The Sleep of Reason: The James Bulger Case (36 page)

He slept fairly well, and would ring the buzzer when he had nightmares, so that a member of staff would come and comfort him. He described a recurring dream in which he was chasing someone through the street and ran into the road where he was hit by a car. The car hit him on the front, no, on the side. As he spoke of the dream Bobby began fanning his face with his hands as if it was making him feel hot and bothered. He looked agitated and asked his case worker to open the windows. He said that whenever he had the dream he would try not to go back to sleep again, in case the dream returned. He now looked distressed and red-faced, and looked anxiously around the room.

Dr Vizard told Bobby that sometimes nightmares were linked to painful memories and it helped to talk through these issues. Bobby said he tried to keep his mind off his dream. Again, he looked around the room, as if he
would like to escape. When Dr Vizard said it was helpful to talk about bad memories, as well as painful dreams, Bobby leaned forward and touched the toy railway track. He seemed to be anxiously humming or muttering under his breath.

There were three cloth dolls on the table with the train track. Dr Vizard explained the idea of using these toys to help Bobby give his account of James Bulger’s death. A Jon doll, a Bobby doll, a James doll. She asked Bobby’s thoughts about James. How do you mean, the baby? Bobby put his hands over his eyes and began to cry. They told him it was understandable that he should cry. There were bound to be strong feelings involved when someone had been present at, and perhaps taken part in, the death of a child.

Dr Vizard said it would help to cry, and Bobby reacted angrily through his tears. Well, how does this help me? If they were going to help him they needed to know how he felt when James Bulger was killed. Bobby was crying bitterly. How does it help to make it all come back? I don’t want to do it. He was given a tissue by Dr Vizard, to wipe his tears.

She and Mr Hawkes said they realised how difficult it was for Bobby to talk about the killing, but it was also difficult to understand what had happened, because Jon said Bobby did it and Bobby said Jon did it. Bobby said, that’s the truth.

They began to move the dolls on the track, Bobby holding the Bobby doll, and Dr Vizard holding the Jon doll, asking him where she should place the James doll. Bobby said he was holding Jons hand and that Jon and the baby were about five yards ahead of him as they walked along the track. Dr Vizard asked what happened next and, with a flicking gesture of his wrist, Bobby said Jon had thrown paint in one of the baby’s eyes. Dr Vizard coloured the James doll’s left eye and cheek with blue marker pen to show where the paint had stained.

Reluctantly, in response to Dr Vizard’s request, Bobby used the dolls to show how Jon had thrown a brick at James. He demonstrated with the James doll how the baby fell backwards into a sitting position. He showed how Jon had thrown another brick as James tried to get up. He became increasingly involved in moving the dolls to represent the assault, dolls and track being dislodged from the table as he tried to position them correctly, determined to show his version of events. Jon had thrown three or four more bricks and then the iron bar.

Occasionally, Bobby paused, staring at the scene before him, as if lost in thought. He seemed genuinely upset by this process of reliving the assault. Sometimes, he corrected Dr Vizard’s positioning of the dolls.

Bobby moved the dolls to show how Jon had dragged James across the tracks and placed him face upwards across the rail. He said Jon continued to throw bricks which hit James on the head and body. Dr Vizard asked Bobby
where he had been standing and what he had been doing. He said, I tried to stop him, pulled him down once or twice but he was getting more angry. Bobby placed the Bobby doll behind the Jon doll and wrapped the Bobby doll’s arms around the Jon doll’s body, showing how the two fell backwards onto the track by James. Bobby said, Jon got up more angry, I don’t know what he was angry about. I tried to get up after he squashed me because he fell on top of me. My back was all squashed.

Bobby then spent some time trying to demonstrate how Jon had placed bricks around James’s head. The James doll would not lie still and be held by the bricks positioned against it. He was asked to show how James’s lower clothing had been removed by Jon, and the James doll was dislodged from the bricks as he did so. Bobby said Jon had placed the underlayer on James’s mouth.

Dr Vizard asked what else had happened and Bobby said, I’m trying not to watch him. He didn’t join in the assault because he wasn’t that kind of person. He didn’t speak to Jon because he was so shocked he said nothing.

Bobby could not explain the alleged disturbance of James’s penis, which Dr Vizard said had puzzled her. Jon took the pants off, I was trying not to look, said Bobby. It could have been caused by the bricks, or Jon’s kicking, though he had seen most of the things Jon did.

Dr Vizard asked Bobby if either he or Jon had touched or interfered with James’s genitals. Bobby looked away and said, no. He sounded defensive and angry. Dr Vizard said it was difficult to understand why two boys should take a young child away, physically damage him and then take off his trousers. She wondered if it had been the intention of either Jon or Bobby to sexually abuse the little boy and whether this went badly wrong, with the result that they became angry and tried to silence him.

Bobby listened, head down, playing with some toy animals. He seemed unsurprised, or unmoved, by the idea that there might have been a sexual motive. He looked directly at Dr Vizard and said, angrily, I didn’t touch him. He looked down and shrugged his shoulders when Dr Vizard suggested Jon might have interfered with James while Bobby wasn’t looking: I dunno, I didn’t see what he did when I looked away. I was shocked, wasn’t I.

Dr Vizard said Bobby’s description made Jon’s behaviour sound very strange and beyond explanation. Bobby looked up and said, he is a strange boy. Bobby seemed annoyed when Dr Vizard asked if there wasn’t anything else he could have done to stop Jon: I couldn’t hold him all night or throw him off the railway bridge. I couldn’t move him off the railway.

Bobby said he didn’t know where the blood on his shoes came from. He responded irritably to Dr Vizard’s suggestion that it was James’s blood: yes, it’s not just started raining blood, has it. There must have been so much blood that it seemed like rain, said Dr Vizard. Bobby nodded and looked down. He said the assault ended when Jon just stopped, all red in the face
and staring at the baby. They slid down the lamp-post and didn’t speak afterwards.

Dr Vizard pointed out that Bobby had said nothing to explain the impression of his shoe on James’s face. Bobby said he hadn’t kicked James and didn’t have a clue how the mark got there. At Dr Vizard’s request he again used the Bobby doll and the Jon doll to show his struggle with Jon. Dr Vizard suggested he might have stamped on or kicked James’s face in this struggle. Bobby didn’t know: I’m not concentrating on what my feet are doing, I’m putting all my pressure on him, my feet are going all over the place.

Bobby was asked what he was thinking when he left the railway line. He said he was thinking, what on earth did he do that for, he’s an effing bastard. He thought Jon would get a good beating for what he had done. Bobby didn’t think he would get into trouble because he hadn’t done anything.

Why had James’s body been placed across the track? Bobby said, it’s not up to me to think why he put the baby on the track. Then he added, so it would get cut up. What was the point of that? Bobby looked uncomfortable. He said, repeatedly, that he didn’t know. Then he said, some people might say it would give an excuse.

When he was asked what kind of little boy James had been, Bobby said, all little boys are nice until they get older. James had been quiet, in comparison with baby Ben, although he was asking, where is my mother, every three minutes.

Dr Vizard noticed that Bobby had the Jon doll in his hand, swinging it to and fro. She asked him if Jon had ever tried to steal a baby from its mother before. Bobby had never seen him. He said, Jon doesn’t like being around babies. I do. Bobby left the room to go to the toilet.

When he came back he was asked how he felt James Bulger’s death might affect him as he grew older. Bobby thought he might end up lonely, never able to go out. People would always keep their children in sight, in case they might disappear. Dr Vizard’s colleague said people might fear Jon and Bobby, and see them as very dangerous to childen. Bobby sighed, and began knotting the arms and legs of the cloth doll he was holding.

He said he never had any angry or violent thoughts about children. Dr Vizard said he might be afraid of describing such thoughts. Bobby suddenly pulled his legs up onto the chair and began sucking his thumb, banging the cloth doll against the side of his chair. He was like a much younger child. Dr Vizard said it would be better to let such thoughts out, rather than bottle them up in his mind where they might cause him more distress. Bobby sighed several times and did not reply.

With the interview coming to an end, Dr Vizard and her colleague told Bobby that they believed he would be helped in future by being able to talk more openly about what had happened in the past. They thought he had more to say about his actions and feelings and that, perhaps, important
aspects of James’s death had not been shared during the interview. Bobby had held back some facts and been honest about others.

He responded angrily, saying he had told them one hundred per cent of his actions and ninety-nine per cent of his feelings. He said he now felt angry with Jon and would like to ask him why he killed James. He would like to give him a slap. Dr Vizard said he seemed much angrier than that, and wondered what he really felt about Jon. Bobby agreed, chuckling, and said he would like to kick his face in. Dr Vizard suggested he pick up the Bobby doll and the Jon doll, and Bobby smiled as he used the Bobby doll to kick the Jon doll.

Finally, what would he like to say to James, if such a thing was possible. What, say to the baby? I don’t know. Bobby went quiet and became tearful. Eventually he said, I feel sorry for him.

He was told the meeting had ended, and quickly became more relaxed, playing unselfconsciously with the dolls and the train set.

In the summary of their report, Dr Vizard and Colin Hawkes first addressed Bobby’s current state of mind and his fitness to stand trial. They wrote that he had presented as a boy of average intelligence, fully orientated in time and space, with no signs of any formal mental illness such as psychosis or a major depressive disorder. In a boy who had been described as underachieving academically, it was interesting to note his flashes of quick intelligence, and the ease and eagerness with which he used the play materials.

His affectual responses – feelings – had been varied and seemed to relate, more or less accurately, to whatever he was describing or demonstrating at the time. He cried readily, and genuinely, when asked what he thought about James. He went from bitter sobbing to an angry exchange when it was suggested that describing his feelings might be helpful.

It had been made clear at several points during the interview that Bobby intended to repress or hold back all conscious memories and feelings about the murder. It was also clear that this was a great effort and that his emotional responses would break through and be expressed in some way. In terms of body language, Bobby had been active during the interview. He had gone to the toilet when distressed, moved around in the chair, and sometimes seemed to feel trapped. Despite these indicators of such feelings as anxiety and anger, there had been an impressive sense that Bobby was able to contain his feelings and responses to the killing, so that the same story always emerged. There was no real sense that he would allow himself to relax and speak freely.

It was a complex picture, but Bobby’s feelings, his body language, sleep disturbance, bad dreams and anxiety about allowing recall of the crime could be understood in terms of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder after being present at or involved in the killing of James Bulger. These symptoms would have worsened over the last eight months, in the
absence of any skilled therapeutic help, and limited Bobby’s capacity to testify in his own defence.

The report relied on the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic criteria, DSM-III-R, for diagnosis of Bobby’s state of mind. He had experienced an event outside the range of usual human experience (a murder), which was the defining criteria for post-traumatic stress, and the symptoms Dr Vizard and her colleague had observed in Bobby conformed to the Assocation’s classification of the disorder. The report said it should be made clear that there was no reason to think Bobby suffered from the disorder before the crime.

With the limited information available to them about Bobby’s background and his schooling, and in the absence of a psychological report (Bobby had refused to see a psychologist), Dr Vizard and Colin Hawkes could only make a clinical assessment of Bobby as having an Academic Problem and a Conduct Disorder.

The former was appropriate, because there was no mental disorder to explain Bobby’s underachievement. The academic problem seemed to be linked to a pattern of truanting which was item A 13 in the DSMR-III-R definition of Conduct Disorder, Undifferentiated Type. He was also known to have been stealing, to tell lies and to have been physically cruel to people, all of which were part of the definition. The report said that Bobby’s weight increase since arriving at the unit suggested he might have been finding solace in food, in a way which probably related to his high levels of anxiety about his past behaviour and its future consequences.

The report said that questions could and, in the opinion of its authors, should be asked about why such a young child was not seen and assessed by a psychiatrist or psychologist, following his involvement in such a horrific crime. In the absence of any such examination comments about Bobby’s mental state at the time of the killing could only be speculative.

Still, it could be argued that, before the offences, there was a body of evidence that suggested emotional and behavioural disturbance in Bobby and might have merited the attention of an expert. It seemed likely that there were conflicts, doubtless relating to home and school life, in Bobby’s mind which drove him to participate, in a very calculated way, in the offences.