23

On Shrove Tuesdays in the nineteenth century it was a popular local sport to set a cock loose in a ring with a mob of small boys whose hands had been tied behind their backs. The boys would fight to capture the cock, and the winner would be the boy emerging with the cock held in his teeth.

There was conventional cock-fighting, dog-fighting and bull-baiting, in which a bull was tied to a stake and attacked by dogs, which were set upon it one at a time, one after the other.

The adult game of Lifting was reserved for Easter Mondays and Tuesdays. On the Monday women were free to carry off men, apparently in the hope of finding men with money in their pockets to spend in the ale houses. On Tuesday the men lifted the women and, as one G. H. Wilkinson noted when writing his personal history of Walton in 1913, ‘acts of the grossest indecency were committed’. Wilkinson added that the better education of the working classes and the exertions of religious teachers to inculcate more respect had gradually put an end to such disgraceful practices.

Walton was then little more than a small village, still flanked by farmland, nurseries and the estates of the local manor house. It was only at the end of the last century that the village was finally overrun by the creeping city sprawl of Liverpool which, in itself, was a reversal of history.

The sandstone church of St Mary the Virgin in the parish of Walton on the hill was once the Lord’s house of all it surveyed. The church has a proud vantage point on the brow of the rise from the River Mersey. It has a 118-foot bell tower, from the top of which, it is said, Blackpool Tower is visible on a good day, some 30 miles away.

The church site, with its ancient circular graveyard, predates Blackpool Tower by at least a thousand years, and for several centuries the parish of Walton extended over 40 square miles, embracing the little fishing community of Liverpool.

The village that developed around the church was a travellers’ rest, and policemen with cutlasses sometimes patrolled the outskirts of Walton to discourage the local banditti and footpads from highway robbery. The old churchwardens were responsible for dealing with crime, and iron stocks stood in the graveyard for the summary punishment of drunks, debtors and assorted petty offenders.

When Liverpool began developing as a trading port, it no longer wanted to be an outpost of Walton and in 1699, after an argument which had lasted some 50 years, an Act of Parliament finally granted Liverpool its independence as a parish. The Liverpool Corporation’s case was set out in a memorial: ‘And there being but one Chapel, which doth not contain one half of our Inhabitants, in the Summer (upon pretence of going to the Parish-Church, which is Two long Miles, and there being a village in the way) they Drink in the said village; by which and otherwise many Youth and sundry Families are ruined: Therefore it is hoped the Bill may pass, being to promote the Service of God.’

The said village was Kirkdale, but the legacy of this potential for ruination still persists along Scotland – Scottie – Road which leads out of Liverpool, into Kirkdale Road and on to Walton. There is a press of pubs along the last stretch of Scottie Road. Within a couple of hundred yards, on one side of the road, stand the Foot, the Widows, Dolly Hickey’s Pub and Wine Bar, the Parrot, the Corner House and the Clifford Arms; and, on the other side of the road, the Eagle Vaults, One Flew Over the Throstle’s Nest, the Newsham House, McGinty’s Bar and the Europa.

It was around Scottie Road that the Victorian era delivered some of the worst excesses of poverty and deprivation. The dark, insanitary and thickly populated courts and cellars of Liverpool existed long before Queen Victoria, and the last were not cleared until the 1960s. Yet they achieved a peak of squalor in the mid-nineteenth century, when epidemics of cholera and other diseases were commonplace, and 32 was a ripe old age.

Children, in the language of the day, were ragged street urchins who begged, hustled, robbed and died in sufficient numbers to maintain a high rate of child mortality. They were mythologised in Her Benny, a mawkish Victorian novel by Silas B. Hocking in which Her dies, but Benny finds God and is saved from poverty, bachelorhood and death.

This was Liverpool’s great moment as an industrial and commercial centre. Unemployment was high, work was often casual, especially at the docks, and wages were low. The Welfare State had yet to be invented and poverty was largely unrelieved.

When the city began clearing its courts and cellars it often replaced them with tenement blocks, known as landings, which became slums in their own right, and were in turn replaced with walk-up flats which in turn came to be classified as slums. The cycle of clearances continued into the 1980s, long after Liverpool’s moment had passed, and higher standards of poverty had been attained.

By contrast with Liverpool, Walton was, in the words of an old report, ‘free from those atmospheric impurities which injuriously affect animal and vegetable life’. It had the clean air of the Atlantic blowing up from Liverpool Bay, along the route of the so-named Breeze Hill, and it had St Mary’s, which it could, and always did, claim as the Mother Church of Liverpool.

Walton developed around the village and the church, predominantly as an area of red-brick terraces; an archetypal Northern landscape of narrow, cobbled streets and flat-fronted houses whose doors opened directly onto the pavement, or bay-windowed properties with front yards barely wide enough to stand in. Back alleys, better known as entries, jiggers or jowlers, threaded between the cramped roads.

It was dense housing, but not so dense as the courts and cellars, and with the exception of the Throstle’s Nest estate off Rice Lane, which has long since been razed, Walton’s population was spared the greatest indignities endured by the people of Liverpool.

St Mary’s was all but destroyed by German bombs in 1941, and was rebuilt in the late forties. The iron stocks have gone, and the last thatched cottage, behind the church, was demolished in the 1960s, along with several other neighbouring houses and buildings, to make way for the Breeze Hill flyover.

There has been some clearance, some redevelopment and the addition of new estates, but the appearance of Walton is broadly unchanged. There is a sense of tradition and continuity which has been lost to other areas of Merseyside. Tarmac has covered the old road surfaces, but cobbles break through in places. Small children sit on the front step and scratch at the pavement, boys and girls play in the streets or roam in groups through the entries.

Many of the houses have been individualised, with aluminium windows, stone cladding, pebble dashing, coats of brightly coloured paint. Still, there is a detectable air of neglect and civic failure in the rough grass and cracked headstones of the churchyard and in Walton Village, which curls down to Walton Lane, and the streets that encircle it to create a distinct, almost enclosed, community. Here the pavements are crumbling, the roads lumpy, pot-holed and patchily repaired.

Many of the shops in Walton Village have closed, the sites derelict. There are still corner newsagents and grocers, a couple of chippies, the video rental, Monica’s Cafe, the Mane Attraction Unisex Salon, and the Top House pub, with the Anfield just around the corner.

The Village stands in the heart of Liverpool City Council’s County Ward, which is currently represented by one Labour and two Liberal Democrat councillors. County Ward is almost entirely white and primarily working class, though not all the working class are working.

On the City Council’s Deprivation Index, Walton is some way below the bleakest areas of Everton and Toxteth, where the unemployment rate is running at over 40 per cent, and fewer than two out of every ten households own either their own home or a car.

County Ward’s unemployment rate is just over 20 per cent, rising to nearly 30 per cent among men and young people. The level of unemployment has more than doubled in the last 20 years. Half the households in the area are owner-occupied, though two thirds have neither central heating nor a car. The proportion of single-parent families is under ten per cent, as it is throughout Liverpool, though the ratio in County, and citywide, has tripled over two decades.

Walton’s crime is typically urban, and not significantly high. In any one month some 650 offences are likely to be recorded at Walton Lane Police Station, and a majority of these will be burglaries and thefts of, or from, cars. Criminal damage, shoplifting and violence will claim a sizeable proportion, with some robbery, a few stolen bikes, and a handful of drug offences. Less than a third of these crimes are likely to be detected, which is a little below the average detection rate on Merseyside. Of those crimes that are detected, about one quarter will have been committed by juveniles, and a majority of those juveniles will be cautioned rather than prosecuted.

The juveniles’ misdemeanours will be described on cards, and filed alphabetically in the two-drawer – male and female – card indexing system which is maintained in the Youth and Community Liaison Office at Walton Lane by the two YLOs (formerly JLOs – Juvenile Liaison Officers), Bev Whitehead and Brian Whitby.

PC Whitby is in his mid-thirties, and has two children of his own, a seven-year-old daughter and a boy the same age as Bobby and Jon. His own childhood, though not spent in Walton and perhaps more stable than many, was not so very dissimilar to that of the youngsters he now encounters.

He knows that much of his job reflects the worst of the area – young people in trouble, or causing trouble. He knows it’s not all like that. He’ll be visiting a school during assembly and only recognise say two dozen faces out of a thousand, as he looks around. He’ll go into one classroom and they’ll all stand up respectfully as he enters. He’ll go into another, and they’ll chorus, ‘Fuck off, bizzy!’

When he started as a JLO five years ago, he was full of crusading zeal. He was going to save the children and put the world to rights. At the moment, Brian can think of about ten kids he saw in those early days. Only one has stayed on the straight and narrow. The others have become probably the worst juveniles in Walton.

He’s learned to pick out the ones that are going to be a problem. Others will hang their heads when confronted, and cry and seem genuinely remorseful. It’s the ones that stare you straight in the eye and deny everything that you’ve got to watch out for. They’ve got O Levels in lying before they’re ten. They’ll be going for the degree.

It usually starts at home, when they’re seven or eight, stealing from mum’s purse, swearing. The parents’ll call the station and say we’ve tried everything, now can you have a go, have a word with him. One time, a little lad comes into the station with a note in an envelope. He hands it to Brian. ‘Dear ofcer, this little bastard of a son of mine has been robbing, can you speak to him, please.’ Good enough. So what you been doing? Stealing from me mam’s purse. Brian tells him the rights and wrongs, shows him round the cells … this is where naughty people go who steal … he doesn’t do that so much any more, employing the shock tactics, but anyway, he’s shown the lad round, and sat him on the desk to give him a final talking-to. The lad says I wanted to buy me mum a mother’s day present, and I didn’t have enough money. It was two pound fifty, and I only had one pound fifty. That finished Brian. How can he tell the lad off now?

Another day, and Brian’s on a home visit. He knocks on the door and a small boy answers. Brian’s feeling chirpy, so he says, hello sonny, you the man of the house? Fuck off, I’m only six. He goes inside and speaks to the father. He asks the father, do you know what your son just said to me? Brian recounts the doorstep exchange. Well, what do you fucking expect, says the father. Brian leaves, and finds a big nail under the wheel of his car.

If they’re going to make a career of it, the next thing will be trouble at school. There’ll be a phone call from the head teacher. Brian will be called in to have a word. In his greener days, he used to go around with a more senior JLO, and they were at a school to see a boy, let’s call him Mickey, who’s been collecting for charity and pocketing the money. Mickey’s from a big family. They’re all built like bulldogs, and they’re all trouble. Brian’s got a bet on that Mickey’s going to murder someone.

Anyway, they’re up at the school. Mickey’s mum’s there, the teacher, Brian, and his colleague, who’s shouting at Mickey. Suddenly, Mickey keels over, in a dead faint. His mother’s over him, get up you little bastard, she’s pulling at him, and Brian’s concerned, fending her off, trying to give the boy some air. He comes round, and starts crying. End of telling-off.

Two years later, Brian’s up at the school to see Mickey’s younger brother, who’s in trouble for something or other. Brian is giving him what for, when, suddenly, younger brother keels over, in a dead faint. It won’t work. Not this time it won’t. Brian gets the lad up and carries on, unmoved by his ploy.

There are another two brothers that Brian has dealt with, off and on, over the years. They’re only in their early teens now, and often in some trouble or other. People think they’re just plain nasty. Cheeky bloody hard-faced kids, Brian calls them.

They were smoking cannabis when they were seven or eight, mixing with older lads, coming on like mini-gangsters: Our mate’s doing a five stretch for a blagging … pulling the tarts … on the skag. The boys have been in and out of care, and used to go missing for days at a time, getting picked up somewhere in the city in the early hours of the morning. There was always some kind of trouble at home, and Brian has been there when one of the boys took a hammer and a snooker cue to his mother. Brian does not know what will become of them, but fears the worst. There’s a rumour going round at the moment that they’ve got a gun. This is information that will need to be checked out.

Brian has been preoccupied lately with the fate of a 12-year-old whom he and social services have been trying to get into secure accommodation, as much for the boy’s own protection as for anything else. The boy just can’t stop robbing, and the locals are sick of it. When he stole and killed a racing pigeon, allegedly worth £2000, people were coming into the station saying, if you don’t sort him out, we will. We’ll kill him.

The boy looks like an angel, and is so plausible he can talk his way out of anything. He’s forever turning up, miles from home, in some trouble or other. The other day it was St Helen’s. He’d had fifty pounds out of a till, and was in the police station. The station sergeant is on the phone to Brian, telling him he seems such a nice lad. Says he’s keen on bird-watching. The sergeant gets a bit funny when Brian starts laughing. A week or two before that, the boy is caught in the back of a shop in another centre. A policewoman is called. He cries and cries. He’s lost, he can’t find his mum, he’s frightened. The policewoman takes his name and date of birth, and lets him go. Then it transpires that four other nearby shops have been robbed. The policewoman calls Walton. The name the boy gave is false, but the date of birth is all too familiar to Brian.

No one’s counting, but the boy has come to police attention more than 80 times. Many of these will be reports that he’s absconded from care homes. None are crimes of violence, and not all are far from Walton Lane Police Station: a policeman is walking into the station one day, and sees the boy wheeling a motorbike out of the yard. It turns out he’s just stolen it from round the back of the station, where it had been stored as recovered stolen goods.

Sometimes, Brian can’t help admiring the wit and resourcefulness of the youngsters, and the scams they pull. He used to work the director’s gate at Anfield on match days. You’d get boys coming along, saying they were from Jim’ll Fix It, and Jim was fixing it for them to get into the match. Boys trying to slither in under the turnstiles, standing outside wailing that they’d lost their ticket and waiting for some kind soul to come along and get them in, boys that Brian knew lived up the road saying they’d travelled from Speke without a ticket, ‘blagging’ one from somebody, and then trying to sell it on at an exorbitant price. ’Ere matey, got a spare ticket? No. Well, lend us fifty pence for some ciggies. Like they’re seriously intending to pay you back next time they see you.

They mind the parked cars of visiting fans, even of the police officers in uniform, who can’t get into the station car park, and have to leave their cars nearby. Brian knows you have to pay. If you said sod off you cheeky little beggars, your tyres’d be flat when you got back. Or they’d’ve scratched fuck off pigs into the paintwork.

It’s a bit of a game, all this, but Brian believes there’s a new mood creeping in. More youngsters showing less respect. The other night a boy of about 15 came up to him and pointed at Brian’s chest. What’s that on your tunic? Brian looked down, and the boy’s hand flicked up, knocking off Brian’s helmet. Hah, got yer officer. What can you do? You can’t give ’em a clip round the earhole.

There’s another boy causing a few problems on the street, and Brian’s having a word with him. The boy says he goes to one of the local schools which just happens to be the school where Brian is on the board of governors. He tells the boy. The boy says what do you want, a medal? The boy turns to his mates. Give this fella a Blue Peter badge, he’s our school guv’nor.

It might only be a minority that’s bad, but the minority’s getting bigger all the time.

Brian doesn’t think the new directive on cautioning is helping very much. Trying to keep kids out of court, penny pinching. There isn’t the same flexibility any more. In the old days you could have a word with the boss. Look boss, this kid is stepping out of line a bit, but he’s got a good mum, and the offences are very petty, let’s try and do something for him. Now it all goes up to the juvenile panel; it’s just a paper exercise, and there isn’t the scope there was before to work with the kids.

The youngsters have noticed the change too. They’ve twigged that there’s a new leniency, that they can get away with things like knocking a bobby’s hat off, and worse.

Take, for instance, a teenage girl, arrested the other day for criminal damage. She smashed a door in after a row with somebody. She’d done exactly the same thing a few days earlier. She’s already got two cautions for shoplifting, and seems to be under the impression that she’s entitled to three before she gets prosecuted. Her attitude can only be described as cavalier.

It’s as if you’ve got to get two or three cautions under your belt to be taken seriously out there. Everyone looks up to the baddie, and wants to be like them. A few cautions will see you on your way. Go on, smash that window, all youse’ll get’s a caution.

Nowadays, Brian goes on home visits after an offence has been committed and they’re saying, if I admit it, will I get off with a caution? Does that mean I won’t have to go to court?

He’s gone round to see a 15-year-old about an offence. The youth answers the door and Brian explains why he’s there. What the fuck’s it got to do with you, the youth replies. Brian says he’ll be helping to decide what happens. I’ve already admitted it, says the youth, I’m going to get a caution. He’s standing on the doorstep, verbally abusing Brian, when the father comes out, telling his son not to be rude to the officer. The boy tells his father to mind his own fucking business, and punches him. They’re all in the house now, Brian restraining the struggling youth, mother and father dancing round them, saying go on officer, give him a good hiding.

Brian doesn’t know what it’s all about. They say it’s the sixties and the do-gooders, but if you ask him what the difference is between his own son and some of the boys in trouble, he’d say it was care and affection, and teaching them right from wrong. At an early age, Brian would slap his boy’s hand if he was naughty. He loves the bones of his children, but he will smack them, and he thinks they do learn from that. Then he sits with his son of an evening, gives him time. They’ll go through schoolwork, always have a cuddle. That’s what’s missing for so many of them. You see families and you think, if you can buy them all these material things, why can’t you give them love. Brian sees these kids and, sometimes, he just wants to put his arms around them and give them a great big hug. There’s one lad, in a group Brian goes bowling with occasionally. This lad’ll be acting all tough with his mates, but Brian’ll say, come here, put his arm round him, and the lad’ll do it. You can see that he wants to.

That’s the main problem. Lack of love and affection. Mothers with four or five kids who say I can’t keep an eye on all of them twenty-four hours a day. They just don’t seem to have the time or the patience. Brian visits the local youth clubs, and there’s a little girl in one of them, about two years old, and she’s always running round him. Sometimes she’s a bit annoying, to be honest, but she’s a sweet thing, and one time, she was more annoying than usual, and the mother told her off, told her to leave Brian alone, and she came back, again being a bit naughty, and the mother just drew her hand back and hit the girl across the face, knocking her head sideways, practically into the door. Hey, hey, said Brian. He was really shocked. You can’t go doing that.

He often gives talks at youth clubs and schools, on the effects of drugs and alcohol. There’s been some concern lately, that younger children are being used by older children as couriers for the sale of drugs. Mostly cannabis and LSD, being sold in schools as well. Brian’s sure the police don’t know the half of what goes on.

When he speaks to the youngsters about drugs in his talks they’ll all say dreadful, we think drugs are dreadful. And what do you think about cannabis? Nothing wrong with that, they’ll say. What about drink? Great. What about LSD? Well, we’re a bit wary of that, but we might try it. Drugs to them is crack and heroin, and the rest don’t count.

These talks are usually reserved for children of secondary school age. The primary school kids get the Stranger Danger lectures. What do strangers look like, he’ll ask the class? They’re ten foot tall, with big beards and pointed ears, comes the answer.

*

Jon was born on 13 August 1982, at the Mill Road Hospital in Everton. His parents, Neil and Susan Venables, who were then aged 29 and 25, were living in an end-terrace house on York Street in Walton, off Rice Lane, a few hundred yards north of St Mary’s.

Susan would say her own upbringing had been strict and disciplined. She had one brother, and the family were fans of country and western music. Some of them played in a group. Neil would say that he and his sister had a good time in childhood, and they were spoilt, although their mother died quite early.

When Jon was born, Neil was working as a fork-lift truck driver at the Jacob’s Biscuit factory in Aintree, and they already had one son, Mark, born three years earlier in May 1979. Their third child, Michelle, was born 15 months after Jon, in November 1983.

The couple had been married since August 1975, and had previously lived in Roderick Road, a turning off Walton Village, moving to York Street for the extra space after Mark came along.

Early on there were problems with Mark. He had difficulty talking, and when Neil and Susan had him examined it turned out that he had been born with a cleft pallet. The frustration of trying to make himself understood caused Mark to have temper tantrums and when he went to one of the local infant schools it was soon apparent that there were behavioural troubles. At about the time of Jon’s birth, Mark was identified as having moderate learning difficulties. He was given speech therapy and began attending Meadow Bank Special School in Fazakerley.

Neil and Susan separated in early 1986 and were later divorced. Neil had lost his job a couple of years earlier, and the strain of this while trying to cope with Mark and two other young children had been too much. Neil at first stayed on in York Street so that he could sell the house, and Susan and the children moved in with her mother. Neil still had a car in those days, and used to take the children out every Sunday.

When York Street sold, Neil moved in with his father, at his father’s maisonette in Breeze Close, then rented his own flat nearby on Breeze Hill for a while, before moving into Kirkdale.

Susan left her mother’s and went to live in Old Swan, and Jon started at the infants’ school in Broad Green. Susan’s new place turned out to be damp and none too pleasant, so she and the children moved back in with Neil, who drove Jon to and from school in Broad Green every day. Jon seemed happy at the school, though there were concerns that he was upset and difficult following his parents’ split, and he too began to have temper tantrums. He was referred for treatment of a squint in his eye – a problem which would remain untreated.

When Susan’s name came up on the council’s housing list, she moved into a three-bedroomed house in Scarsdale Road on the Norris Green estate, which was one of the large, modern Liverpool developments of public housing.

There was an incident, in January 1987, when the police were called to Susan’s home because the children had been left alone for three hours. Susan had found it difficult to cope with the separation from Neil, and had been treated for depression. Neil also had a history of depressive illness.

Michelle and Jon began attending the Broad Square County Primary Junior School, which was close to Scarsdale Road, in September of 1989, following Jon’s seventh birthday. In his first year it was noted that he displayed some anti-social behaviour in class, which was annoying but nothing too serious. Sometimes, he would go home complaining of being bullied by a gang of lads at school. In June 1990 he was referred to an educational psychologist, and seen by a trainee who reported that Jon seemed uninterested and unable to concentrate. He stared into space. He seemed unable to cope with the pressures on him.

Neil was on the move again, going back to York Street to share with a mate, and he’d often spend a couple of nights at Scarsdale Road, occasionally baby-sitting if Susan wanted a night out.

There was still concern over Mark, who continued to have sudden temper tantrums. This is not unusual among children with learning difficulties, but it led to the involvement of a social worker, who made arrangements for respite fostering. Mark began spending one weekend of every month with a foster family, and this helped to reduce the number of tantrums.

In the following year, Michelle also began to show learning difficulties, and she joined Mark at Meadow Bank Special School. Jon moved up to Year 4 at Broad Square, in a class of 24 pupils, and in the first term there were no particular problems.

It was after the Christmas holiday, in January 1991, that his class teacher, Kathryn Bolger, began to be concerned. Jon was acting very strangely. He would sit on his chair, holding his desk in his hands, and rock backwards and forwards, moaning and making strange noises. When the teacher moved him to sit near her at the front of the class he would fiddle with things on her desk and knock them to the floor. He would sometimes bang his head on the furniture, so hard that the teacher was sure it must be hurting him. Jon cried and said he was being picked on out of class. He occasionally ran out of school, and someone would be sent to his home to find him. He wouldn’t do anything he was asked, and his school books were empty of work. Jon was marked down as a low achiever; the teacher was sure he was capable of doing more.

Jon’s behaviour began to be disruptive at home. He was abusive towards his mother, and the social worker, who had initially been supporting the family over Mark, now found his attention directed towards Jon. There seemed to be problems with other children in the street where Susan was living. Jokes about Jon’s brother and sister being backward, some bullying of Mark and Jon by older boys, and a lot of name calling: ‘shit, big ears, fucking prick, divvy’. The social worker believed that Jon was experiencing peer group pressure, and was also feeling excluded by, and jealous of, the attention being devoted to Mark and Michelle over their special needs. It also appeared that Jon copied Mark’s behaviour.

Susan was visiting Broad Square School regularly to discuss the difficulties with Jon, but there was no improvement, and his teacher, Kathryn Bolger, was finding it hard to cope with him. She reported all the incidents to the head teacher, and began keeping her own log of Jon’s misbehaviour. The parents of other pupils started to complain that Jon was a disruptive influence in the class.

In March there was a weekend trip to North Wales for Jon’s school year. The teacher did not want to take responsibility for Jon on the trip. The social worker’s offer to go along and take individual charge of him was refused, and Jon did not go to North Wales.

His behaviour deteriorated, and became increasingly bizarre. He would revolve around the walls of the classroom, pulling down displays and other objects. He would lie down and wedge himself between the desks. He would cut himself deliberately with scissors, cut holes in his socks, and stick paper over his face. He would stand on desks, and throw chairs. He threw things across the classroom at the other children, and once, when he was put outside, he began throwing things down the corridor. On another occasion he suspended himself, upside down like a bat, from the coat pegs.

In fourteen years of teaching, Kathryn Bolger had never come across a pupil like Jon. The burden of looking after him in class, coping with what she saw as his attention-seeking behaviour, gave her some stress and anxiety.

The school told Susan that Jon could not sit still for a minute, and she said he was the same at home. He was hyperactive and his sleep was disturbed. He was again referred to the School Psychology Service, and Susan took him to see a psychologist at the clinic in Norris Green. She wondered if Jon’s diet might be causing his hyperactivity, and the psychologist said this was possible. A special diet might help. The psychologist suggested another referral to a more senior colleague.

Susan was supplied with a diet sheet by a social worker, which cut out food with such additives as artificial colouring. She never pursued the second referral, and tried the special diet on Jon for a while. It did not seem to make much difference to his behaviour, and eventually she gave up.

Neil had moved into a flat in Walton Village, and wasn’t seeing so much of his ex-wife and the children. He left the schooling to Susan, and thought the problems with bullying were just part of growing up. He saw them all on Sundays for a while, and then didn’t see Susan for a couple of months, until she came down to Walton Village and started talking about the difficulties she was having with Jon at school. Neil agreed with Susan that it might be best if he changed schools.

Finally, in class one day, not long before the end of the school year, Jon got behind another boy and held a 12-inch wooden ruler to his throat. The boy began going red in the face, and it seemed to the teacher that Jon was trying to choke his classmate. It required some effort from the teacher and a colleague to free the boy from Jon, who seemed so strong. Jon was taken to the head teacher’s office, and did not complete his final term at Broad Square.

*

With the help of the social worker, an approach was made to Walton St Mary’s Church of England Primary School, and the head teacher, Irene Slack, was asked if she would accept Jon as a pupil because there were problems at his current school.

Irene Slack was concerned by the background to the transfer request, but said she would take him on condition that Jon behaved himself and went into a class below his proper age group.

Walton St Mary’s was in Bedford Road, which was just across County Road from St Mary’s Church. It was an old Victorian school building which now shared some 260 pupils with a branch infant school over towards Walton Village.

Irene Slack had been the head teacher for eleven years. The evolved philosophy of the school was that the pupils should be taught to be tolerant of other races, religions and ways of life; to understand the independence of individuals, groups and nations; to be active participants in society and responsible contributors to it; to be given the ability to function as contributing members of cooperative groups; to be aware of self and sensitive to others.

That latter awareness was the aim that Irene Slack regarded as being the most important. Do unto others as you would like to be done unto yourself was the rule.

Jon entered at the start of the new school year in September 1991 and joined class 4D with Bobby, who was also being kept back a year because of his slow learning progress. Perhaps because of this mutual distinction, they gradually became friends.

The class teacher, Michael Dwyer, was in his fifties and held firm views on discipline. He had taught in schools that catered for what used to be known as maladjusted children, and soon recognised the symptoms of maladjustment in Jon, who sometimes ignored Dwyer’s instructions, or walked around the class in the middle of lessons and collapsed in a heap over his desk when he was being defiant.

Dwyer responded by trying to create a structured environment for Jon, showing him what work was required, and what behaviour was acceptable. The system was fine in the classroom, but broke down in the unstructured playground, where Jon often got into fights. On one occasion, Dwyer caught him picking on a younger and smaller boy. Dwyer asked Jon how he would like it if a bigger boy began fighting him.

In class, Bobby seemed shy, quiet, an under-achiever, though Dwyer noticed that he could be sly, and sometimes made the bullets for others to shoot. Like Jon, Bobby would become involved in playtime fights, but Dwyer could not say that either of the boys was remarkable as a trouble-maker or a problem child.

Throughout that year there was a little concern over Bobby’s truancy, but no such difficulty with Jon. It appeared that he was settling down in his new school, and his behaviour at home was improving, though the social worker was still worried that Jon felt he was being overlooked because of the attention being given to Michelle and Mark. Jon did not get on well with Mark, and occasionally they would fight. That summer the social worker arranged a holiday for Jon and Michelle, through the charity KIND, Kids In Need and Distress.

The problem of Jon being bullied in the area around his Norris Green home seemed to have subsided, and he had a group of friends there with whom he was always out playing, though Susan noticed that he seemed happier in the company of younger children.

When he played out Jon was usually involved in football, riding around on his bike or games such as hide and seek and British bulldog. Sometimes his was the only bike, and they would give each other piggy rides on the back. Sometimes they sat on the stairs at another boy’s home, and told each other jokes and ghost stories.

Jon liked computer games, and was a big fan of Sonic the Hedgehog. At home he had a Commodore C64 that plugged into the television, a Sonic watch and some ordinary hand-held games.

When he first started at St Mary’s, his dad used to pick him up and take him home to Norris Green every day. Then Jon began staying over at his dad’s a couple of nights a week. It was on one of those nights that Bobby called for Jon, asking for him to play out. Jon told Neil that Bobby was just a boy from his class at school, but the boy in the flat below Neil said that Bobby came from a bad family. Neil told Jon not to play with Bobby and, after that, Neil would chase Bobby if he called at the flat.

The beginning of Jon’s new school year in September 1992, five months before the killing of James Bulger, was marked by his graduation from short grey pants to long black school trousers.

At about this time his parents decided to try and revive their relationship, and began living together at Neil’s home for half the week. Neil’s father had died in June, and Neil had moved back to his father’s flat in Breeze Close. He and Susan had taken the children on holiday together, to Pwllheli Butlins in North Wales, and had decided to attempt a reconciliation. Susan started going to Breeze Hill with the three children on Thursday, and staying over until Sunday.

It was little more than five minutes’ walk from Neil’s new home to school for Jon, who usually made the journey there on his own, and might be met at the gates by his dad for the walk back. Every Friday Mark and Michelle were taken to Norris Green to meet the minibus that took them to Meadow Bank, and when they came back to Norris Green in the afternoons, they were met by Neil or Susan for the return trip to Walton.

Sometimes, when Jon became too difficult for Susan, he would stay with his father throughout the week. Otherwise, he would travel to school from Norris Green and back again on his own, on the 60 or 81 bus, because Susan had to look after Mark and Michelle.

Jon and Bobby were now in 5R with 26 other pupils, the boys outnumbered by 18 girls. The teacher, Mrs Rigg, did not find Jon and Bobby any more trouble than many of the children she taught, though she found it advisable to keep them apart, placing their desks at either end of the classroom.

Jon was not generally naughty, but he could be disruptive, awkward and lazy. Bobby was fairly easy to handle, but was always ready to tell tales on the others, and would never admit to doing anything wrong himself. There were no signs that the teacher noticed in either boy of violent or aggressive tendencies.

Joan Rigg developed a soft spot for Jon. She could see that he knew when he was misbehaving but carried on anyway, as if he didn’t care, as if he wanted the attention. When she confronted him he would hang his head and avoid her eye. When Bobby was challenged he would turn meek and, apparently, cry to order. Joan Rigg felt that Bobby was shrewd, streetwise and always aware of what was going on around him.

Neither of the boys’ classwork reflected the advantage of being a year older than the other children. She ranked them both in the lower half of the class. Still, she believed that when she taught the class the parable of the Good Shepherd, Bobby and Jon would have got the message that it was important to be kind to people and protective, even towards strangers.

Other members of staff who came into contact with the two boys formed differing impressions of them. Lynn Duckworth, the dinner lady who supervised the playground during lunch breaks, often had to reprimand Jon for being a nuisance to the other children. The standard punishment was to be made to stand facing the wall for a few minutes.

The first couple of times this happened to Jon he turned round and butted his head against the wall before falling down and flailing his arms. The dinner lady paid no attention and eventually Jon stopped doing it, but she thought the boy had a problem, and shouldn’t have been at the school. By comparison, Bobby seemed quite normal and likeable, and was never very difficult.

One of the longest-serving teachers, Ruth Ryder, who had been at the school for 22 years, knew Bobby as a quiet, non- verbal child who was a little bit crafty and calculating; always quick to deny any misdeeds and shift the blame elsewhere; a bit manipulative and influential, in his own way, and capable of getting others into trouble. With Jon, Bobby was definitely the leader, the more streetwise of the two, while Jon seemed more immature and easily led.

In most of his dealings with Ruth Ryder, Jon was very quiet and submissive. But on one occasion, when she was telling him off in front of a class, Jon began holding his hands across his face in an odd, aggressive manner, as if shielding himself. He put his head to one side and turned away to the class, giggling.

It was this type of behaviour, together with the tantrums and the telling of lies, that led another teacher, Jacqueline Helm, to the conclusion that Jon was emotionally disturbed.

Helm taught Bobby’s kid brother, Ryan, and though she never actually took a class with Jon and Bobby she formed the impression that they were both disruptive influences in the classroom and not very popular with the other pupils. Despite this, she often felt sorry for Jon who had a sweet air about him and yet managed to earn a reputation as a trouble-maker.

The head teacher, Irene Slack, was forever speaking to Jon about his fighting. There was no doubt, in her mind, that Jon had a short temper and an aggressive nature, and once the other pupils picked up on this they went out of their way to wind him up.

Irene Slack could only describe Jon as odd, and given to inappropriate behaviour. He always avoided eye contact when she spoke to him, showed very little emotion and appeared able to turn on the tears as he wished. Though Jon had responded to the firm and disciplined approach of his previous teacher, Michael Dwyer, it seemed that he had been able to take advantage of the different teaching style of Joan Rigg, and make a nuisance of himself.

In spite of this, Irene Slack thought Jon was more open and more likely to tell the truth than Bobby. It was Bobby who would be the dominant one in the friendship, and though he was quiet and seldom a problem in class, Slack shared the consensus that he was cunning and a liar.

Some of their fellow pupils noted that Jon and Bobby sulked and swore behind the teachers’ backs. Many of the pupils thought they were all right, and not too much trouble. Bobby would sit quietly in class, help others with their work, and be helped by them in return. He would chat about what he’d seen on television.

But he and Jon also had a reputation for picking on people and bullying. They called the overweight boy names like Fatty and Sumo, and imitated a Japanese wrestler whenever they saw him. Bobby threw gravel in his face.

Jon was aggressive with the juniors, and ‘clotheslined’ the girls in the playground, running past and knocking into them with his outstretched arms. He and Bobby would push the other children around, telling them to get out of the way.

Even the tallest boy in 5R, who called himself the cock of the class because he told the others what to do, had trouble with Jon, who called him big lips. He offered to fight Jon after school. Jon just ran away, shouting abuse. Another boy thought Jon and Bobby were weird. They never talked to the others. They were like a little gang.

Their principal notoriety, however, was for sagging. There was the time Bobby had asked to go to the toilet in class. He was gone for ages so Mrs Rigg sent Jon to go and get him. They never came back. They must have both run out of school, and one of them had written MAT down the side of the mirror in the boys’ toilets, which was probably short for Matthew, who was one of the boys that Jon didn’t like, and liked to bully.

Mrs Rigg took the register every morning and every afternoon. The 1992 autumn term consisted of 140 half-days, and Bobby was absent for 49 of them. Jon was missing for 50, though ten of these were accounted for by holiday. There were five half-days when both boys were absent at the same time.

Truancy was something of a rarity in the local primary schools, though it was not unheard of. Walton St Mary’s was not locked and barred during school hours, but the doors were kept closed, and you could only gain access by ringing on a bell and waiting for a member of staff to answer. It wasn’t necessary to call a member of staff to leave the school, but still, you had to be pretty determined to escape. It was easier, of course, not to turn up at all.

Bobby sometimes sagged with his brother Ryan, or his friend Gummy Gee, who was two years younger than Bobby. Both boys told the teachers that Bobby bullied and threatened them to go with him.

Irene Slack had known Bobby’s family for several years, and had often presented the various child care agencies with information regarding the hierarchy of bullying that appeared to exist among the Thompson brothers, who had all been through the school: an elder brother picking on the brother below him in age.

There had been six brothers in all – with the recent addition of a seventh, baby Ben – and now the problem seemed to be repeating itself with Ryan. As Irene Slack told Bobby, he might have made the decision to opt out of school, but she did not want him spoiling Ryan’s life …

*

Ann and Bobby Thompson had married at St Mary’s Church in Walton on 11 December 1971. They were both eighteen. In fact, it was the day of Ann’s eighteenth birthday.

Both came from local families and were known in the Walton area. Ann was brought up around Netherfield Road. She was the middle child of three, with a slightly older sister, and a brother some six years her junior. In childhood, being the middle one meant being left out and treated differently. It was her sister who got the days out to New Brighton and the lovely new black leather Bible for Sunday School. Her sister was the lady; her brother was the boy her parents always wanted and got spoilt because he was the baby; Ann was the gobshite, the hard-faced cow in the middle.

They went to Sunday School one Easter, Ann and her sister, with dresses mum had made and whitener on their shoes. Ann won a prize, a Bible. It was just a plain brown Bible, but she was made up, because she’d won it, and no one had to buy it for her.

They had these dresses, stripey, the sister’s was blue and white, Ann’s was red and white. Every time Ann wore hers something would happen. She’d have a nosebleed or fall over and run blood all down it. One day she was running up the road with a cane and she tripped and stuck the cane in the roof of her mouth. Into the hospital at the top of the road, dress blooded again.

Ann was always up the hospital. Whatever it was, she caught it. Never one of the others. Tonsils, adenoids, the lot. She was playing out once and had terrible pains in her side. She got dragged indoors and the doctor came round, and said it was appendicitis. Ann’s dad went with her in the ambulance. If you are fuckin’ lyin I’ll kill yer, he said, I’ve gotta go to work tomorrow. The pains stopped when she got to the hospital. She was terrified going home, waiting for the beating.

Her dad was a lorry driver, head convener for the corporation, and liked by all. He was always in the pub, standing rounds of drinks, buying Tambourine sherry by the bottle. To Ann he was like Jekyll and Hyde, always shouting and lashing out at her at home.

When she was about five she used to get bullied by a girl in the street. Hit ’er back, hit ’er back, Ann’s dad would say. Ann would get hit by her dad, for not hitting her bully.

Ann and her sister had got their pocket money, only the sister had spent hers. Ann bought some crisps for herself and a friend. Her sister saw them with the crisps and wanted them and told their dad. Dad said give your sister some and Ann said no, she’s spent her money. So Ann got hit for buying some crisps for her friend.

When she was older, Ann would look back and be unable to remember anything good in her childhood. If her parents loved her they had a funny way of showing it. If she ever got treated by them, bought presents at Christmas, she could not remember.

The only kindness she would recall was from her dad’s friend. When he’d been round there’d always be money hidden in the house for her to find. She asked her dad for money once, for sweets for school, and he battered her.

Dad’s friend bought her a china doll. Porcelain. Ann loved it, and kept it in her pram. She had all these steps to get down, so she called her dad. Dad will you take the pram down the steps. No. So she did it herself, dropped the pram, and smashed the china doll’s face. She was heartbroken. They took it to the doll’s hospital and fixed it up, but it was never quite the same.

Ann used to lie in bed, listening for her dad coming in drunk. She slept terribly, nightmares, sleepwalking, the lot. She woke up one night, literally standing on the headboard of the bed, bashing the wall with her hands.

Another night he pushed Ann’s mum into the girls’ bedroom. He had her over the sister’s bed, and mum was screaming to Ann, get the police, get the police. Ann was in bed and when she got out he went for her and she took a battering for going after the police. Ann and her mum never spoke about it afterwards. They never spoke about any of it.

She was older then, about fifteen or sixteen, and was seeing Bobby, her first boyfriend, who was to become her husband. They’d met while she was still at school. Ann would not remember why she was attracted to Bobby. She could only think it was because he was the first fella who ever paid her any attention. The sooner she got married the sooner she could leave home.

Ann’s dad didn’t like Bobby very much and when he came round to say they were getting married, Ann’s dad said he’d give it twelve months before they divorced. Bobby asked for his permission and he said, you look after ’er, now piss off ’ome, lad, piss off ’ome. When Bobby had gone he kicked Ann round the house. You’re pregnant, aren’t you? I’m not. She wasn’t. He took the belt to her.

Ann was running away once, to Bobby, and her dad came after her and caught her on some steps by the pensioners’ home, near the Hermitage pub. He threw her down the steps – only three steps – and split her head open. He dragged her home, past a lot of people who did nothing, and as he walked he said, just look at these houses and look at these trees. ’Cos you’re not gonna fuckin’ see them again. I’m gonna kill you when I get in.

He got her on the floor in the kitchen, by the back door, and used his old army belt with the big buckle.

Ann was working by then, doing wiring at Plessey’s. Three pairs of tights, black tights, for Monday morning, so no one’d see the marks on her legs.

She could not remember her sister or brother being beaten. It was always the cheeky hard-faced cow. Who knows, perhaps she enjoyed it. If he told her she was to be in by nine she’d always get back at five past, pushing her luck, asking for it.

There was one night when she was ten minutes late. Right, he said, do you want to stay in for a week or do you want a hiding? The thought of staying in a week was unbearable. I’ll have a hiding. So he battered her and he said for bein’ so fuckin’ hard-faced you’re stayin’ in for a week as well. And she had to.

Ann didn’t go out places too often because there wasn’t much point if you had to be in by nine. She wouldn’t usually bother getting dressed up to go out, and it was a rare day if she looked at herself and felt good going out the door.

It was about a week before the wedding when she went to the Wookie Hollow ’cos Gerry Marsden was on. She made the effort that night, and actually got a kiss off Gerry Marsden. She didn’t get in till gone midnight, and her dad was waiting up to take it out on her, because he’d said be in by eleven. Still, that kiss almost made it worthwhile.

Bobby saw the marks on Ann’s legs and he knew, but they never discussed it. There was no one to tell, and what was there to tell? Plenty of people got battered.

Ann’s mother was always too afraid to do anything, except one night when two of her husband’s mates brought him home and he was polatic, really gone, and they said where do you want us to put him, and Ann’s mum said there, in the garden. So they put him in the garden, and that was where he woke up the following morning. Ann felt good about that.

On the day she got married he gave her a whisky and said, I’m made up you’re goin’ the right way. Just like Jekyll and Hyde.

Horrible.

He always drank in the Anfield, which they all called the bottom house, and Bobby’s family drank in the Walton Hotel, which was the top house, and eventually got renamed the Top House because that was how everyone knew it.

Ann and Bobby got engaged in the top house, on her seventeenth birthday, and were in there after the wedding at St Mary’s. It was like a second home and of course they were all back there for that first Christmas, when Ann and Bobby were newly-weds. Bobby said come on, we’ll go and see your dad in the Anfield.

Ann put two fingers in her throat to show how she felt, but they went anyway. Her father bought her a drink and put his arm around her in front of all his mates. Here’s my baby daughter, like he was dead proud. Ann was heaving.

(After the trial, after her son had been convicted of murder, Ann phoned her parents to tell them a few home truths. Her dad was sobbing down the phone. I’m sorry I battered yer. I’m sorry. Ann felt nothing for him. In fact, though she was crying too, she quite enjoyed his distress.)

Ann wore white for the wedding. She had made the dress herself. She had always played grown-ups when she was little, with her dolls and her pram, and she always thought being married, being a mum, would be just like a fairy tale. She wanted two boys and a girl. The boys would look after the girl, because no one had ever looked after her.

Looking back, she thinks she was rather stupid in those early days of the marriage. Shy, young … too young to have kids, probably. Bobby was only her age, but he always seemed older and more mature.

Bobby was the third youngest of eight, four boys and four girls, and his father had died when he was still a child. The paternal role had been taken on by the elder brothers, and they were strict in imposing discipline.

The Thompsons were a Walton family, and Bobby had attended Walton St Mary’s School. Like many other local kids, he played on the railway line by Walton Lane. There was an upward slope of the track near there, for trains coming out of the docks. Freight trains with heavy loads would trundle slowly up the hill, and the kids could leap on, and help themselves to the cargo.

Ann and Bobby started married life in a flat in Birchfield Road, off Walton Village. Then they moved in with his mother for a while, still in Birchfield, and paid key money to a landlord to get a house of their own, across the road.

It was while they were at his mother’s that Ann fell pregnant for the first time, with David. In the ensuing nine years she would have five children, all boys: David, Peter, Ian, Philip and little Bobby, who was born in Fazakarley Hospital on 23 August 1982. Ann convinced herself every time that it would be a girl. It just never happened and she kept on trying. She reckoned big Bobby wanted a football team.

Those nine years were difficult and Ann felt no more accepted by most of big Bobby’s large family than she did by her own. At weekends she’d sit looking out of the window, watching her husband go off to the top house with his family. There was no one to mind the kids, so she stayed at home. There was no telly, which might explain all the babies, but didn’t help when she was stuck indoors on her own.

Big Bobby was always in the pub and when he came home after he’d been drinking he’d be aggressive and sometimes violent. It was a volatile marriage from the start. The wedding certificate got shredded in the first week.

As far as Ann was concerned, if you argued with Bobby you argued with all the Thompsons, his mother included. She had a miscarriage after David, at three months, and was five months gone with the next pregnancy when they were all round his mother’s arguing one Saturday night after going to the pub. Ann said she could keep her bloody son. Go on, she told Bobby, hide behind yer mother. He and his brothers flung Ann down the hallway and jammed her in the door and she lost the baby not long after.

One night Bobby dragged her down the street, coming home from the pub. She’d had all that with her father, and didn’t need it again. Only once, in that first year, did Ann leave him and go back to her mother. Bobby came round and fetched her and she never walked out again.

He’d come in drunk with a takeaway and shout for Ann to fetch him a fork. When he’d finished he’d say now go an’ wash it, and she’d say go an’ bloody wash it yer bloody self, and he’d drag her through the kitchen by her hair, fill the sink up and push her face in the water. Then she’d go up to bed and he’d come and beat her for going to sleep.

Bobby was an apprentice electrician and, even when he was doing jobs on the side, there was never very much money. Ann gave up Plessey’s when the kids came along. They just had to make do, but it was hard to cope.

In 1977 David, then aged four, was placed on the child protection register for physical abuse. He was seen with a black eye and a burn mark and he said his mum had pushed him against a door, hitting his head. Ann said there was an innocent explanation and the allegation of abuse was not substantiated. When there was no repeat of the incident, David was taken off the register, in 1979.

Philip had just been born, in November 1978, when Ann took an overdose of Valium and ended up in hospital. There was nothing exactly she could say that triggered the attempt at suicide. She didn’t even plan it particularly. She just couldn’t take any more, and did it.

She saw a psychiatrist the next day and he said, you going to do this again, and she said no, and went home and that was that. Social services arranged for the boys to go to nursery, which helped take the pressure off Ann.

The kids were always getting shouted at and battered. Big Bobby would put his face in theirs. See the evil in me eyes, twat. Wallop.

It was funny, when the Ripper case was going on, they all used to joke how big Bobby looked like Peter Sutcliffe, with his dark beard and his eyebrows that met in the middle. There was something in his eyes, too. He wasn’t really like the Ripper, of course, but it was funny all the same.

He told the kids once he was puttin’ ’em in a home, ’cos they were gettin’ out of hand. He put them in his van and drove round to this big old house and said there’s the home, that’s where yer goin’ if you don’t behave. It was just a house, not really a home, but that kept them quiet for a week or so, the thought of going to this place that didn’t exist.

When David got older, big Bobby caught him smoking and he told him if he caught him again he’d make David eat them. Next time he found David with ciggies he made him put them in his mouth and chew them. He didn’t actually have to swallow them.

The family moved from Birchfield to Belmont Road after little Bobby was born, and life became more stable, Ann and big Bobby growing more used to each other, and each other’s little ways.

Bobby had been camping as a kid, and one week he said why don’t we borrow our Val’s tent and give it a try, and if you like it we’ll get a bigger tent. He had a Cortina then, so they loaded it up with the camping gear and the boys and went off to Mostyn in North Wales for the weekend.

They all fished and cooked and everyone liked it, so they got the bigger tent and started going regularly, first to Wales and later to Formby Point, and to a caravan site at Banks, just north of Southport, where they had a clubhouse and country and western nights with live bands.

Bobby was a better electrician now, taking on bigger jobs, rewiring houses, usually on the side, cash in hand. There was a bit more money to go round. He did a job at a place with a big old caravan in the garden. The man had just bought a new one, so he gave the old one to Bobby in part payment, and he towed it home and put it outside the house.

They cleaned the caravan out, took it to Formby Point a few times, and, at the end of the summer they really went to work on it. New cupboards, new curtains, re-covering all the seats … Bobby picked up some royal-blue ship paint, knock-off, and they kept it in the caravan toilet before they started painting.

Ann and Bobby were at their allotment one day and when they came home someone had driven off with the caravan. A neighbour had noted the registration of the car that took it, so they told the police. When the police finally found the car, not far away, on the Walton Lane estate, it had been painted royal blue. The caravan was never recovered, so it was back to the eight-berth tent.

The camping and the fishing went on for about four years. Ann was almost happy then. It was always good to get out of the house, and in the long school holidays they took to staying in Banks. Bobby would go off to work, and Ann would stay there with the boys and the doberman they’d got, whose name was Rocky. At weekends they’d be in the country club, sometimes dressed up in big cowboy hats and all.

At Banks Ann and Bobby met Tommy and Melanie from Salford. They’d take turns in each others tents, playing cards at night and having a drink.

In the last summer, the summer of 1988, Tommy brought another couple over and said, this is Barbara and Jack, I’ve been tellin’ ’em about yer family and the kids, an’ how we all have a crackin’ laugh.

Barbara and Jack didn’t stay over the whole summer but they came and went at weekends, and all three couples were very friendly. One week Barbara came with watches for the boys and Ann said, isn’t that nice of yer but yer shouldn’t be spendin’ all yer money on the kids like that. Barbara said, oh I’ve got loads of money and no one to spend it on. Her daughter was grown up with a baby and she had two boys in the army. Her and Jack had a nice house in Oswaldtwistle, near Blackburn.

After that, Barbara was always bringing things in. A bottle of vodka for when they played cards, other gifts for the boys. They were at a car boot sale on the Saturday, and Barbara said to Ann, look, I’ve bought this watch for big Bobby ’cos he hasn’t got one, has he? Ann said, no, but yer all right, I’ll get ’im it. No, said Barbara, I’ve got loads of money, and she gave Bobby the watch.

The following weekend she came into the country club with her camera, taking pictures of all the kids. Come on, she said to Ann, you get in the middle of ’em. Ann was 18 stone by this time. She’d started ballooning at Plessey’s, when she had money to spend on sweets for the first time. They used to tell her it was puppy fat, but she was a bit old for that now. Ann didn’t want her picture taken, thanks very much.

In the end Ann posed with Bobby in their straw hats and with the fish they’d caught that day. Ann with her nine-pound pike.

Ann and Bobby went home that week and on the Thursday night, before he went off to play darts, Bobby said, we won’t go to the campsite this weekend, eh? Ann said, bloody right we will, I’ve got them kids all week an’ that’s my only break an’ I enjoy goin’ the country club.

So they went and on the Saturday Ann met an elderly woman she knew at the site who said, what’s wrong with Barbara today, she’s awful funny; I’ve just been over to see her and she’s all of a flutter; I’m sure she’s goin’ through the change or somethin’, ’cos when I asked what was the matter she said, nuttin’, I’m just thinkin’ of what I’m gonna do.

In the club that night, Barbara had brought a bottle of rum, and the only one that drank that was big Bobby. It still never clicked with Ann. She was pouring it out, and she and Bobby danced, which didn’t bother Ann because they always danced and, being that big, she preferred to keep her seat.

At the end of the evening, Bobby got drink spilt on him. They’re all bladdered and, next thing, off comes his shirt and his pants and he’s sat there in his boxies. Ann had a pint in front of her. She said, ’ere, yer might as well take them off an’ all, and threw the pint in his lap and walked out.

She was just getting into bed when Jack turned up, saying you’d better get round to those two, they’ve pissed off together. Don’t act silly, Ann said. She’d never known Bobby go off with anyone. But Jack said she’d better do something, so Ann threw her coat on over her nightie and her dressing gown and walked round by the club and there were Bobby and Barbara kissing and cuddling as they came out of the door.

Just leave her alone, Bobby tells Ann, just leave her alone. Ann grabbed at the sleeve of Barbara’s dress and it just came off in her hands, so she flung it and as Barbara was looking round for it, she grabbed at the dress again and pulled the front away so everything was showing.

Jack appears with a knife. I’ll bloody kill yer, I’ll bloody kill yer. Don’t be stupid, says Ann, go and put yer knife away. It’s not the first time she’s done it, you know, Jack said. You’re the fifth family she’s split up, but she’ll be back. Twelve months and she’ll be back. He got in his car and drove home to Oswaldtwistle. Bobby and Barbara took a taxi and went off together. Ann was left with six kids, an eight-berth tent and a van she couldn’t drive.

In the morning, as soon as it was light, Ann phoned Bobby’s mother and asked for Al to come and fetch them. His mum said, oh, our Robert wouldn’t have buggered off with somebody. I’m tellin yer, ’e ’as, said Ann.

At dinner time, while she was still waiting for Al, Bobby turned up with Barbara and put her in the front of the van and said, if you touch ’er I’ll fuckin’ kill yer. I’ll just leave youse all here. He started collecting all the stuff. They were all going to drive back from Banks together in the van. Ann had been up all night, turning it over in her head. If I could get that lead round her neck as we’re drivin’ along, let’s see what he does then. But she sacked that and grabbed the teapot instead, lunged forward and embedded it in Barbara’s head. The last thing she saw was all the blood, then Bobby grabbed her and she woke up on the floor, and he drove off, leaving her with the kids again. The kids were in a right state by this time.

Eventually, Al arrived and took them home.

Bobby was back in the house that night, and stayed there for six or seven weeks, sleeping on the couch, during which time he more or less locked Ann in the house. If she went anywhere he’d take her there and back again. She got out one day when he didn’t lock the door, and went round to tell his mother. Our Robert wouldn’t do a thing like that, she said. Ann walked back home through Walton Village.

She had to take one of the boys to the clinic, so she told the nurse what’d been happening, and the nurse sent her to the Family Service Unit. She was feeling really paranoid, so they gave her some Temazepam and Diazepam, but they only seemed to make her more depressed.

It was Sunday, 16 October 1988 when Bobby left for good. He’d sent one of the boys out for a copy of The Sport earlier in the week. Bobby never read The Sport, but he looked through it and said, load of bloody crap that, go an throw it in the bin.

Ann later convinced herself that Barbara had put a message in The Sport for Bobby. He went out on the Friday night and came back at three in the morning. He’d been cross all day and Ann was fuming. She stood there ironing his clothes and on the Sunday she said, there’s yer clothes, now piss off, and he just packed it all up and went. He told Ian he’d be back for him on Tuesday, but the only time any of them ever saw him after that was once, at his mother’s funeral.

As he was walking out the door Ann gave him her wedding ring. ’Ere’s somethin’ to remember me by. Ann’s brother had just come back from Cyprus and given her a bottle of Ouzo, so she opened it and drank the lot, straight down. It never touched the sides, and it didn’t make her drunk, and it didn’t make her forget.

Bobby had walked out on a thousand-pound electricity bill and a five-hundred-pound gas bill. Ann had a fiver in her pocket. She went to the benefit office and sat there crying. They gave her a crisis loan.

A week later, on Saturday, 22 October, Ann and the boys went round to her parents’, and when they returned home the house was on fire. It was said to have been caused by an electrical fault – which was an unhappy coincidence, but only a coincidence, given big Bobby’s trade.

They were put into a hostel in Toxteth for a few weeks and, at first, Ann barely knew what day it was. She couldn’t remember the fire or anything. It was about a fortnight before she came out of it and washed her hair and did it up, and began to feel better. The man who’d booked them into the hostel saw Ann and said, my God, I wouldn’t have given tuppence for yer when you came in, and now look at yer.

It was January before they were rehoused, at 223 Walton Village. Peter, the second eldest, couldn’t bear the hostel and had gone to stay with his nan, big Bobby’s mum. It wasn’t long after they moved into the Village that someone from social services came round saying Peter was being mistreated at home, and that Ann was beating her kids with a stick.

Ann ushered all the boys into the room and said to the people from social services, here, if you can find one bruise on any of ’em … she made all the boys strip off and stand in a line.

The weight fell away from Ann. She developed asthma, which she was told was psychosomatic, though it stayed with her. She had a lump on her breast, which terrified her, until she got it checked out, and it was non-malignant, just fatty tissue. She began drinking, seriously drinking, starting at home in the morning, and into the top house, or Top House as it was by now, for the rest of the day.

When she went home at night and got into bed she’d see faces crowding round, laughing at her. It wasn’t anyone she knew, just faces. She’d lie there sweating and sweating, and unable to sleep. She decided she’d better stop taking the Temazepam and the Diazepam, so she did, and the faces went away.

Her friend Monica helped out with the kids. Monica would go into the pub and say, come on, come ’ome an’ ’ave somethin’ to eat. Piss off an’ leave me alone, Ann would say, I don’t wanna know. She’d just sit in the corner and drink, or take it out on the dartboard.

They’d always had darts in the Top House. Bobby had started a team there and when they’d moved to Belmont Road Ann had played in the Ladies’ Prem for the King Charles pub team. She’d been good, playing competitively, but now when she got on the oche she went blank with the tension, and couldn’t throw. Now she just played killer with some of the others, and sometimes she threw so hard her darts got embedded in the barrel behind the board. That was the anger coming out.

Occasionally, someone, a fella more often than not, would say something. You should be ashamed of yerself, in ’ere with yer kids at ’ome. Slag. They’d never said that when she had a husband of course. When you put a loaf on me table, Ann would tell them, then you can order me about. Until then, mind yer own fuckin’ business. If they persisted, she’d hit them.

Most of the time she couldn’t get drunk, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. It was just like drinking through it, and coming out sober the other side. She kept a bottle under her pillow, and woke up with it most mornings for the best part of eighteen months.

The older sons were left in charge at home, and sometimes hit the younger ones, sometimes with sticks. They began sagging, hanging out with other lads in the area, getting involved in petty crime. Bobby and Ryan were still in the infants’, displaying no outward signs of the domestic difficulties.

After their dad left, Philip asked Ian who he’d rather be with. Ian said his dad, and Philip told Ann, who was upset and started giving Ian a hard time. Ian already felt he was getting a hard time at Walton St Mary’s school, singled out as a Thompson by the staff, because of the reputation for truancy and misbehaviour earned by his elder brothers.

Ian was suspected of some petty theft at the school. His younger brother, Philip, was seen there with bite marks. He sometimes said he was being bullied by Ian.

When the group of boys he was going around with began thieving and smoking dope, Ian stopped seeing them, not wanting to get involved.

Peter was the first one into care. It seemed to Ann that he had been hit the hardest by their dad’s going. Peter said David had locked him in the pigeon shed and chained him up. David was arrested and Peter was examined. There were no charges. Ann was sure he was lying, and said he’d be best off in voluntary care until he learned to tell the truth.

David left home and came back again, and continued to live there periodically. He got probation for robbing a motorbike. Ian moved on to secondary school and Bobby and Ryan started at Walton St Mary’s. As the next eldest, Ian was left in charge, with responsibility for making sure Bobby and Ryan got up and ready for school, and getting them there in time, before going to school himself.

Philip went out early, came home late at night, and was always sagging. He began doing drugs, sniffing aerosols and all sorts. He was picking up a string of cautions for petty offences. Once he was seen and caught coming out of the window of a local solicitors’ office with several thousand pounds’ worth of computer equipment. He had been looking after Bobby and Ryan at the time, and had taken them with him on the job.

On another occasion there was a fire at an abandoned property in the Village. A sooty-faced boy emerged from the smoke claiming that Philip and another lad had started the fire, and Philip was picked up and taken to Walton Lane Police Station. Ann was notified, and went to the station, going in on the bounce, blaming the police for picking on her boys. Her Philip wouldn’t start a fire. It was always the Thompsons that got the blame. You wouldn’t do a thing like that would you, Philip? Mum, it was me, I was there. There were no charges.

Philip was suspected of an indecency offence involving two small children, but the case was dropped, the allegation unproved.

In the end, he was getting so out of hand that Ann took all his clothes and tore them up and burnt them, everything except his school uniform, in an effort to keep him at home. Yer fuckin’ bastard doin’ that to me clothes, said Philip. He climbed out the window and went round his mate’s and took his mate’s mum’s trainies. She came knocking for Ann and told her they’d cost fifty quid.

When Philip came home Ann got him on the floor with Ian and told Ian to hold his hands while she got the trainies off his feet. Philip wriggled free and pulled a knife out and went for Ian. Ann marched him down the police station, and Philip went into voluntary care.

Ian got on well at secondary school. He was likeable, popular and academically bright. His head teacher identified him as one of the cleverest pupils in the school, and he was student of the year.

Gradually, as he continued to take responsibilities in the family, Ian began to exhibit behavioural problems at school, being cheeky and argumentative with the staff and, finally, he was excluded from school, after threatening a teacher with a chair during a row.

Ann met a man over the road, in the laundrette, and began a relationship with him – he was another Bobby – which led to another pregnancy. She stopped drinking altogether then, and baby Ben was born in May 1992.

Things seemed better at home for a while, and Ian felt his burden of responsibility had been lifted. As it turned out, the respite was short-lived and, in October, a week before the fourth anniversary of big Bobby’s departure, Ann swung at Ian with a cane she kept to threaten them all, and hit him on the arm.

Ian decided he’d had enough, and, after seeing a social worker, he went into voluntary care at a residential home round the corner from 223 Walton Village. This was the first social worker involvement with the family for some months, because of staff sickness.

Little Bobby went round to see Ian at his home one evening, not long after his arrival. Bobby showed Ian what he was carrying, which was a green bulb and a red bulb attached to a plastic disc by wires. The eyes of a troll doll, Bobby explained. A troll with illuminating eyes. Ian asked Bobby where he’d got it from, and Bobby said out of a troll. Ian asked Bobby if his mum had bought it, and Bobby said no, he’d robbed it out of the Kwikkie. He’d robbed it just to get the eyes. This did not seem strange to Ian, because Bobby was always messing around with electrical things, taking them apart carefully with screwdrivers and knives, just to get at some small component inside.

*

The staff at Walton St Mary’s discovered that Bobby and Jon were going robbing when they sagged, and did their best to respond. Irene Slack could never get the truth out of Bobby, but on one occasion, after he and Jon had been seen shoplifting while they should have been in school, she lost her temper and shouted at him. Bobby admitted what they had been doing. It was the only time Irene Slack ever got him to admit anything.

She was concerned about Ryan, who was beginning to notch up his own tally of unauthorised absences. Ryan said Bobby threatened to break his glasses if he didn’t sag, and was always complaining to his teacher, Jacqueline Helm, that Bobby punched and kicked him when they were at home. Ryan was enthusiastic at school but it seemed that Bobby’s bullying was making him miserable.

John Gregory, Walton Lane Police Station’s community liaison officer, had already spoken to Bobby and Ryan about truanting, and, when he came to the school with Brian Whitby in mid-November, to give one of their Stranger Danger talks to the pupils, they were asked to give another truancy talk to Bobby and Ryan. Brian Whitby told them it was wrong to sag, and asked them if they knew why. Because we get into trouble off Miss Slack.

Ten days later, one Thursday when the caretaker was away ill and there was no one watching the gates, Bobby and Jon were overheard plotting their escape, and ran out of the school when the lunch break started. They were later seen on County Road, robbing again.

Jon was supposed to be staying at his father’s that night, and Neil had been at the school to meet Jon when he came out. He called Susan and eventually they went to the police to report Jon missing. Neil went round in a Panda car, looking for Jon, but he was finally found by Susan at about half past ten, playing out with Bobby in Walton Village.

Jon said he’d been enjoying himself and had forgotten the time. He didn’t seem very bothered by the upset he’d caused. His mum smacked Jon, and sent him to bed. He was grounded for a week.

His parents had noticed that he was always asking for things, saying that they thought more of Mark and Michelle than they did of him. Neil thought this might be because the other two were together at a special school, and always going out on trips and excursions. Jon actually asked once if he could go to Mark and Michelle’s school, because of all the things he could get. Neil told him he couldn’t go there because it was a special kind of school. He told Jon he wasn’t being left out, and made an effort to try and compensate with trips and treats.

Neil had owned a video recorder for a couple of years, and regularly rented films for himself and Susan to watch in the evenings, after the children had gone to bed. He would also rent videos for the children, and sometimes respond to requests from Jon.

Neil was member number 4548 at the Videoscene rental shop on County Road. It was only a pound a night for each tape at Videoscene, and he usually went there in the late afternoon to choose a film, returning it at lunchtime the following day. He had joined the club at another shop, Video Gold, in Hale Road, but their rental was two pounds a night, and this was a bit too expensive.

When he was renting videos for himself, Neil liked horror or action adventure movies such as Ricochet, Manhunt, Dolly Dearest, Predator 2 and Freddy 6. He wouldn’t let the children see these films, though Jon sometimes got up early in the mornings and went downstairs by himself, and turned on the television and the video. It was possible he could have seen them then.

Jon and his brother and sister saw films such as Hook, Critters, Bill And Ted ’s Bogus Journey, and Turtles 2. Jon really liked Goonies, and would watch it all the time, but if he asked for a film it would usually be a martial arts movie, such as Suburban Commando or Double Impact, both of which he saw. Sometimes, Jon imitated the karate kicks that they used in those films.

The day after they had run out of school, Jon and Bobby were told off by Ruth Ryder, who was deputising for Irene Slack as head teacher.

Joan Rigg told them they were making their parents unhappy, upsetting their schoolwork, and making her unhappy, because they had broken her trust. Bobby began crying and promised he’d never do it again, and would try harder with his schoolwork. Jon promised too.

Michael Dwyer was asked to speak to the boys and Bobby told him they stole from shops while they were playing truant. Jon told him Bobby stole from shops. They said they also went to the reservoir, and Dwyer pointed out the risks they were running. Someone might take them and injure them, or they might drown, he said, apparently unaware that the reservoir was a grassy hill.

At the following week’s staff meeting they discussed Jon and Bobby’s truanting, and decided on a containment policy. The boys would be separated in different classes, and not allowed out at playtimes, when they would again be kept apart, under supervision.

Susan Venables went to the school with Jon to discuss the problem with Irene Slack, who tried to explain to Jon that what he was doing was wrong, and left it to Susan to shout at her son.

There was also a meeting with Ann Thompson, who said Bobby had run off from home the night before, and she had hidden his shoes so he wouldn’t do it again. She said she would collect him from school herself in future.

Ann took Bobby to Walton Lane Police Station for another talking-to. The cells were pointed out to him. That’s where you’ll end up if you don’t behave.

In his bedroom at home Bobby was building up quite a collection of trolls. Most were bought for him, but some were thieved on his excursions down County Road. Sometimes Bobby robbed so much in the Kwikkie that he had to throw it all behind the freezers in the shop, and collect it later, or just abandon it. Often he was robbing for the sake of it, and not because he particularly wanted the things he stole.

People who knew him did not think of Bobby as a violent boy. Ian Thompson thought his little brother was frightened of his own shadow. He just occasionally tried to act big, that was all.

Once, Bobby was playing up at the Top House, running in and out of the doors, making a nuisance of himself. When the landlady challenged him he said fuck off you twat, and ran away calling out, you cunt, you slag. Another time, the landlady found Bobby and a little blond-haired girl hiding under the seats in the lounge. They started fooling around, saying they were with their dads, and, not long after they had gone, Bobby came back in and said a glass had been smashed outside. The landlady said she was going to tell his mum.

Despite the mischief he made, Bobby could be well-behaved at home, attentive towards Ben, helping his mother with feeding and caring for the baby, spending ages in the kitchen baking cakes. He and Ryan appeared to be close to each other. Bobby was always sucking his thumb and at the same time rubbing his ear between the thumb and first finger of his other hand. He’d sit on his mum’s lap and suck his thumb and rub her ear. At nights he and Ryan would sometimes lie together in bed, and Bobby would suck Ryan’s thumb instead of his own.

Bobby and Kelly, the ten-year-old daughter of Ann’s friend across the road, Lesley Henderson, were like boyfriend and girlfriend. They often played out together, sometimes with Kelly’s seven-year-old brother, Christopher, with whom Bobby was protective and sensitive, defending him when he was picked on by bigger boys.

When he was not sagging, robbing or skitting, Bobby was often out on his rollerboots in the neighbouring streets. On match days at Everton he contributed to the local kids’ protection racket of minding cars. There was always a white BMW parked outside his house, and Bobby was in charge of it, receiving a small reimbursement in return for the car being in one piece when its owner came back from the game. Ian was down there one evening, from his care home, and was standing by the BMW while Bobby was elsewhere. Ann came out and ‘kicked off’ at Ian, thinking he was doing Bobby out of his job.

In the first week of January there was a series of minor disturbances at Ian’s care home. Two of the young female residents stayed out overnight on the Sunday, and in the early hours of the Tuesday morning, the police were called to help the staff impose some order. There was a row between a few of the residents and the police, and the officers went back to the station, followed a short time later by Ian and three other teenagers shouting abuse. After Ian spat at one of the policemen they were all arrested for disorderly conduct, though later discharged. In the early hours of the Wednesday morning, two of the women were found by police under the Breeze Hill flyover. They dropped an eight-inch knife when the police appeared. They said they wanted to stab the police. Later that day another girl took an overdose of paracetamol, and had to go to hospital.

An officer who knew Ian went round to the home to try and calm things down. It seemed that one of the first policemen who had gone to the home had asked Ian his name and, on hearing it, had said, oh, right, you’re one of those Thompsons. Ian had kicked off at this insult, and now, explaining it to the officer who knew him, Ian seemed upset and a bit weird. The officer asked Ian if he was all right. Yeah, said Ian. No, he’s not all right, said one of the other residents, he’s taken 20 paracetamol. Ian was taken to hospital. He survived.

Philip got picked up by the police two or three times after Christmas on suspicion of various offences he hadn’t committed. He and David were held for the burglary of a flat which was rented by a friend of David’s. The friend had gone away, and given David the keys to look after it. David had been in hospital with pneumonia over Christmas and was still recovering.

Then Ian and Philip were stopped and held. Philip had a bottle of 25 paracetamol in his pocket, and when he was released he took the lot. He went into hospital and came out and took another overdose. Ian took another overdose. Ann had both of them in hospital in the same week. A neighbour came round and said Philip had nicked his tracksuit off the washing line. Unlikely, said Ann, he’s in hospital with an overdose.

Ann had never again thought of taking too many pills. Not even after big Bobby went. Especially after big Bobby went. She wouldn’t kill herself over him.

*

For Bobby and Jon, 1993 did not begin auspiciously at Walton St Mary’s. They ran out of school at lunchtime on their first day back. Jon was returned later in the day by his parents, who had found him nearby.

The containment policy was maintained, but one afternoon towards the end of the month the school received a phone call from the Strand Shopping Centre. Ryan was in the manager’s office there, alone and in tears. His class teacher, Jacqueline Helm, went down to collect him, and Ryan explained that he had been bullied into sagging with Bobby and Gummy Gee. Bobby had told Gummy to hit Ryan if he refused to go with them. They had gone down by the canal, and Bobby and Gummy had run away and left Ryan on his own.

The last video rented from Videoscene on Neil’s membership before the killing of James Bulger was Child ’s Play 3, which was taken out on 18 January 1993.

Child ’s Play 3 tells the story of a Good Guy doll, Chucky, which comes to life possessed by the soul of a psychopath, the Lakeside Strangler, and embarks on a series of murders: ‘Don’t fuck with the Chuck’. There are seven killings, played out in vivid detail, including a long close-up of a man’s face as he is being strangled, a barber whose throat is cut by his own razor, and a youngster whose body explodes when he jumps on a live grenade.

The film climaxes at a fun fair, inside the ghost train. The rail tracks are wreathed in dry ice, and surrounded by various objects of gothic horror. Chucky’s face is stained with blue paint from an earlier war game battle with paint guns, and as he pursues his intended victims across the tracks – ‘This is it kid. End of the line’ – half of his face is chopped away by the Grim Reaper’s scythe. Chucky loses various limbs, before being shredded in a wind machine.

On 26 January, Bobby and Jon were thought to be sagging with another boy. Someone from the Education Welfare Office went round to the home of Susan Venables the following day. There was no answer at the door and the EWO representative left a letter, which never received a reply.

At around this time – he would later be unable to remember the exact day, only that it was the end of January – a man was shopping in the Strand during the lunch break from his work at the Girobank, and saw two boys standing outside TJ Hughes, looking excited and lively as one of them tapped on the glass front of the store. The man thought they were up to mischief and he stopped to watch them. The boy tapping on the glass was evidently trying to attract the attention of a small child, a toddler, and was beckoning him towards the door of the shop. The child walked forward a few paces, and then went back to his mother. The two lads made off.

Several weeks later, at an identification parade, the man picked out Jon as one of the two boys he had seen.

On 4 February, Ann went to the school for a network meeting with the staff, a social worker and an Education Welfare Officer. The School’s usual EWO had been off sick since May, but there was emergency cover provided by another EWO, Julia Roberts, who had been involved with Bobby’s family in the past. At the meeting Ann agreed that the only sure way to get Bobby into school was to take him herself. She’d already padlocked the back door and screwed the windows down to stop him running off.

In spite of the problems, Bobby was due to begin secondary school next September.

Bobby and Jon’s supervision and separation at school continued. They were even watched when they went to the toilet. Jon was often in the classroom next to Jacqueline Helm’s, when he was kept in, and she always made a point of talking to him, touched by his sweet air.

On Thursday, 11 February, Jon was with Jacqueline Helm, helping her lay out paints in class. She told him he was such a good and helpful boy and asked him why he couldn’t behave like this all the time. Jon agreed with her that it was wrong to sag. She asked him why he did it, then. I don’t know, said Jon.