Why These Evil Child Killers Still Haunt Me

He helped lock up the two baby-faced 10-year-olds who savagely killed toddler James Bulger in a crime that shocked the world

- Phillip Koch

It’s 27 years since the little blue-eyed boy from Liverpool in the UK was snatched from a shopping centre and tortured, beaten and sexually assaulted, but the depraved crime still haunts prosecutor Sir Richard Henriques.

In his new book, From Crime To Crime: Harold Shipman To Operation Midland – 17 Cases That Shocked The World, the top British lawyer, 76, details why he has never recovered from his encounter with the real-life evil he experienced during the trial to convict Jon Venables and Robert Thompson of murder.

It was an act so evil committed by two children considered so depraved that they were jailed for life after being tried as adults and officially becoming Britain’s youngest murderers in 250 years – after turning 11 before they were convicted.

When Venables and Thompson committed their evil act, the world spent two days hoping and praying that James, who would have celebrated his third birthday just a month later, would be found alive and well.

A picture taken from CCTV footage showing the toddler being taken by the hand by the boys and led out of the busy shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside, became a defining image in a case that gripped the world.

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