- The Parole Board has ruled that child killer Jon Venables will have his latest parole bid heard in private, rejecting a request for a public hearing.
- James Bulger's mother, Denise Fergus, alongside several media organisations, had requested an open hearing to combat misinformation that she said was retraumatising.
- The board explained that a public hearing would make it extremely difficult for Venables to give evidence safely due to ongoing threats to his life.
- Venables was 10 years old when he and Robert Thompson tortured and murdered two-year-old James Bulger in Merseyside in 1993.
- Venables was recalled to prison in 2010 and 2017 for possessing indecent images of children, with his previous parole bid being rejected in 2023 because he still posed a danger.
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