Originally posted by @wolfgang59
We are so concerned about the victims, we sometimes forget the criminals - their life-story made them what they are.
Major Study: DHF 2940
Are children who commit violent acts against other children born evil?
Jo Hill
i. Jon Venables
Jon was the second of three children. His elder brother, then three years old, was an unhappy and frustrated baby who, according to his mother, Susan, never stopped crying and was very hard for her to cope with. Furthermore, Jon was still only one year old when his younger sister was born. Susan said that both Jon and his sister were happy babies, though his sister was also later diagnosed with learning difficulties (Sereny, 1995).
By the time Jon was three, his parents had divorced and it seems likely that he witnessed much marital strife during his formative years (Thomas, 1993). The subsequent years were chaotic for the children (Jackson, 1995), lasting until James Bulger’s murder seven years later. Neil and Susan’s relationship seemed disordered and the joint custody arrangements meant that Jon was shunted from one house to the other, creating an unsettled home life. His childhood has been described as unhappy (Thomas, 1993; Jackson, 1995).
Jon’s eldest sibling, then aged nine, became prone to throwing violent tantrums, as detailed in his medical records (Morrison, 1997). Jon was a victim of these and would also presumably have witnessed them. Within a year, Jon was also displaying strange and difficult behaviour.
Susan also had a tendency to physically hit the children, especially if they would not go to sleep at night and Jon often had sleeping problems (Davis, 2004). She would hit them at other times, however, as she describes: ‘I was hitting Jon ... he was crying and both of us, Neil too, were yelling at him. He was on the floor and I still beat on him’ (Sereny, 1995, p.314). She clearly found it difficult to cope and there were two incidents, which were possibly suicide attempts. Despite obvious familial difficulties there was no intervention from any support services (Morrison, 1997).