Bad Omens

I don't suppose it's easy being a member of the Parole Board, yet its decision to free Jon Venables - the child killer of toddler James Bulger - is still pretty unfathomable to most people.

Because Jon Venables was not only arrested and recalled to custody for possession of child pornography in 2010 - he had also broken the terms of his release on licence by returning to Liverpool and deliberately disclosing his new identity.

Taken together all three of these 'further offences' look to me like very bad omens - they suggest that Jon Venables has some kind of death wish and that he is very likely to offend again in future.

Not only that he has apparently disclosed his 'new identity' on previous occasions - and at £250,000 a time this is obviously no laughing matter the authorities can simply brush aside and agree to start all over again at huge public expense - especially when these measures seem not to be having the desired effect of protecting the public.

Never mind the hurt and anguish caused to the family of James Bulger - who must feel like this man is walking, callously and deliberately, over their two-year old son's grave.

For the life of me, I can't see this ending any way other than badly and if it does - the Parole Board will have some very difficult questions to answer about exactly how it reached this  decision to release Jon Venables back into some other, unsuspecting, community.