London - The two boys convicted of murdering the Liverpool toddler James Bulger in 1993 are expected to have their case referred to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg next week, reports Rachel Donnelly.
Lawyers acting for Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, now aged 16, are challenging their convictions for killing the two-year-old from Bootle, on the grounds that their trial amounted to "inhuman and degrading treatment" and was unfair because they were tried in an adult court.
The abduction and murder of James Bulger shocked Britain. The boys, who were 10 years old at the time of the killing, enticed the toddler from the Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle and subjected him to beatings on a two-mile walk to a railway track at Walton, where they killed him.
James Bulger's mother, Denise, told reporters last night that she was "bitterly disappointed" by the development. She said the two boys were guilty of a violent and monstrous crime against her son and were now trying to avoid serving their full sentence by arguing their case on a legal technicality.
On their conviction, the trial judge, Mr Justice Morland, recommended that the boys should serve a minimum of eight years but the sentence was later increased to 10 years by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor, and to 15 years by the Tory home secretary, Mr Michael Howard. The Law Lords ruled last year that Mr Howard's intervention was illegal.
A ruling by the European Commission for Human Rights in Strasbourg, which passes cases on to the full European court, is expected on Monday.