James Bulger: A Mother’s Story — Unimaginable Trauma, Extraordinary Poise

Twenty-five years on, the murder of James Bulger remains one of Britain’s most haunting crimes — a wound in the national consciousness that has never fully healed. ITV’s James Bulger: A Mother’s Story revisited that horror through the eyes of those closest to it, and once again posed difficult, unresolved questions about grief, justice, and the lasting scars left by one of the most shocking trials in modern legal history.

Nightmares That Never Faded

The programme featured contributions from Laurence Lee, the defence lawyer for Jon Venables, who along with Robert Thompson was convicted of abducting and murdering two-year-old James. Lee admitted that even decades later, he is still haunted by the case.

He recalled recurring nightmares that plagued him for years following the trial. In his dreams, he found himself on a ghost train along the freight railway line in Walton, Liverpool, where James’s battered body was discovered. Each night, he imagined being tipped onto the tracks and run over.

“They didn’t have PTSD in those days,” he confessed, “but if they had I would have been a victim. I had awful nightmares for ages afterwards. Even now I can’t listen to the details.”

His words captured the psychological toll that the case inflicted not only on the Bulger family but also on lawyers, police officers, and anyone forced to confront the unthinkable.

A Nation United in Shock

The murder in February 1993 united the nation in horror. The CCTV still of little James being led by the hand out of the Strand shopping centre by Venables remains one of the most chilling images of the modern era.

The crime’s brutality — James beaten, tortured, splattered with paint, and left on a railway line to be struck by a train — forced Britain to grapple with a terrifying question: how could two children commit such an act?

The trial, the first of its kind in 250 years to prosecute such young offenders for murder, was unprecedented. It provoked widespread anger at what many saw as lenient sentencing, but also unease at the spectacle of two ten-year-olds standing trial as if they were adults.

Treated Like “Circus Animals”

Lee’s recollections in the documentary underscored the surreal cruelty of that courtroom experience. He described Venables and Thompson being forced to stand on a specially raised platform in Preston Crown Court, lifted 18 inches above the floor so that they could peer over the dock.

“They were treated like circus animals,” he said, highlighting the way legal formality clashed with the reality of two terrified children being paraded before a furious public.

It was, he argued, not only a trial but also a witch hunt — one in which the need for justice collided with society’s hunger for retribution.

Denise Fergus’s Extraordinary Poise

The heart of the programme, however, lay with Denise Fergus, James’s mother. Interviewed at home by Trevor McDonald, Fergus recounted her unimaginable trauma with extraordinary poise. She did not disguise her anger at the killers’ sentencing, remarking that “if anything they were rewarded.”

Yet alongside bitterness there was love and tenderness. Fergus described how James’s presence endures in her life through small signs. “Every time I see a robin I think it’s James come to see me,” she said. It was a simple yet profoundly moving coping strategy, one that gave her solace in the face of endless grief.

Her words reminded viewers that the tragedy is not frozen in time. It continues to shape her daily existence, a shadow she has learned to live with rather than escape.

Justice, Memory, and Unease

James Bulger: A Mother’s Story did not offer fresh revelations about the crime itself. Instead, it revisited familiar ground with new weight, centering the voices of those directly scarred. For Fergus, the documentary served both as testimony and as an act of remembrance. For Lee, it was an attempt to contextualize his own nightmares and to remind viewers of the profound moral complexity of the case.

The programme also spotlighted the James Bulger Memorial Trust, which Fergus established to support young victims of crime, hatred, and bullying. In this way, her grief has been transformed into a legacy of hope for others.

Still, viewers were left with nagging questions: Was justice truly served? Did the legal process protect society, or merely satisfy public outrage? And what about the collateral damage to James’s father Ralph and his younger siblings, raised under the shadow of an event too painful to escape?

A Haunting Legacy

What lingers after watching A Mother’s Story is less the crime’s details — already etched into memory — than the emotional wreckage left behind. Fergus’s strength, Lee’s nightmares, and the enduring debates about justice all point to a tragedy that refuses to fade.

The documentary was both tribute and reckoning. It gave voice to those who endured unimaginable trauma, while reminding viewers that some wounds never truly heal. Denise Fergus’s resilience, set against a nation’s haunting shame, left audiences moved, disturbed, and reflective — proof that James Bulger’s story remains one of the most defining, and devastating, of our time.