The two convicts and the victim were only 22 years old: the youngest brutal convict in British history

Two of the youngest offenders in the UK to commit a crime

On February 12, 1993, Robert Thompson and Jon Venebels hit it off, and the morning when they skipped class and ran out happily, the wind and the sun were beautiful, no matter how you look at it, it doesn't look like there is a murder, let alone a day that has set a record in British crime history - it is these two elementary school students who skipped class, abducted and tortured James, who was only two years old, and the combined age of the two criminals and the victim was only 22 years old!

And the reason for creating this history is simple, even contemptuous: boring, to paraphrase the common saying of the Chinese people, idle.

Robert and Jon were repeat truants, real "bad boys" in the eyes of the teacher, and the morning was boring enough: two childish children burst into a mall, peeled off the candy wrappers of the fruit candy, took the toys on the shelves, and stole the batteries, which were eventually found in the victim's stomach - and the two cruel criminals actually forced the victim to swallow the battery.

The salesman noticed the prank of the two children and amicably persuaded them to leave the mall, so in the midst of boredom, the two children walked into the McDonald's next to the mall, stood on all the free chairs and yelled, and threw the juice and bread that the customers had eaten before they had time to be collected by the cleaners. Of course, a few minutes later they were asked out again.

was expelled several times, which made the two children angry and aroused a deeper desire for destruction and revenge, so the two discussed "getting a child" to play a trick".

They return to the mall and start looking for a suitable target, and soon, a pair of twins come into their sight, and they giggle and figure out how to get the twins out and get a car to kill them on the road, "it must be quite funny", but the mother of the twins soon realizes that the two children have bad intentions and brings her own children with her.

Robert and Jon then worked together, one to get the mother's attention, the other to take the twins out of the mall, but after only a dozen steps, the child's mother once again saw the danger, rushed over to retrieve her child, and held it in her arms and never let go.

The two kids, who were about to set a new British crime record, didn't give up, and soon they locked up James again, eating chocolate chips alone in front of a snack bar, they didn't know the child's name at the time, but he "happened to be alone, and, only one or two years old, it was too easy to get rid of him." There was a second or two when we even wanted to give up on that goal because it was too unchallenging, not exciting enough. ”

But apparently in the end, they still did not "change their goal", and a new record in the history of British crime was officially born: two criminals, one victim, and three people combined were less than 22 years old.

In the mall's surveillance footage, Robert and Jon have a brief conversation with James before James is taken out of the mall and disappears into the bright sunlight that morning. When James' family found out the child was missing, they immediately called the police, but when James was found two days later, he had been torn in two by a train.

Based on the last video James left behind, police immediately conducted a citywide investigation of boys between the ages of 10 and 14 and school-age students who did not attend school on time. Jon's table mate reported to the police station, while Robert's mom volunteered to provide information to the police, and after a brief investigation, Robert and Jon were arrested by the police on February 20.

At the beginning of the interrogation, the two children showed a calmness and composure that was completely disproportionate to their age. Jon adamantly denied that he had been present at the scene of the crime, and after the police showed him the video, he still refused to admit that the person in the video was him, and when he could not justify himself, he slipped into his mother's arms, crying hoarsely and saying loudly, "I didn't kidnap him, I didn't kill him." ”

Robert was even calmer than Jon, explaining or justifying the police questioning without any panic, not only denying killing James, but even claiming that he had never seen him. And when the police showed that the blood taken from his clothes was found to be James's bloodstains after DNA identification, the 10-year-old criminal, who had completely blank knowledge of DNA, made a small mistake and cautiously asked: "How can you conclude that the blood on my clothes is his?" ”

This kind of rhetorical question is tantamount to not asking for oneself.

After detailed sampling and comparison, James's blood was found on the clothes and shoes of the two children, and the shape of the toe of the shoes that Robert wore that day was completely consistent with the shape of the bruises on James's face, which shows that Robert kicked James in the face, and the most important and direct evidence is that the fingerprints of the two children were found at the scene of the crime.

When the two children finally realize that quibbling and denial are completely useless, they start to blame each other, Jon says that Robert took James and forced himself to throw stones at James or else "let you end up like him"; And Robert said that it was Jon who took Jen Grace, and those injuries were Jon's masterpieces, and he never touched James from beginning to end.

Anyway, the two kids killed James. Through the autopsy, people were shocked to find that James had been abused by the crippled woman during his lifetime, and there were a total of 42 injuries on his body, but none of these injuries were fatal, that is, James had been brutally abused and beaten during his lifetime.

After James was taken away, he kept crying on the road to find his mother, and the two excited teenagers punched and kicked James, and even pressed his head into a puddle on the side of the road several times. Passers-by saw two children with a younger child, and kept crying and scolding, and tried to stop them and wanted to take them to the nearest police station, but the two children were surprisingly calm, they said, we are taking this lost child to the police station.

On a nearby railroad line, James was stripped naked and continued to be beaten, with more than a dozen bone cracks on his skull alone. When James fell into a coma, the two children thought he was dead, so they put him sideways on the railroad tracks and buried his head in the gravel of the roadbed, creating the illusion that he had been run over by a train.

On 11 November 1993, the Preston Royal Court heard the case, stating that they had committed "incomparably wicked and atrocious crimes". More than 500 demonstrators gathered outside the courtroom during the trial, waving signs and shouting slogans demanding a heavy sentence for Robert and Jon.

In the verdict, Robert and Jon were sentenced to 8 years in prison, and they were not allowed to return to the scene of the crime for the rest of their lives, and they were not allowed to have any form of contact for life, and at the same time underwent regular psychological counseling and related mental illness examinations. The British newspaper The Sun solicited a petition from 280,000 people to increase the sentences, and the subsequent second trial, the sentences of the two were finally determined to be 15 years. In 1999, the European Court of Human Rights found that the two juvenile offenders had been subjected to "injustice" and had been kidnapped by public opinion and should be retried.

In 2000, their sentences were reduced to eight years for their good behavior in prison. In June 2001, the collegial panel released Robert and Jon from prison on the basis of the verdict that "the two men did not pose a threat to the safety of the public".

After being released from prison, the duo submitted an application on the grounds that they could be protected by the relevant policies and regulations in the United Kingdom, and that they could re-register their personal information such as a new name and address with the Department of Home Affairs to facilitate the start of a new life.

Eventually, the application was approved.

This article only describes the facts, and does not want to express personal opinions on the people, events, and laws in it.