Images of James Bulger’s killer ‘being circulated on social media’

Pictures of James Bulger’s killer, Jon Venables, are allegedly being circulated online by prisoners who want to take revenge on him

Inmates are said to be "lying in wait" as apparent new images of Venables have been uploaded to prison culture websites. Prisoners say they are determined to keep publicising the photos and reveal Venables’ identity online, despite administrators trying to remove them. A source told The Sun: "I’ve put the picture up several times. It keeps getting removed but I don’t care – I’ll keep posting it because he’ll be back out soon and people need to know what he looks like." Bulger was tortured and killed after being taken from a Merseyside shopping centre in 1993, with Venables and Robert Thompson jailed for the horrific murder. Last week Venables was given a 40 month prison sentence for possessing indecent images of children found on the deep web. People convicted of sharing photos of Venables on the internet can be imprisoned under contempt of court laws. There are lifelong orders in place banning new photographs of him and Thompson from being published or their names or whereabouts revealed. Fines also exist for mistakenly sharing a name or photograph of someone that is not one of the murderers. A statement from the Attorney General's Office said of the ruling: "The terms of the order mean that if a picture claims to be of Venables or Thompson, even if it is not actually them, there will be a breach of the order. "Providing details of the new identities of Venables and Thompson or their whereabouts is also prohibited - this order applies to material which is on the internet. "There are many different images circulating online claiming to be of Venables or Thompson - potentially innocent individuals may be wrongly identified as being one of the two men and placed in danger. "The order, and its enforcement, is therefore intended to protect not only Venables and Thompson but also those members of the public who have been incorrectly identified as being one of the two men."