We have learned over the last week that one of the killers of James Bulger, Jon Venables has had his license revoked, and is now back in prison. Of course there has been frantic speculation in the media about the reason for this, varying from drunkenness to a fight at work. It is of course worth pointing out that someone released on license from prison most commonly from a life sentence, is not free in the ordinary sense of the word as they can be re-imprisoned at the drop of a hat.
However this weekend, the real reason has slowly slipped out thanks to the circulation wars between newspapers. First he was accused of a “serious sexual crime” and now he has apparently been accused of some kind of child pornography offence. Of course we do not actually know that he is accused of this; we merely have a newspaper claiming it is so.
And a very irresponsible claim it is too – the newspaper editors involved obviously think that the popularity of their newspapers is more important than the safety of Jon Venables or the safety of anybody accused of child pornography offences. Plus of course it risks prejudicing those who might be called to act as a jury in their trial.
But who cares if Jon Venables gets a fair trial ? Or some child pornographer gets knifed in prison awaiting trial ?
Well in the later case, you could find yourself in prison awaiting trial on child pornography charges merely for letting your Windows machine get infected with a virus! The technical details of this are not of much interest here, but rest assured that if you let your machine get infected, those who control the virus can use your computer for whatever they want, which does include storing a stash of child porn. As certain unfortunate individuals have found to their cost.
Does Jon Venables deserve to be lynched for what he has done ? Well before we answer that, which crime are we talking about ? His childhood killing of James Bulger ? Or for his alleged crime of looking at child porn ? Well there are plenty who say he deserves it for his earlier crime, but he has been punished for that – perhaps you do not agree that the punishment is sufficient, but he has been punished and the punishment is probably more severe than most people realise.
He isn’t free. Don’t forget that.
He may be able to walk the streets and work for his living, but he isn’t free.
Being released on license means that he can be snatched back into prison on the flimsiest of pretexts – getting a little too involved in alcohol, perhaps getting into a fight, or even his parole officer doesn’t like his state of mind.
So he doesn’t deserve any additional punishment for his killing of James Bulger. Don’t forget that killing him would simply end his punishment; letting him live lets the punishment go on and on.
As for the alleged child pornography charge, he’s innocent of that and he will be until such time as a jury finds him guilty. And if he is found guilty ? If that happens he should be punished according to the law with no harsher or more lenient sentence than anyone else in the same circumstances. Which doesn’t include lynching.
Perhaps you do not agree, but you could well agree that the media is responsible for releasing enough details about Jon Venables to make it a little easier for those who want to kill him. It may also be enough to make it difficult for any trial of Jon Venables to be fair – every jury looking at a child pornography case may well wonder if the accused is Jon; in fact there could be any number of possibly unfair trials due to come up.
Is this right ? Does the public right to know or the public interest include possibly putting someone’s life at risk ? Or indeed risking an innocent person (and not necessarily Jon Venables) from being convicted of possessing child pornography ?
Under US law, there is the concept of ‘reckless endangerment’ whereby anyone who puts another at risk of harm is subject to possible prosecution. To me that sounds an awful lot like what the British media is currently doing to Jon Venables. I certainly believe that what they are doing is potentially dangerous not only to Jon Venables, but to others too – who can forget the Portsmouth residents trying to lynch an innocent person because he had the same name as a paedophile?
For nothing more than increased circulation, the newspapers are cynically willing to put someone’s life at risk. Perhaps we need an equivalent of “reckless endangerment” and stick a few editors behind bars to put across the point that someone’s life is worth more than any amount of money.