Jon Venables was released in 2001. Photo / Getty Images
Jon Venables was released in 2001. Photo / Getty Images
Infamous child killer Jon Venables, the murderer of 2-year-old James Bulger, could be shipped from the United Kingdom to New Zealand to start a new life.
British officials have reportedly grown tired of creating new identities for Venables who was granted lifelong anonymity after he was found guilty of murder aged 10.
Having to fund legal battles to keep his name secret is behind the relocation, with Canada the most likely destination but New Zealand and Australia are also options.
"The thinking is that it would be cheaper to get rid of him abroad, than keep forking out," a source told the Daily Star.
Bulger died after he was snatched by Venables and Robert Thompson, also aged 10, from his mother in a Liverpool shopping centre in 1993.
The pair tortured, killed and tied the body of Bulger to a train track in Merseyside, North-West England.
Both killers were granted lifelong UK taxpayer-funded anonymity and given new identities when they were released from life sentences in 2001.
Jon Venables could be sent to New Zealand. Photo / Getty Images
Venables, now 36, has been convicted twice since his release, once in 2010 and again in February 2018 after admitting to possessing "sickening" child porn images and a paedophile manual.
Earlier this year it was revealed it had cost the UK taxpayers £65,000 ($125,642) in legal battles to keep his identity a secret.
In March the father of Bulger, Ralph Bulger, wanted to identify Venables publicly after he was jailed for possessing child-abuse images.
In his legal battle, Ralph argued information about Venables which was already "common knowledge" should be made public, adding that certain details about him were easily accessible online.
However, the UK's president of the family division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, refused to change the terms of the order, saying it was a "wholly exceptional case" which was designed to protect the "uniquely notorious" Venables from "being put to death".
According to the Guardian, he said "There is a strong possibility, if not a probability, that if his identity were known he would be pursued resulting in grave and possibly fatal consequences …
"My decision is in no way a reflection on the applicants themselves, for whom there is a profoundest sympathy. The reality is that the case for varying the injunction has simply not been made."
Bulger's mother Denise Fergus told the BBC at the time she didn't support the legal bid, saying she does not want "blood on her hands".
Comment is being sought from New Zealand immigration authorities.
