The Sleep of Reason: The James Bulger Case (23 page)

The batteries? Jon might’ve took them for his Game Gear. Did he have some batteries with him? Who? Jon. Yeah, he took them out and threw them. He threw one at James’s face and threw the others away.

The officers go over the sequence of events again. Bobby describes how Jon threw the metal bar on to the top of James’s head. And then they went. They went to the video shop. Bobby tried to see if the baby was still alive, and he wouldn’t move. He was trying to see if he could still breathe. I’ve got me ear against his belly and he wasn’t breathing.

Roberts.
And you didn’t say anything to Jon?

Bobby
.
Who?

Roberts
.
You.

Bobby
.
No, only in the video shop I did.

Roberts
.
What did you say to him in the.…

Bobby
.
I asked him, is he coming up, to do the message.

Roberts
.
Is that when you spoke to him?

Bobby
.
Yeah.

Jacobs
.
Why did, why did he do all this, why did Jon do all this?

Bobby.
I don’t know. That is what I don’t know.

Roberts.
You say you didn’t do anything at all?

Bobby
.
I only pinched.

They again say they’re not bothered about Bobby stealing. He says it’s on the tape, it’ll get brought up another day. No, it doesn’t matter.

Phil Roberts says he doesn’t think Jon’s done everything. Bobby says yeah, well, I never. Roberts thinks Bobby hit him. Well, that’s what you think. Roberts says there’s only one person here that knows the whole truth. No,
I’ve just said all the truth, says Bobby.

They finish the seventh interview at ten past three.

Ann is in shock now, disturbed and terrified by what is happening. She says she cannot sit in on any further interviews. She barely knows what’s going on around her. Later that day, she is in the bridewell when a uniformed officer passes through. Ann hears him whistling the death march. It might be a deliberate wind-up, it might not. She mentions it to Jason Lee, who mentions it to the interviewing team. The whistler does not reappear.

Bobby seems more concerned about his mum’s welfare than anything else. He asks the policeman, excuse me, can you get me mum a glass of water so she can have a Beecham’s Powder? Excuse me, can me mum have a cup of coffee? Can you get me mum a doctor ’cause she’s not well? There was talk of getting a psychiatrist to see Ann. She said it wasn’t her that needed a shrink, it was Bobby and Jon. She just couldn’t take it all in.

Later, when she regained her senses, she asked Bobby, why the fuckin’ hell didn’t you do something, why didn’t you go and tell someone? How could you stand there and …? Bobby said, but I tried to get him off, he just kept hittin’ him and hittin’ him and hittin’ him and I couldn’t do nuttin’ about it.

Ann said, well how could you take a bloody flower over? Bobby said, ’cause then baby James knows I tried to help him up there and I’m thinking of him now.

Bobby asks his mum, if you die before me dad, will you come back and haunt him? Too friggin’ right I will, said Ann, I’ll bleedin’ haunt him every day. Bobby said, yeah, but that’s because he’s hurt you, but if he hadn’t’ve hurt you and you died, you wouldn’t come back and haunt him then, would you? Ann said, well, no, I’d have no cause to, would I? She thought it was a funny question for Bobby to ask.

*

In the Lower Lane interview room, Michelle Bennett and Dave Tanner told Susan that, after listening to Jon’s last interview they both felt that he wanted to talk about the incident, but was inhibited by the way she consoled him. He didn’t want to upset her. Susan realised that because she didn’t think Jon was involved, she might have been making it more difficult for him to talk.

The officers said she would have to be strong, and reassure Jon that his parents loved him and that he could say anything to them. If Jon did know anything about the killing of James Bulger he might be able to talk if he felt safe and secure that his parents would always love him.

Susan spoke to Neil for a while and, at three o’clock, they went to see Jon
in the detention room. As they went in, they called Dave Tanner to join them, and he stood by the door.

Jon’s mother and father sat either side of him on the bench. They put their arms around him, and said they would always be there for him. They loved him very much, and wanted him to tell the truth, no matter what it was. They weren’t going to tell him off. They would understand.

Jon became upset and was crying. He climbed into his mother’s lap, and she cradled him like a baby, hugging him close. Through his tears he said that he wanted to tell. ‘I did kill him,’ Jon said.

They were all very distressed. After a while Jon turned to Dave Tanner. ‘What about his mum, will you tell her I’m sorry?’

Jon said he had been going to give himself up and, as Mark Dale came in, he added, ‘Can I tell you about Robert trying to get another lad away?’

The officers waited a while before returning to the interviews. Susan said she could not go back in, and Neil said he would replace her. Dave Tanner called Jim Fitzsimmons at Marsh Lane to tell him what had happened.

Jim put the phone down and turned to Geoff MacDonald across the desk. ‘He’s coughed it. Yeah. He’s having it.’ They went up the corridor to tell Albert Kirby. Jon’s admission was the breakthrough they had been waiting for. No cough, no job.

Later, Jim spoke to Michelle Bennett. If Susan was not going to be in on the interviews, he did not want an all male environment. Now he wanted Michelle to go in. She said that, from listening, Mark Dale and George Scott had built up a good relationship with Jon, and it would be wrong to break the bond. But Jim is sure he’s right. He doesn’t want all men. He just doesn’t want it, but they’re telling him it would be wrong to break up the partnership. Okay, he says, leave it as it is. Stick with it. Decisive bastard aren’t I, thinks Jim.

Jon’s sixth interview begins at four o’clock, with Mark Dale saying that he knows it took a lot of doing, Jon making his admission, and he knows Jon was upset, as they all were. He asks Jon to tell them exactly what he did that day, from the beginning.

Jon describes going to the Strand with Robert, and says that Robert got three tins of paint from Toymaster, by putting them under his sleeve. Then this other kid came up, and Robert says let’s get this kid lost. They walked him through TJ Hughes, Robert going, come on mate, and then his mum came up behind them and got him. Why did Robert want the little boy to follow him? I know, he said let’s get him lost outside so when he goes into the road he’ll get knocked over. What did Jon say to that? I said it’s a very bad thing to do, isn’t it.

They found James outside the butchers. They both saw him, and it was Jon’s idea to walk towards him, but it was Robert’s idea to kill him. Jon said to Robert is that boy lost or something? Robert walked up to him, and they
were walking round, and Jon took his hand. They were looking for his mum for a bit, then they got fed up and went outside to the canal. The boy couldn’t talk at all, he was just going I want my mummy, all the time.

Robert said, lets throw him in the water. Jon said if you wanna, like. He was only going to throw him in the shallow thingy. Robert was persuading him saying kneel down and let’s look at the water and all that, but he wouldn’t. Robert picked him up and threw him on the floor, and that’s where he got the bump on his head.

Neil goes to take a sip of the drink Jon has with him in the interview. That’s mine, says Jon. Well, let your dad have a drink, says Dale, I think he might just need one.

Jon describes how Robert picked James up, under his arms, lifted him up to about head or chest height, ’cos he was heavy, Robert said, and slammed him down on the floor. He landed on his head. Was he crying then? Yeah. I should imagine he would be.

They ran away from him, but came back, and he was already walking up. Jon doesn’t know why they went back. Just to walk around with him.

Jon goes through the walk they took, remembering the three girls laughing, to the reservoir where the woman spotted them. James was all right then. They were taking him to Walton Village. Why? I don’t know, we didn’t know what to do until we were walking through, I took his hood off and threw it up in the tree. Hang on. Jon’s jumping the gun a bit there.

They cut through from Bedford Road to County Road, and along Church Road West. They didn’t talk to anyone by the Breeze Hill flyover. They didn’t go that way. They climbed on a wall by the entry to get on to the railway.

Jon’s getting upset now. He can’t tell them anything else. Why? ’Cos that’s the worst bit. Okay, right, now let me tell you, I know that’s the worst bit but you know what you did and you know if you try hard you’ll be able to tell us. What you need is to have a little rest, think about it, and just tell us what happened.

Jon.
We took him on the railway and started throwing bricks at him.

Dale.
Who did?

Jon.
Robert, he just said, he said, just stand there and we’ll get you a plaster or something.

Dale.
Why did he throw bricks at him?

Jon.
I don’t know.

Dale.
What else did he do, apart from throwing bricks?

Jon.
Threw the big pole at him.

Lee.
What’s that?

Dale.
Threw a big pole at him, is that what you said?

Jon.
That knocked him out.

Dale.
What was the pole made of?

Jon.
Steel.

Dale.
Like a bar?

Jon.
Yeah, off the track

Dale.
Where did the stick, where did the stones and bar hit him?

Jon.
In the head.

Dale.
And you say the bar knocked him out?

Jon.
Yeah, on to the railway track.

Dale.
And then, and what happened then?

Jon.
He was just lying there.

Dale.
Okay, keep going.

That’s what happened. We just ran to Walton Village into the video shop and she, then she told us I’ll give you a pound if you do this and we did and that’s when my mum caught me and we went to the police station. I went home then.

When they left him, James was lying on the track, bleeding all over, from his face.

Is it finished now? ’Cos I can’t speak anymore. Do you want a little break, do you want to have a little drink? No, I’ve said all that’s, I’ve said it now. Okay, if you don’t want to say any more. No, I don’t. No. You don’t have to.

Scott says can he just ask something about the paint. Jon says the second one went on him and the third one on the train track. And all those things that happened to James, they were all done by Robert? Some from me. Tell me what you did? Just threw two bricks at him, that’s all I done ’cos I wouldn’t throw anything big at him. How big were the bricks you threw? Only teeny, little stones. Where did they hit him? On the arms, I wouldn’t hit him in the head.

The stones that Robert threw were like a building brick. Jon didn’t want to throw anything at him. Why did he throw those stones at James? I only threw three or five, they were only dead little ones though, the white ones. He doesn’t know what harm they did and he doesn’t think he did anything else.

Jon thinks it was quite a long time after the stones that James was hit with the iron bar. He thinks it was only one hit. Jon was saying stop it, stop it, like that. He said, let’s go now.

Dale.
I shouldn’t really have to ask you this, but what do you think of those things?

Jon.
They’re terrible. I was thinking about it, all the time.

Lawrence Lee says as soon as you want this stopping, Neil, you say so. Okay, terminate it, says Neil.

Later that evening, the two boys had to make their first appearance in court, so that the police could request a further detention. They were taken to South Sefton Magistrates Court in Bootle, just around the corner from the Strand. Albert Kirby made the application, which was granted. Lawrence Lee stood to thank the police for their delicate handling of the case.

Seeing the boys for the first time, Albert Kirby and Jim Fitzsimmons were astounded by their size. They had been told the boys were short, of course, but had not expected them to be this small. The two officers watched the two children and wondered.

In the court Bobby and Jon did not once look at each other. Afterwards, they were led to the secure car park at the back of the court to be driven to their respective police stations. Jon was already inside his unmarked car, and Bobby was just walking past. They turned and caught each other’s eye. They both smirked. A look which some of the officers who saw it interpreted as an evil smile.

22

On Saturday morning, Bobby had a newly appointed appropriate adult to replace his mother in the interviews. The social worker had arrived at the station the night before, carrying a football comic, a
Quizkids
magazine, some sweets and a card game,
Spot
Pairs
,
to keep Bobby occupied. Together, he and Bobby had watched a children’s video on a portable television in the interview room.