This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
Murder of James Bulger is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
While the biographies of living persons policy does not apply directly to the subject of this article, it may contain material that relates to living persons, such as friends and family of persons no longer living, or living persons involved in the subject matter. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons must be removed immediately. If such material is re-inserted repeatedly, or if there are other concerns related to this policy, please see this noticeboard.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Crime and Criminal Biography articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Crime and Criminal BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyCrime-related articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Death, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Death on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.DeathWikipedia:WikiProject DeathTemplate:WikiProject DeathDeath articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject England, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of England on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnglandWikipedia:WikiProject EnglandTemplate:WikiProject EnglandEngland-related articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Merseyside, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Merseyside-related articles. In so doing it works and collaborates with its mother project WikiProject UK Geography. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. Please also feel free to join in the discussions on the project's talk page.MerseysideWikipedia:WikiProject MerseysideTemplate:WikiProject MerseysideMerseyside articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles that are spoken on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Spoken WikipediaWikipedia:WikiProject Spoken WikipediaTemplate:WikiProject Spoken WikipediaSpoken Wikipedia articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject United KingdomUnited Kingdom articles
Latest comment: 1 year ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Re this edit: It isn't clear cut to describe the murder as child sexual abuse. This never became an issue at the trial, as the list of Bulger's injuries were read out in court without further comment in order to spare the feelings of his parents. This has led to speculation that some of the injuries were sexually motivated, but it isn't ideal to add this to the infobox, as this is a place for uncontroversial statements. ♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)21:33, 23 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
TheXuitts: I'm not happy about sexual assault and suspected rape being added to the infobox as it is not clearly supported by the sourcing. Thompson and Venables were convicted of murder, not sexual assault. A sexual element was suspected but not proved, leading to problems with verifiability. This is best left to the text of the article.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)06:22, 24 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Re this edit: Venables has a parole hearing scheduled for 14-15 November [1] and this is on the front page of Metro today.[2] There is an element of WP:CRYSTAL due to the past ups and downs of parole hearings for Venables, so the article should wait until there is firmer news. ♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)08:14, 21 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 10 months ago6 comments5 people in discussion
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Oppose. Even apart from WP:BLP1E there's really not a whole lot to say about him independent of the content already in this article. It's not like we can't cover his crimes afterwards here? The only reason I could see for splitting it is if someone wanted to remove the content of his later crimes from this article for being undue, which I don't see anyone arguing. PARAKANYAA (talk) 08:41, 23 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The lives of Thompson and Venables before the murder
Latest comment: 8 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
The article at present does not contain any information about the prior lives of Thompson and Venables. I feel this is a mistake, as to what extent their parenting was a cause of their actions was (and still is) a large part of media discussion on the case. Eldomtom2 (talk) 19:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
There isn't a great deal known about Thompson and Venables other than that they came from poor backgrounds and were known as troublemakers and truants long before the murder. The article could go into more detail, but there would need to be sourcing.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)10:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Reply