11:20am Tuesday 9th March 2010
By Murray Kelso
LAST week we brought up the subject of James Bulger's killer on worcesternews.co.uk and we were amazed at the response to our poll.
We asked if you thought the victim's parents had a right to know what 27-year-old Jon Venables had done this time to earn a spell behind bars, after being released under a new identity in 2001.
Aged just 10, he was jailed alongside friend Robert Thompson for the brutal torture and murder of two-year-old James, after kidnapping him from a shopping centre on Merseyside.
Since news of his recent incarceration broke, intense pressure has been put on the Ministry of Justice to reveal the nature of Venables' crime, resulting in much rumour and conjecture.
According to the many hundreds of you who answered our poll question, three quarters of you thought the victim's parents had the right to know.
Today there is growing pressure to unmask Venables and reveal the identity he was given upon his release, but this has been countered by fears for his safety.
So our question now is simple - should Venables' current identity be revealed?
Some say that having fallen foul of the law again he has wasted his chance to lead a 'normal' life and should lose the protection he was given.
Some, on the other hand, say that because we don't know the nature of his crime we can't start making demands for something which could be totally disproportionate.
What about you? Is the pressure on the authorities justified or is it predictable bandwagon-jumping without consideration of the consequences?
Please share your thoughts in the comment box below and take a moment to answer our poll.
• If you didn't answer our poll from last week we have included that at the bottom of this article.
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