James Bulger’s Mother Demands AI Law to Ban Disturbing Victim Videos

The mother of murdered toddler James Bulger has called on the government to introduce stronger laws to stop the spread of disturbing AI-generated videos that depict child murder victims.

Denise Fergus, who has campaigned for decades in her son’s memory, described the clips as “absolutely disgusting” and warned that the rise of AI technology is creating fresh trauma for families already devastated by tragedy.

“They Don’t Understand How Much They’re Hurting People”

Speaking to the BBC, Fergus said social media platforms were failing to adequately police disturbing AI-generated content. She revealed that she and her family had seen clips where a digitally recreated image of her two-year-old son “spoke” about the horrific circumstances of his abduction and murder in 1993.

“It plays on your mind,” Fergus said. “It’s something that you can’t get away from. When you see that image, it stays with you. It’s just corrupt. It’s just weird and it shouldn’t be done.”

She added that those producing or sharing such material had no awareness of the devastating impact on grieving families: “They don’t understand how much they’re hurting people.”

The Background: James Bulger’s Murder

James Bulger was just two years old when he was abducted from a shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside, in February 1993. Led away by 10-year-olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, the toddler was taken more than two miles to a railway line where he was tortured and murdered.

The crime horrified Britain and made Venables and Thompson the youngest convicted murderers in modern British history. For Fergus, the loss has been a lifelong burden. She has consistently fought for stricter sentencing, victim protections, and tougher measures against those who exploit her son’s name and image.

AI Brings Fresh Pain

Three decades on, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence has created a new front in her battle. The BBC investigation found videos on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram that use AI avatars to impersonate murder victims, narrating their deaths in the first person.

The clips often follow a formula: a computer-generated child avatar “tells” the story of their own murder, accompanied by dramatic music and captions. Accounts posting this type of content often target high-profile cases, apparently chasing views, followers, and monetisation.

“It’s sickening,” Fergus said. “We go on social media and the person that’s no longer with us is there, talking to us. How sick is that?”

Platforms Respond

After the BBC flagged the issue, TikTok confirmed that the videos identified had been removed for violating community guidelines. A spokesperson said: “We do not allow harmful AI-generated content on our platform and we proactively find 96% of content that breaks these rules before it is reported to us.”

YouTube also confirmed it had acted, stating that its guidelines prohibit content that realistically simulates deceased individuals describing their deaths. The company said a channel called Hidden Stories had been permanently terminated for “severe violations of this policy.”

Instagram, owned by Meta, also confirmed that flagged videos had been removed for breaching its rules.

Are Current Laws Enough?

The UK government has insisted that such videos are already covered under the new Online Safety Act, which classifies them as illegal when they constitute an offence. Platforms are expected to remove such material quickly or face regulatory consequences.

A government spokesperson said: “Using technology for these disturbing purposes is vile. This government is taking robust action through delivery of the Online Safety Act, under which videos like this are considered illegal content and should be swiftly removed by platforms. But we won’t hesitate to go further to protect our children.”

Officials also pointed to potential prosecutions under existing communications legislation, which allows charges for obscene or grossly offensive material.

Calls for Stronger Action

But Fergus remains unconvinced that current measures go far enough. “It’s just words at the moment,” she said. “They should be acting on it.”

She has urged ministers to introduce a dedicated law specifically addressing the misuse of AI to create videos of child victims. Fergus revealed she met with Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood last week to raise her concerns directly.

Her demand highlights the broader challenge governments face as technology evolves faster than regulation. While platforms and regulators scramble to react, victims’ families are often left retraumatised by content that should never have been published in the first place.

A Wider Problem

The use of AI to replicate the images and voices of real people has surged across social media in the past year, raising ethical and legal questions worldwide. Deepfake technology has been used for political misinformation, fraudulent schemes, and celebrity exploitation. But the Bulger case highlights perhaps the darkest use of all: recreating murdered children for shock value.

Campaigners argue that unless lawmakers move quickly, more families could find themselves targeted in the same way. “We are just at the beginning of this,” one digital safety expert warned. “If platforms don’t act and governments don’t legislate, AI-generated trauma will become normalised.”

A Mother’s Unfinished Fight

For Denise Fergus, the fight is personal and never-ending. More than 30 years after James’s death, she still battles to protect his memory and to shield her family from new waves of pain.

“It stays with you,” she said again, reflecting on the AI clips. “How can you move on when things like this are happening?”

Her plea to government and tech companies is simple: do more, act faster, and stop the exploitation of victims. Until then, the haunting presence of AI-generated images of her son will remain another chapter in her long struggle for justice.