The father and uncle of murdered toddler James Bulger have lost a High Court bid to have information about killer Jon Venables made public.
A worldwide order made in 2001 has allowed Venables to live under a cloak of anonymity since his release from a life sentence for the kidnap, torture and murder of the two-year-old in February 1993.
Lawyers for Ralph and Jimmy Bulger argued certain details about the killer and his life are “common knowledge” and easily accessible online.
On Monday their request to the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, to consider varying the order so that it does not cover this information, was refused.
He said: “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.”
The judge said the injunction was designed to protect Venables from “being put to death”.
He added: “As Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss held, (Venables) is ‘uniquely notorious’ and 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.
“This is, therefore, a wholly exceptional case and the evidence in 2019 is more than sufficient to sustain the conclusion that there continues to be a real risk of very substantial harm to (Venables).”
Sir Andrew added: “I accept that normally the public and Parliament should be able to debate important matters relating to future policy on the basis of full disclosure of relevant information.
“For the reasons I have given, that is simply not possible in this case without compromising (Venables’) right to be protected from serious violence.”