Daily View: Jon Venables' anonymity

Clare Spencer|10:02 UK time, Thursday, 4 March 2010

Jon Venables Jon Venables, one of the killers of two-year-old James Bulger, is back in prison after breaching the terms of his release. Commentators consider whether his anonymity should be withdrawn.

Criminologist David Wilson at the Daily Mail argues that the public have the right to know details of Jon Venables' licence breach:

"Keeping us all in the dark will only further undermine faith in the justice system. The problem is that the public have been utterly patronised by our politicians.
They've treated us like children who can't handle the truth. But until we know the truth, there can't be a proper debate about the important implications of this case."

In the Independent Ron Broxted worries about the consequences of secrecy around Jon Venables:

"It is not that the people are in contempt of court, but that the courts are held in contempt by the people. Law and order are trotted out by Labour and Tories alike yet each year sees many laws yet little justice. You will find it far easier to establish a secretive police state than to dismantle one."

Zoe Williams in the Guardian says Jon Venables' return to the news shows that the public would like "death-penalty lite":

"Full-life tariffs are a tacit death-penalty-lite, a way to deny a life without having to extinguish it - an understandable but enormous compromise that demonstrates how imperfectly the capital punishment debate was ever concluded. And, moreover, the hair's breadth we are from reopening it."

Melanie Reid in the Times argues that the anonymity of the license should remain if we believe in rehabilitation:

"The authorities showed admirable courage in the face of huge emotional pressure to be punitive. Instead, the killers were offered redemption and rehabilitation as decent human beings. If we held our nerve then, we must continue to do so now. All the evidence shows that children's lives can be turned around; and that this is the correct, logical, humane policy for the future."

Brian Masters in the Telegraph asks if we really have given up on the idea of redemption:

"We cannot feel anger at this man who was detained yesterday, for we no longer know who he is. He may be married. He may be a father. He may have a job. He may be kind and considerate. He may be rotten and deceitful. He may have shoplifted. He may have sold drugs. It does not matter, for we are not interested in him; we are interested in the little boy who terrified us with his malice all those years ago, and we do not want to let that shudder evaporate and lose its power."

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