James Bulger's father bids to lift Jon Venables' lifelong anonymity

Jon Venables was 10 when he and Robert Thompson killed James Bulger

The father of James Bulger has started a legal challenge to try to overturn the lifelong anonymity of one of his son's killers.

Ralph Bulger said something had "gone wrong" after Jon Venables was jailed last year for possessing child abuse images for a second time.

The High Court in London heard that he wanted information to be made public which he said was "common knowledge".

Venables and Robert Thompson, both 10, killed the two-year-old in 1993.

He was murdered after being snatched from Bootle, Merseyside.

James Bulger was two when he was snatched and killed in 1993

The case is also being brought by James' uncle, Jimmy Bulger, but the toddler's mother Denise Fergus is not part of it.

Venables and Thompson were granted lifelong anonymity and given new identities when they were released on licence in 2001.

But he was sentenced to three years and four months in prison last February after he admitted charges of making indecent images of children and one of having a "sickening" paedophile manual.

'Gruesome murder'

Solicitor-advocate Robin Makin, representing the brothers, said: "This is a very high-profile matter and indeed it is one where the current situation is unprecedented, in which we now have a child murderer who has, as an adult, committed two sets of serious sexual offences and is undoubtedly a danger to the public."

He added: "The sad reality of the gruesome murder of James Bulger is that it did have sexual themes and that is quite a feature, given what has happened."

James's father Ralph Bulger is challenging an order protecting Jon Venables' anonymity

Mr Makin said that it appeared "no lessons have been learned".

He told the court that the Bulgers did not want the order to be discharged altogether, but varied so that some information could be revealed without the threat of prosecution.