst us.

Perhaps someone less excitable will step up and defend their nimbyism.......

Is it that good you could eat it?

you really are a prize one

Has no one questioned what the public are being told? Apart from the child porn trial, I cannot find any other info about his trials. Just maybe, he wasn't arrested for child porn, maybe his Id was rumbled, he panicked , called the police and they put him straight into a safe house. Just maybe his family were also moved from their safe house in a nearby town. Which prison is he in? It's convenient for all concerned, especially the public, that he's locked up. Apparently he's up for parole this summer, which no doubt, will be denied. Just maybe, he's in another safe house, in another town and working for another "friendly" employer. And all the time, he's not in prison, but living amongst us. In time his "parole" will come through, by which time, just maybe, he'd have already been living in public for the last 5 years. Don't believe everything you read in the papers

I suppose Myra's not dead either

Indeed. That good that it merited an extra S......

Thought it may have been part of a special congratulatory feast after you and the posse had meted out some summary justice to them childkilling children?

How about we show the same compassion to the racist woman on the tram in Croydon? Or more importantly, the child that was with her.

Is she worse than someone who deliberately killed a 2 year old child?

She probably needs her methadone hit increasing?