British judge barrs media from disclosing new identities

LONDON - A judge has barred the media from disclosing the new identities of two teen-agers who will soon be eligible for parole in the torture slaying of a toddler.

In an unprecedented order yesterday, Judge Elizabeth-Butler Sloss said she was convinced that Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, both now 18, would be in danger if the public knew who they were and where they lived.

Venables and Thompson were 10 years old when they abducted, tortured and killed 2-year-old James Bulger in 1993. They are eligible for release this year, and new identities will be created for them.

Media organizations that opposed the order were granted permission to appeal. The order applies only in England and Wales.

Last year, Ralph Bulger, the victim's father, said he intended to take revenge against the pair if he could find them. Denise Fergus, the victim's mother, protested that the decision trampled on the family's rights.

"As children, one can understand them being given some protection but what right have they got to be given special treatment as adults as well?" she said in a statement read to reporters by Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust.

Thompson and Venables were convicted in 1993 of taking the toddler from a shopping center in the north England town of Bootle to a railway line two miles away, where they beat him to death. They were identified from shopping center video images.