Covid: James Bulger charity faces £70k shortfall after events cancelled

The charity offers respite holidays to children and their families

A charity set up in memory of a murdered toddler is at risk of folding due a funding shortfall caused by Covid-19, its chairwoman has said.

The James Bulger Memorial Trust was launched in 2011, the year James, who was abducted and killed by two boys, would have turned 21.

Kym Darby said it faced a £70,000 shortfall due to cancelled fundraising.

She said it "didn't meet the criteria" for government funding offered to help deal with the impact of Covid.

The charity offers holidays at their lodge near Blackpool to families and children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

A spokesman said lockdown restrictions have meant it has been unable to stage events which bring in money to fund the breaks.

'Inundated every day'

Ms Darby said the impact of the pandemic had been "massive" and had left James's mother Denise Fergus, who founded the charity, feeling "totally frustrated".

"We have not been able to hold any of our events," she said.

"The government did offer funding for charities, but unfortunately we didn't meet the criteria."

She added that the charity was "inundated every day [with calls] from families requesting respite holidays", but she was not sure if it would be able to continue without extra funding.

The work Ms Fergus, of Kirkby, has done with the charity earned her the British Citizen Award for services to the community in 2017.

Two-year-old James was abducted at the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle and beaten to death on 12 February 1993.

John Venables and Robert Thompson, who were both 10 at the time, were arrested days later.

They became the youngest to be charged with murder in the 20th Century and were jailed.

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