Jon Venables stays in prison as Parole Board denies his latest release bid

Parole refused after he asked to stay

Jon Venables will stay in prison after telling the Parole Board that he did not want to be released. The review took place in private, and the board said a panel was 'not satisfied' that he was suitable for release. The panel's findings were published on Monday, 9 November, and they describe an opening statement in which Venables accepted that he still needed further offending work while in custody, which is why he was not pressing for freedom. The decision means he remains behind bars.

What the panel weighed

The panel heard evidence from probation officers working inside the prison and from officers based in the community. It also took account of three psychologists and one psychiatrist. All panel members but one concluded that Venables should remain in custody, according to the summary. The articles do not describe the reasoning of the dissenting view, so it remains unexplained here.

A history of recalls

Venables was released on licence in July 2001. He was sent back to prison in February 2010 after authorities found indecent images of children on a computer in his possession. He was freed again in August 2013, then recalled in November 2017 for the same offence. Parole judges reviewed his case once more in September 2020.

The 1993 killing

In 1993 Venables, then 10, and a fellow 10-year-old took a two-year-old boy from a shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside, where the child had been with his mother. The two boys kicked and stomped on the toddler and pushed batteries into his mouth. They then dropped a heavy piece of railway track onto his head, fracturing his skull in 10 places, and left the body across the tracks. Venables is one of the two killers named in the reporting, and the latest hearing is the most recent step in a case that has returned to the Parole Board several times.