On 12 February 1993 in Merseyside, England two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables , abducted, tortured, and murdered a 2-year-old boy, James Patrick Bulger. Thompson and Venables led Bulger away from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, after his mother had taken her eyes off him momentarily. After Bulger was led away from his mother at a shopping center in Bootle. The boys took him to a railway line, where they physically abused and killed him.
One of the boys threw the blue paint that they had shoplifted earlier into Bulger's left eye. They kicked, stamped, and threw bricks and stones at him. They placed batteries in Bulger's mouth although none were found there. Finally, the boys dropped a 10 kg (22 lb) railway fishplate on Bulger. He sustained 10 skull fractures as a result of the bar striking his head. Pathologist Alan Williams stated that Bulger suffered so many injuries—42 in total—that none could be identified as the fatal blow. Following this heinous act, the boys callously placed James's lifeless body on the railway tracks in the hope that it would appear as though he had been struck by a train.
His body was found on a railway line two and a half miles (four kilometers) away in Walton, Liverpool, two days later. and Venables and Thompson were arrested and charged with murder.
Jon Venables, one of the two boys who murdered James Bulger in 1993, has lost his parole bid to be released from prison in 2023.

Home Secretary David Blunkett approved the decision, and they were released a few weeks later on lifelong license after serving eight years. It was reported that both boys "were given new identities and moved to secret locations under a 'witness protection'-like program.