Parole Board Rules Jon Venables Hearing Will Stay Private, Rejecting Denise Fergus's Public Appeal

The Parole Board has confirmed that child killer Jon Venables will have his latest bid for release examined behind closed doors, turning down a request from the mother of his victim to open the proceedings to the public. The decision, announced by the Board, means the 44-year-old's case will be considered at an oral hearing conducted in private, more than two years after his previous attempt to secure freedom was turned down. The ruling sets up another chapter in a case that has remained a source of intense public emotion and legal debate for more than three decades.

Venables was one of two ten-year-old boys who abducted, tortured and murdered two-year-old James Bulger in 1993. Along with Robert Thompson, he snatched the toddler from a shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside, in February of that year — a crime that shocked the nation and has never faded from public memory. Both killers were convicted and later released under new identities, but Venables has repeatedly been returned to custody, most recently after breaching the terms of his licence.

Denise Fergus, James's mother, had urged the Parole Board to allow the public and media to observe the hearing. She argued that secrecy surrounding the process has allowed false and misleading claims about the case to circulate, which she said had a "retraumatising impact" on her and her family. Her request was supported by several news organisations, which also applied for the hearing to be opened, reflecting wider concern about transparency in the most sensitive parole decisions.

Parole Board hearings are normally held in private, but the panel has the discretion to make them public when it judges that doing so would serve the interests of justice. In this instance, the Board concluded that opening the hearing would create unacceptable risks. It said a public setting would make it "very difficult for Jon Venables to give evidence" because he could be "being listened to by people who are seeking to get information so that they can kill him". That assessment weighed heavily in favour of keeping the proceedings confidential.

The ruling means the hearing will follow the standard private format, though victims retain certain rights to be represented. A spokeswoman for Denise Fergus has previously confirmed that her application to observe the hearing was granted. Under reforms introduced nationally in April, victims have been able to attend parole hearings that are held in private, part of a broader effort by authorities to strengthen confidence in the justice system and give those affected by crime a clearer stake in decisions about release.

Venables was first freed on licence in July 2001, having served a sentence for the 1993 murder. He was recalled to prison in February 2010 after indecent images of children were discovered on his computer. He was released again in August 2013, only to be called back in November 2017 for the same category of offence. Parole judges examined his case once more in September 2020, and in 2023 the Board rejected his bid, finding that he continued to pose a danger to children and could offend again.

The latest review will therefore scrutinise whether that risk has changed in the intervening period. Because the hearing is private, the evidence and reasoning behind the eventual decision will not be aired in public, and the outcome may only be summarised in a brief statement. That prospect is precisely what concerns James's mother, who has argued that secrecy fuels speculation and leaves families without a full understanding of how such consequential judgments are reached.

The case has long raised difficult questions about how the justice system handles offenders who committed crimes as children but whose later behaviour suggests persistent risk. Venables and Thompson were both detained at Her Majesty's pleasure and released with lifelong licence conditions. For critics of the parole process, the repeated recalls demonstrate that community supervision has struggled to manage Venables, while supporters of the system point to recall itself as proof that monitoring and enforcement are functioning.

Public and media interest in the case remains exceptionally high, in part because of the nature of the original offence and in part because of the string of subsequent breaches. The decision to hold the hearing in private is likely to draw renewed commentary from those who believe the parole system should be more open, particularly when the offender is as well known as Venables.

For Denise Fergus, the outcome represents another disappointment in a long campaign for greater openness. She has consistently framed her demands not as an attempt to influence the result but as a way to ensure the public is accurately informed. The Board's reasoning, however, rests on a different calculation: that the safety of the hearing, and the ability of the panel to gather candid evidence, must come before transparency in this particular instance.

The hearing will now proceed without public observation, with the Parole Board tasked with determining whether Venables can be safely managed in the community. Whatever the panel decides, the case is certain to remain one of the most closely watched and emotionally charged in the modern history of the British justice system, and the debate over how such decisions should be conducted in public or private is unlikely to subside.