Infamous child killer Jon Venables, the murderer of a 2-year-old, James Bulger, could be moved from the United Kingdom to New Zealand to start a new life.
British officials have reportedly grown tired of giving James Bulger's killer new identities. Venables was granted lifelong anonymity after he was found guilty of murder when he was 10.
Daily Star reported that the authorities believe paying for Venables to go to a country like Australia, Canada, or New Zealand would be cheaper than funding more failed new starts in the UK.
Canada is the most likely potential destination for Venables, though the other two countries are also under consideration.
A source told Daily Star:
"Venables is costing a fortune."
"The thinking is that it would be cheaper to get rid of him abroad than keep forking out."
Bulger died after Jon Venables and Robert Thompson snatched him from his mother in a Liverpool shopping center, North West England, in 1993.
The pair allegedly tortured, killed, and tied Bulger's body to a rail track in Merseyside.
Both killers were given a lifelong UK taxpayer-funded anonymity and new identities after being released from a life sentence in 2001.
But Venables, now 36, has been in and out of prison on child abuse charges in 2010 and 2018.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that the case had cost the UK taxpayers £65,000 in a legal battle to keep Venables identity a secret. After James Bulger's dad, Ralph Bulger, demanded the anonymity order be lifted that protect his son's killer.
Ralph argued that the information about Venables was "common knowledge," easily accessible online.
But High Court judges ruled against him, agreeing that lifting the order would endanger Venables' life.
The UK's president of the family division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, refused to change the terms of the order.
McFarlane said:
"(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)."
British officials have previously reported how some persons in the top-secret witness protection program are moved out of the UK.
Deputy Chief Constable, Andy Cooke, National Policing Leads for protected persons, said:
"We have to be very careful about who knows where they are."
"We relocate both within the UK and internationally on occasions. It depends on the level of threat on the individual circumstance of a case and whether it is necessary."
