False IDs Jon Venables and Robert Thompson - UK Ministers Elevate Childkillers' Rights Over Rights of Others

There are many questions the UK government will one day have to answer about the decision to give lifelong anonymity to child killers Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Killers of toddler James Bulger, the Venables and Thompson were granted false names, false birth certificates, false passports and myriad other mechanisms of subterfuge to dupe not only the British public but anyone they might come in contact with anywhere in the world. The government spent hundreds of thousands on the false identities, and thousands in the first few years of the mens' freedom enforcing an international injunction blocking any hint of their false names or identities.

One of the questions raised by the clear elevation of James Bulger's killers' rights over those of potential victims, is this. What advice did the government give Venables and Thompson about future partners when they were freed aged 18?

Given that huge public resources went into the effort to create their false "innocent" identities, officials charged with sustaining the lie must have closely considered the problem of girlfriends and in Thompson's case, as he is gay, boyfriends. At 18, it was likely that each boy would have various different partners in the ensuing years. Looking at Venables' case, it was more likely he would one day marry and have children. The authorities must have advised him that, each time he started seeing a girl, he lie about his identity. How could they risk his cover being blown if a girl recoiled and started talking? If this is correct it means the government very actively colluded against its own citizens in order to dishonestly aid a convicted killer and allow him to pretend he was innocent.

But suppose, next, that Venables became attached to a girl and she to him. Denied the right to know the identity of the man she's dating, she may agree to marry him or have a child by him, or both. Logically, even at this point, the authorities would collude in hiding Venables' identity. Because again, a woman duped up until this stage might well feel revulsion, recoil and blow his cover.

As Venables was returned to jail in early 2010, it wasn't publicly known if the government and courts had actively put a young woman in the position of marrying or having a child by Venables without the right to know he was a killer. It's a fairly safe bet there are some young women who have had relationships with him with no clue as to his identity. And perhaps they had toddlers of their own when they met him. Yet protecing Venables came before any risk to others.

But Venables' history is hidden from the public precisely because the UK authorities continue to value Venables' and Thompson's rights over those of others.

Yet a cover-up on the scale of the Venables and Thompson case is hard to sustain indefinitely. True, the only people sufficiently privileged to blow either Venables' or Thompson's covers and go unpunished are the two men themselves. If they commit further crimes, as Venables apparently has, they will probably blow their covers. But even if they are given more help and granted further false IDs, the chances are that the intricate web of deceit woven with them and for them by the British government will one day unravel.

And then there'll be a mass of fall-out from this case. The government ministers who orchestrated the lies around the two men may by then be long retired of course. But it will be interesting to see what cases are brought against the government by employers who unwittingly took on either Venables or Thompson, by workmates barred from knowing who they were working with, partners barred from knowing who they were sleeping with or mothers forbidden the right to know who was fathering their child.

The UK government and 'justice' system took a huge gamble on two killers when they forged false identities for Thompson and Venables. Everything rested on their staying out of trouble and staying out of jail. But the lies have grown bigger and wider and harder to hide. Ministers have lost their bet and it remains to be seen how much further they'll descend into deceit to protect themselves as deliberately they have protected the killers of James Bulger.