[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by Flyboy

Then perhaps you could point us in the right direction to find out? The point is, you, nor anyone else, have any proof of what you are saying. You have not read the trial transcripts, nor were you there. All you are doing is basing an assumption, gleaned from a biased press.

From a legally undisputed article published in the Independent a year after the convictions:

"Many in the court and beyond suspected that something terrible must have happened in these boys that finally drove them to this frenzy. But the legal system not only precluded the possibility of delving into their lives, it led to the suppression of evidence.

The intention was kind: to do everything possible to avoid adding to the suffering of James Bulger's parents. Thus an agreement was struck between prosecution and defence to the effect that, the forensic evidence entirely proving the case against the two defendants, certain injuries the child suffered would not be mentioned to the jury.

Under the system as it stands, it was a reasonable decision: this evidence, which certainly would have led to prurience in the media, was not necessary to the case. The prosecution had all they needed to prove murder. The fact that it was necessary in order to indicate the two boys' disturbance was, as we will see, not part of the case.

The police, although perhaps more anxious than anyone else to protect the Bulgers' feelings, did their duty: their careful interrogations of the two boys, almost all of which were played to the court on tape, repeatedly touched upon the suspected sexual element of the crime. James's shoes and stockings, trousers and underpants had been taken off. And the pathologist's report read out in court recorded that the child's foreskin had been manipulated.

That this information remained in the report was already beyond the agreement that had been reached. Detective Superintendent Albert Kirby, who led the investigation, knew about the agreement: 'But I felt that the jury had a right to know at least that much,' he told me.

Knowing only 'that much', however, was not enough. Even though nobody who listened to the interrogations could fail to notice both boys' desperate discomfort when questioned both about handling Jamie's private parts and about some batteries found near the toddler's body, here the tapes and the official record stopped."

For those minded to look hard enough for them there are interview transcripts available which corroborate the sexual nature / overtones of certain aspects of the attack.