How should young killers be treated?

By Anna-Louise Taylor

BBC News
Jon Venables, one of the killers of toddler James Bulger, struggled to cope after his release from a secure children's home and was jailed for child pornography offences last year. The detective who handled the case believes the youth justice system failed Venables.

Venables, now aged 28, was 10 when he and friend Robert Thompson murdered the toddler in Bootle, Merseyside, in 1993.

Venables was sent to the Red Bank Home in Merseyside and Thompson to Barton Moss Secure Care Centre in Manchester.

They were given new identities and freed in 2001, when they turned 18.

"I'd hoped that they would be capable of being rehabilitated, but I never had the faith in the system where I believed they could achieve that by 18 years of age," Albert Kirby, the former Merseyside detective, said.

Thompson is not known to have reoffended since his release, but Venables's life spiralled out of control.
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