'Children's Commissioner should resign' – mother of James Bulger

JAMES Bulger's mother has called for the Children's Commissioner to be sacked for "twisted and insensitive" comments about the murder of her two-year-old son.

Denise Fergus spoke out after Dr Maggie Atkinson said his killers should never have been prosecuted because they were too young to understand the full consequences of their actions.

The Ministry of Justice on Saturday ruled out Dr Atkinson's proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility from ten to 12 years, saying that children aged ten and over did know the difference between "bad behaviour and serious wrongdoing".

Dr Atkinson described the killing as "exceptionally unpleasant" but said it was wrong that Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who were ten in 1993 when charged with the boy's murder, were tried in an adult court.

Mrs Fergus said: "This woman owes James and me an apology for her twisted and insensitive comments. Then she should resign or be sacked.

"To say his killers should not have been tried in an adult court is stupid. They committed an adult crime, a cold-blooded murder that was planned and premeditated and were tried accordingly."

She added: "It is a shock to people like Dr Atkinson that children can be truly evil by ten. But it is a fact … and we need laws to be tightened up so we can deal with them."

Seeking to clarify her views later, Dr Atkinson said it was right for children like James Bulger's killers to be held in secure settings, and added:

"They should undertake intense programmes appropriate to their age in secure facilities where they are helped to make positive and lasting changes to their behaviour."

Conservative frontbencher Ken Clarke, who was home secretary at the time of the case, said: "I do not actually agree with the Children's Commissioner but she obviously should not resign for expressing an opinion on a perfectly serious and quite difficult subject."