Year 11 GCSE Psychology
Key Topic 8: Aggresssion
BULGER CASE
The police were sure James Bulger's ten-year-old killers were simply wicked. One moment James was at his mother's side, riding a toy giraffe and pinching a few Smarties from a Woolworth's counter. Then she turned her back, just for a split second, and he was gone. On CCTV footage which captured the moment of his abduction frame by haunting frame, we saw him being taken through the mall by a pair of shadowy silhouettes. His final journey ended on a railway embankment in Walton. James, who was a month short of his third birthday, was found two days later, on February 14, 1993. He had 22 injuries to his head, and another 20 to his body, inflicted with a 22lb iron bar and 27 bricks. James Bulger's killers: Jon Venables, left, and Robert Thompson His body was left across a track, where it was cut in two by a train to make it look like an accident. Today, 17 years on, one haunting question remains: were the police right? Were Robert Thompson and Jon Venables simply born 'evil'? Or could it be that they were made evil by their terrible backgrounds? Not every child who grows up in a violent, chaotic broken home, where they are exposed to degrading videos, alcoholism and abuse, becomes a danger to society. But some believe they are much more likely to if they are. The boys' psychiatrist, Eileen Vizard, was allowed to address just three questions: did they know the difference between right and wrong? Would they have known it was wrong to take a young child away from its mother? Would they have known it was wrong to cause injury to a child? The answer to all three was 'Yes'.
Year 11 GCSE Psychology
Key Topic 8: Aggresssion
Venables' arrest two weeks ago for possession of indecent images of children, following his release on licence in 2001, has once again turned the spotlight on one of the darkest episodes in British criminal history. Robert was the fifth of seven brothers. His mother Ann married Robert Thompson Snr when she was just 18. An aggressive alcoholic, he would beat Ann mercilessly. On one occasion, she suffered a miscarriage when she was jammed in a door during a violent row. The boys did not escape the beatings. In 1988, he abandoned his family for another woman. Ann Thompson was unable to cope and turned to drink. At the Top House pub in Walton, neighbours recalled her fights with other women, and sometimes even with men. 'She was in the pub from opening time at 11am, and when the kids got home they found her rotten drunk and unable to stand,' another local recalled. The Thompson report is harrowing. The boys, it said, grew up 'afraid of each other'. And when their father left them, a Lord Of The Flies mentality descended on their home. Six boys, aged between 8 and 20, left to their own devices. The eldest boy picked on a younger sibling, that sibling on the next in line, and so the violence percolated down to Robert himself. They bit and battered each other - just like their abusive, alcoholic father had done to them. The Thompsons were already well known to social services. David, the eldest boy, was put on the child protection register when he was four, after he was seen with cigarette burns and a black eye. Second brother Ian was stealing at 11. Third brother Philip was found by a neighbour chained up and locked in the garden shed. Jon Venables was also from a broken home. He was the middle of three children born to Neil and Susan Venables, whose marriage was already in trouble when Jon arrived. They divorced when he was three years old. He was mad on computers. Like Ann Thompson, Venables' mother Susan was a regular visitor to local pubs. In January 1987, police were called to the house after the children (then aged seven, five and three) had been left alone for three hours. Jon's behaviour deteriorated after his parents split up. His favourite trick with other children was a kick in the shins, followed by a punch to the rib cage.
Year 11 GCSE Psychology
Key Topic 8: Aggresssion
Complaints to his mother about his behaviour were, say neighbours, invariably met with abuse. At school, he threw tantrums and exhibited increasingly disturbing behaviour. 'He would sit back and hold his desk and rock backwards and forwards, moaning and making strange noises,' revealed one of his teachers. Venables spent a few days of the week with his father, who friends insisted was a devoted parent. But it emerged that he had rented more than 400 videos in the few years before James Bulger was murdered. Scores of them contained ultraviolence or pornography. One of them was the notorious 'video nasty' I Spit On Your Grave, in which a woman is gang raped in a cabin. Another video rented by Mr Venables - he always denied his son ever watched them - was Child's Play 3. The 'star' is a demonic doll called Chucky, which comes to life in a military academy. In a dreadful echo of the Bulger tragedy, he abducts the youngest cadet and tries to kill him under the wheels of a fairground ghost train. The video was the last one rented by Mr Venables before James was abducted, splashed with blue paint, and killed. Together Venables & Thompson began stealing sweets and toys from shops, threw stones at windows, swore at shopkeepers and trashed gardens to enrage householders. Others told how they stoned birds and tortured cats. Many would go further and argue that it was their parents - who have, like Thompson and Venables, been given new identities - who were ultimately responsible for what happened. Which theory explains their behaviour? Therefore; how can aggression be reduced? Evaluate the method of reducing aggression.
