Union debates Bulger killers
THE OXFORD UNION'S controversial debate on the sentencing of the Bulger killers voted in opposition to the proposal stating "the Bulger killers got off lightly."
Charles Banner, Lincoln, put forward a proposition that caused several members of the audience to make outraged points of information.
Banner called the detention centers the Bulger killers were in "nice and cushy," citing such activities as them being allowed to "watch exclusive football matches, and enjoy free education, which was more that we get here." All in all, he said, they enjoyed a "life comparable to what we have here, full of leisure and pleasure." Banner dismissed the argument of their social backgrounds conditioning them into murder, by saying that he knew "someone from a working-class background, and she wasn't a murderer, indeed she was at Oxford."
Robin Makin, lawyer for Ralph Bulger, echoed Banner's sentiments, saying that the Bulger killers had "received a better education than most British people, and were now going to receive a lifetime of privacy that no-one else in Britain would have."
Norman Brennan, Director of the Victim's of Crime trust and also in proposition said that Thompson and Venables were "child psychopaths", and called the home office negligent in releasing them. He was keen to stress that psychopaths are sane, in control and responsible for their actions. Brennan even proposed that they should have been sent to adult prison.
In opposition, Adam Brown from Balliol called the Bulger killing a "terrible accident" and said that Venables and Thompson were "going to be in prison for the rest of their lives." The opposition also stressed that youth detention centers were far from being holiday camps. Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Board, said that 1000 young people under the age of 20 make serious suicide attempts each year in similar care institutes to Venables and Thompson. Lyon also said that Britain should be ashamed that other European countries locked up fewer children than we did.
As a whole, the opposition said that it was society that had got off too lightly in the Bulger trial, and that was what we should be working to remedy.
8th Nov 2001