On 15 March 1999, the court in Strasbourg ruled by 14 votes to five that there had been a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding the fairness of the trial of Thompson and Venables, stating: "The public trial process in an adult court must be regarded in the case of an 11-year-old child as a severely intimidating procedure. His remarks resonate and seem to hold a deeper truth that most works covering crimes of this type lack. Like anyone my age who was born in England, I grew up knowing about the Bulger murder and the national conversation/panic that it triggered.

The prosecution admitted a number of exhibits during the trial, including a box of 27 bricks, a blood-stained stone, Bulger's underpants, and the rusty iron bar described as a railway fishplate. A sensitive and definitive account, The Sleep of Reason achieves a unique understanding of the James Bulger case, and comes as close as may ever be possible to explaining how two ten-year-olds could kill. They never planned on taking him over two miles through town where some people seen them dragging and abusing James and did nothing except a couple of comments of taking him to the police.Jon venables would go on to reoffend and is still jail as we speak for child pornography offences for the second time yet he is still protected under yet another assumed name!

The portraits of the police and inspectors that he draws up are in-congruent with the rest of the story and frankly dull. In response to the controversy, Morris stated that the humour in his play was "never at the expense of the various people, Mrs Fergus included, who have suffered so much in the aftermath of James's murder".All told, this is a powerful read, Smith does not go for banner headlines or cheap blows, he narrates the facts simply and without too much colour, a story like this speaks for itself, it does not need writing akin to the gutter press. While this is a interesting stance to take, and i particularly enjoyed his reasoning behind why the crimes where committed, i found there to be a bias towards them.

For David James Smith to add insult to injury by attempting to elicit sympathy for such pedophile murderers should be deeply offensive to any decent-minded person. But this is not to the detriment of James Bulger and his parents - with the existing, deep sympathy and care felt to the victims in this case, Smith’s bias simply gives a more complete picture than would normally be given. Overall this is a great report into this highly emotive case, by someone who was there from the beginning. The author has detailed well the events leading up to the murder, as well as the aftermath and the court case itself.Frankly, they SHOULD have been scared since the forensic and other evidence against them was so overwhelming as to leave zero doubt about their guilt. After a number of "young girlfriends", it was presumed that Venables was having a delayed adolescence.