Men admit breaking injuction over Bulger killers’ identities

Neil Harkins, of Bridlington, East Yorkshire and Dean Liddle of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, were both given nine month sentences, suspended for fifteen months for being in contempt of court.

However Sir John Thomas, sitting at the high court warned that in future “for those who publish on the internet or social media, there will be little prospect of escaping from a custodial sentence.”

Both men had admitted sharing images and posted comments on Facebook and Twitter claiming to be Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, who were convicted of killing James in 1993.

The high court was told by barrister Melanie Cumberland that the Attorney General brought the proceedings because of the strong public interest. The terms of the injunction prevented publication of any images or information purporting to identify Venables or Thompson, even if the images weren’t of them.

Tweets

The offences were committed on 14 February 2013, shortly after the 20th anniversary of James Bulger’s death.

Dean Liddle, who works as a voluntary assistant at a local school and is married with a profoundly deaf son, posted images on Twitter under the name @opinionateddad to his 915 followers. After he was contacted by the Attorney General’s Office he tweeted the following:

“Just been served with court papers for posting sick child killers Venables and Thompson. What a joke”

“Love them to take me to court. I’ll tell them exactly why I posted pictures of sick child killers”

When he was told he would be prosecuted, he wrote a letter apologising saying he did not fully understand the injunction and had seen the images on many other sites.

Neil Harkins, who is a house husband and father of three, posted images and comments on Facebook. They were shared with 24,039 people. At the time he wrote:

“Interesting that this photo itself isn’t allowed to be shown and there’s an investigation on how it got out. What’s more interesting is why the he’ll (sic) he got released and protected in the first place.”

He later apologised and said he had found the pictures after reading a news article online.

The contents of both their comments showed they were aware the injunction existed, but decided to breach it anyway.

“Risk of serious physical harm or death”

The court heard that Harkins admits being “grossly foolish and apologises to the court.” His lawyer said he “didn’t fully understand the seriousness of breaching the injunction” and thought that the images would only be shared among his 141 Facebook friends:

“He never for one moment thought they would spread like wildfire”. Harkins claims he hadn’t seen the details of the full injunction.

The Attorney General is considering bringing proceedings against other individuals. Melanie Cumberland said the intervention of the Attorney General was needed to mitigate “the very real risk of serious physical harm or death” to anyone who might be identified as being Jon Venables or Robert Thompson.