Why do so many people seem to have very little sympathy for Jamie Bulger's mother?

Question

I have seen a lotof people showing no sympathy for Denise Fergus (formerly Denise Bulger), whose toddler was murdered in a horrible manner. The majority of people seem to support the poor woman, but there has always been an element of dissent, which has surprised me. Why do so many people take this attitude?

Background info: http://www.guardian.co.uk/bulger/

as the Guardian newspaper put it: "Denise Bulger (now Fergus) is under constant scrutiny for bitterness towards her son's killers. Charlotte Raven's description in this paper of her "pinched-lipped grief" was the most extreme, but others have also compared her unfavourably with more forgiving mothers."

Answer 1

As you say, the vast majority of people will have nothing but sympathy for Denise Fergus but there will always be a few people who lack understanding or compassion who take an extreme and opposite view.
I would say that such people are not worth wasting time on.

Answer 2

i worked in Liverpool at the time of Jamies abduction and i will never forget the shock the community felt at the time. people were heartbroken and couldn't believe what he had been through.
Denise recieved a lot off support, i remember collections going around in the town centre, its only because she has held her dignity in the public eye has made her a target. Denise adored her son, and what happened tore her family apart, the press are vultures and sooner or later - when the truth is known about Madeleine - no matter the outcome - they will turn on the McCanns also. maybe then they will get honest about the events of that night

Answer 3

Rosie: I agree. These are quoted from poor Denise.

"They may think that they can hide. I know no matter where they go someone out there will be waiting."
"One day a gun will be pointing at them."
"If someone does kill them, I'll be by their side in court saying the government is guilty."

I'm not blaming her for that - poor woman - but sadly it is true that lots of articles were written criticising her. Personally, I think she's bound to feel the way she does.

Here's one article to show you:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/bulger/article/0,,512637,00.html

Here are a few examples of what the questioner is on about:
http://www.judascow.com/forum_judascow/viewtopic.php?t=37

Answer 4

Firstly, I do have sympathy for Denise Bulger - the way Jamie was tortured must haunt her everyday. I think she has a right to be angry - if that is how she wants to feel for a lifetime, she is entitled to it.

But I wonder - when James was taken from that shopping centre, did his mother, for those brief moments, not lose sight of her son? Did she not, like the McCanns who everyone is criticising at the moment, let her small child out of her sight? I am not saying that she is to blame for what happened, certainly not the torture and death of her son, but for any parent that loses a child because he/she wasn't watching them, there must be a portion of the blame they take. There must be part of her that asks why she didn't keep hold of his hand that day.

And although I would never like to meet Thompson and Venebles, they were, like it or not, children themselves. Call them ba*tards all you want, but if they were from loving secure backgrounds, they would not have done what they did.

Venebles - "Thompson was one of the youngest of seven boys. His mother, a lone parent, was an alcoholic. His father, who left home when Thompson was five, was also a heavy drinker who beat and sexually abused his wife and children. Despite his quiet and friendly manner, Thompson came from a home in which it was normal practice for the older children to violently attack the younger ones, and Thompson was invariably on the receiving end.
Venables' parents were also separated. His brother and sister had educational problems and attended special needs schools, whilst his mother suffered psychiatric problems. Following his parents' separation, Venables became isolated and an attention-seeker. At school, he would regularly bang his head on walls. No effort was made to find the cause of his obvious distress."

Thompson - "Thompson's father had abandoned his wife and children five years previously, one week before the family home was burned down in a fire. Ann Thompson was a heavy drinker, who found it difficult to control her seven children. Notes (obtained by author Blake Morrison) from an NSPCC case conference on the family, described it as 'appalling'. The children 'bit, hammered, battered, {and} tortured each other'. Incidents in the report included Philip (the third child) threatening his older brother Ian with a knife. Ian asked to be taken into foster care, and when he was returned to his family, he attempted suicide with an overdose of painkillers. Both Ann and Philip had also attempted suicide in the past."

I am not justifying what those two kids did, but I doubt they realised the enormity of what they were doing - they experienced violence and abuse at home, and it was what they were used to. Killers aren't just born, they are quite often abused or have suffered some type of psychological distress.

Answer 5

there is no excuse, at five or six you know it is wrong to hit another let alone murder them, those boys were fully aware of what they were doing. its a disgrace of british justice that they are free. any wonder the bnp seems to get growing support, i do not want this but without vigilanties it seems that little will change. there is no balance in society anymore, where is the justice this woman deserves? i was a child at the time and it made me cry then and as a mother now i wouldnt hesititate to give this woman the justice she needs, i would be bitter too. shame on the government thats what i say, lets protect the violent criminals and paedophiles as their human rights are obviously more important to the innocent citizens of this once great nation!

Answer 6

It is shocking to realise how little outlet Denise Fergus has been given for her powerful desire to have the world remember her son. The relatives of other high-profile murder victims have taken very different routes, and she has suffered from the comparisons. Frances Lawrence, the wife of murdered headmaster Philip Lawrence, devoted her mourning to a moral crusade explicitly forgiving her husband's young killer. The other Lawrences, Stephen's parents, have not talked about forgiveness but have had an outlet for their energies in reforming police attitudes and creating educational memorials for their son. We like these people because they give some meaning to terrible events; they make us feel better.

For Denise there has been no "official" support, no public memorial and no talk of funding schools as there has been with Damilola Taylor. Why has she not been helped to become involved in a charity or project bearing her son's name, where her experience could have helped others? Some commentators would doubtless answer this is the shortcoming of her personality, the same failure which prevents her "moving on". But again this betrays a shocking lack of understanding. Denise Fergus was barely 20 when she had James, an ordinary uneducated girl from a relatively poor background. She was not surrounded by a large middle-class family as Frances Lawrence was, nor supported by activists as Doreen and Neville Lawrence were. The murder threw her into a nightmare from which she has clearly never fully emerged, destroying her marriage and leaving her disturbed and anxious even in the context of a new marriage and three subsequent children. She wasn't media friendly when it happened and she isn't now. She is a fragile person from a resourceless background who seems to have had precious little real help with finding a way of doing justice to her son's memory.

Answer 7

Denise Fergus was once, I imagine, just a normal Mum with a baby she loved, who suffered anger and grief at his brutal murder. But since the murder trial of Thompson and Venables, she has been transformed into a media celebrity of the most ghoulish kind, never allowed to stay out of the spotlight long enough to enjoy a new life with her three other children. Campaign groups have attached themselves to Fergus, in order to pursue their own crusades - notably, Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, and Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, who on many issues seems to be the mouthpiece of the hang 'em and flog 'em brigade. Fergus' campaign is called 'Justice for James', but it is clear that many of those supporting it have broader agendas of their own.

Beyond the fact that Fergus will now be a campaigner for life, forced to relive her son's murder over and over again, she has been boxed into a mentality that will only fuel her bitterness. She is constantly pushed to contrast her lot, as a bereaved mum, with the reported benefits given to Thompson and Venables. They will be given quite hefty sums in financial support; she received compensation of £7500 for her son's murder. They will be given physical protection; she asks, 'Who is going to protect my children?'. Thompson and Venables came away from their imprisonment with GCSEs, contrasting sharply with the education given to many children on Merseyside estates. Maybe Fergus would have had these grievances anyway, but the way they have been latched on to, and articulated through, the media, means they can only fester.

This is a sordid affair that will never end. Denise Fergus will be pushed to carry on crusading. Thompson and Venables, as many have pointed out, will never be truly free - they are under license, allowing for their recall to jail on the basis of any misdemeanour; the therapy started in jail will go on for life; their false identities will mean they can never even be themselves. These two young men are the subjects of what The Times (London) called 'a high-risk experiment in rehabilitation' - and as such, they will always be monitored and controlled. Yet the vast amount of effort and money employed by the state to protect Thompson and Venables cannot resolve the mess that politicians and lawyers made of this case in the first place - indeed, it may even make things worse.

And in all this, the big fear is of the mythical mob?

Answer 8

If more people were aware of what those two boys did to Jamie, then they might understand why Denise finds it so hard to forgive them! I do myself as it was not a case of not knowing right from wrong and neither are we talking of a bit of bullying going too far!!!!! This was a planned attack on an innocent baby and when his Father tried to get support by publishing the full facts HE was prosecuted! (The Law is an ***> as Dickens said) They will both always have my sympathy.

Answer 9

She has always had my total and complete sympathy. I remember those awful CCTV pictures of those older boys leading her son away to his death. Why should she not have feelings of anger and revulsion, click on any link and read the graphic descriptions of what they did to that little tot. If it were me I wouldn't know how I'd feel.
I've seen people on here suggesting she was out 'on the rob' 'shoplifting' or that she wasn't looking after him. The truth is she was, she didn't leave him some where to go off and do her own thing, he was with her. Those boys knew what they wanted to do, they found their victim and they were off with him.
I read that she tracked down one of the murderers following his release but that all she could do was stand and look at him. That tells me she is still suffering extreme shock and trauma and that the sight of that dreadful person was more than she could stand.
if she was hard faced and and bitter I'm sure he would have known about it, I'm sure she would have taken his face off. As it was she left him there without confronting him.
To my mind she has exerted tremendous courage and dignity in the face of the most violent and horrific atrocities carried out on her child. Any journalist wanting to demean and disgrace her should be ashamed, especially in the climate we have today where other parents are being worshipped and adored for being guilty of much more than Denise ever was

Answer 10

I think it's sick how the media use the Bulger family for a story to put in their 'paper, then make them out to be exploiting the attention. It seems they will never be allowed to grieve in peace.

katie f: I wrote that question on Yahoo! Message Boards about a year ago about Thompson and Venables's rehabilitation. Do you think they can ever be rehabilitated?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=463121&in_page_id=1770