- Michael Fergus, 19, makes sure he texts mother Denise whenever he is out
- Has never travelled alone on a bus or train, or left Liverpool without relative
- James Bulger was murdered by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables in 1993
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Living in fear: The younger brother of James Bulger, Michael Fergus (right), has revealed his mother Denise (left) is still worried about him going out 20 years after the toddler's murder
On the rare occasions that 19-year-old Michael Fergus goes out with his friends on a Saturday night, his mother Denise is never far from his thoughts.
He knows she worries, so he sends countless text messages, telling her where he is, who he’s with, that he’s safe and what time he’ll be home.
‘I hate seeing my mum upset, that’s the worst thing. I don’t like it at all,’ says Michael. ‘If I stay out a bit later than I said I was going to, I feel guilty.’
Denise, 45, adds: ‘He’ll text me to say, “I’m all right Mum, don’t worryâ€, but I can’t sleep until he comes in. If he’s ten minutes late, I start to panic.’
At an age when most young adults are embracing independence, Michael tells me he has never travelled alone on a bus or train.
He’s never ventured beyond his home city of Liverpool without a member of his family by his side.
Rather than go out, Denise prefers Michael to invite friends to the safe confines of their home in Kirkby, which is protected by state-of-the-art, infra-red CCTV cameras and security lights.
Unemployed since he finished college last May, he is even driven by his parents to and from job interviews, instead of Michael risking even the shortest journey on his own.
It sounds a rather claustrophobic existence â€" but Michael accepts it without complaint. ‘I understand why my mother is the way she is,’ he says simply.
This is because Michael is the younger brother of murdered toddler James Bulger. His protected existence is the legacy of a childhood spent in the shadow of one of the most disturbing murders in British history.
Having lost one child in incomprehensibly brutal circumstances, Denise Fergus has made it her mission to make sure it can never happen again.
Listening to Michael describe his life in his first ever interview â€" which he has given to mark the 20th anniversary of his brother’s murder â€" it seems the cruellest of ironies, that it is he who has paid for James’s death with his freedom, rather than the two ten-year-old schoolboys who killed him.
Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who abducted James â€" one month short of his third birthday â€" from a shopping precinct in Bootle on Friday, February 12, 1993, were released on life licence in 2001 after serving eight years for the murder, the horror of which has not diminished with time.
Cheeky and cheery: James (left), who was murdered in 1993, and Michael (right) both aged two
James’s mutilated little body was found on railway tracks in Walton, Merseyside, two days after his disappearance â€" on Valentine’s Day. He’d been tortured and beaten with bricks and iron bars. He died from head injuries.
His killers were given new identities at the taxpayers’ expense after their trial. Venables subsequently re-offended. In July 2010, he was sent to an adult prison after admitting downloading and distributing indecent images of children. He has now applied for parole and is expected to be released again soon.
Michael knows he could walk past either of his brother’s murderers in the street, strike up a conversation and not know who they once were, but he tries not to think about that, or them, too much.
‘It upsets me to think that two ten-year-olds could do that to my brother. I will never understand it and I can never forgive them, but I am not consumed with hate or thoughts of rev enge,’ says Michael. ‘I just want to get on with my life and look to the future, not the past. I don’t want to sink to their level.’
Always checking in: Michael sends countless text messages, telling his mother where he is, who he's with, that he's safe and what time he'll be home
Born to Denise and Ralph Bulger ten months after James’s murder, Michael was less than a year old when his parents’ marriage broke down. Michael was two when Denise met electrician Stuart Fergus, 37, whom she married 15 years ago. They have two further sons Thomas, 14, and 13-year-old Leon.
A large portrait of James takes pride of place in the living room of the Ferguses’ home.
Given the physical similarities between James and Michael as toddlers, it’s impossible not to look at Michael’s face and imagine how James would have looked had he been allowed to grow up.
But Denise says it is her younger son Thomas who now reminds her most of James in looks. He also shares James’s cheeky temperament, while Michael has always been quiet.
Michael says; ‘I have never felt second best to James. Mum never made me feel like that. She has never preferred one child over another. We all feel equal.’
Denise adds: ‘Michael is Michael. His milestones are his own and I try not to imagine every milestone James missed, otherwise it would take over my life.’
They are a happy, tight-knit family, but Michael often imagines what their lives would be like now if James were alive.
‘It’s devastating to think I have an older brother I’m never going to see, never going to meet or talk to. I can never have a drink with him or do all the normal things brothers do,’ says Michael.
‘I never knew James, but he’s been with me throughout my life. Mum’s always talked about him and still does, but we talk about the happy memories she has of his short life, not what happened to him, because she doesn’t want to burden us with that darkness.
‘Every Christmas we go to James’s grave and dress up a tree alongside it with lights. It’s me who always puts a star on the top. I really look forward to it, because it’s one time I get to be with my brother. He’s never been forgotten.’
It’s perhaps no surprise that Michael is as protective of his mother as she is of him. Over the years, he’s witnessed her acute distress. Not only are there the constant reminders of James’s murder, but Denise’s ongoing campaign for justice has amounted, time and again, to nothing.
Killers: Venables, left, and Robert Thompson, right, were convicted of the murder of toddler James Bulger
The original trial judge ordered Thompson and Venables to be detained until adulthood. This was later increased by the then Home Secretary, Michael Howard, to 15 years, but a European Court upheld the original eight-year sentence, ruling the juveniles had been denied a fair hearing in an adult court.
Denise tried and failed to stop the killers’ release on life licence, warning they’d re-offend. Most recently, she was distraught to learn Thompson and Venables were in line for payouts after their phones were hacked by the now defunct News of the World. She’s launched an e-petition against compensation payments to convicts.
‘It’s heartbreaking for me to see Mum angry or upset,’ says Michael, whose stepfather goes through newspaper reports with a black marker pen, scoring out details he thinks will upset Denise.
‘I never felt I was growing up in James’s shadow, or that there was something mi ssing, but there was always the feeling that he should have been here, so I’ve always understood and accepted why my mum is so protective of me and my brothers.
‘Now and then it did bother me that I couldn’t do what other kids could. When I asked my mum if I could go to the shops with my mates, she’d always say no, which seemed a bit unfair, because it was only round the corner.
‘Sometimes I was tempted to cycle off round the block, but I didn’t dare because if Mum noticed I was gone for just a couple of seconds, she’d have had the whole street out looking for me.
‘I knew it could send her mind somewhere else, thinking what happened to James could happen again. We’ve never argued over it, I’ve never felt the need to rebel because I love her. I couldn’t have wished for a better mother.’
CCTV: The two-year-old being led away from the Strand shopping centre in Bootle by the older boys
With the 20th anniversary of James’s murder this week, it is a sensitive and difficult time for the family, as Denise is dragged back, once more, to the past.
Less than 60 seconds was all it took for Thompson and Venables â€" two truants from dysfunctional, broken families â€" to lure James away from his mother’s side. She briefly let go of his hand to take out her purse in a butcher’s shop, only to turn round and find him gone.
CCTV cameras captured heartbreaking images of Denise’s trusting, vulnerable child clutching Venables’ hand â€" Thompson a few paces ahead â€" as he was led out of the precinct. Dragged for two miles through the streets, James sobbed for his mother, who was frantically searching the shopping centre.
His body was found by teenagers on the afternoon of Sunday February 14, 1993. They initially thought it was a doll. James had suffered 42 injures and died sometime before h e was run over by a train. ‘It may have happened 20 years ago, but sometimes it feels like yesterday. One second James was by my side and the next he was gone. The worst part was not knowing where he was or what to think,’ says Denise, whose first child, a daughter called Kirsty, was stillborn in 1989.
‘I’d always been very protective of James because he’d brought us so much joy after Kirsty died. When he vanished, I thought lightning couldn’t strike twice. I thought I’d never have another baby taken away from me.’
She adds: ‘When we found out from the CCTV footage that two young boys had taken him, I took it as a good sign. I thought they probably had James in a garage somewhere and were feeding him sweets and Mars Bars and passing him off as their little brother. I couldn’t believe two young lads would hurt a child. I thought I’d get him back.’
Horrific: Police investigate the scene where James's mutilated body was found on railway tracks in Walton, Merseyside, two days after his disappearance
When police finally informed Denise and her then husband Ralph that they’d found James’s body, Denise refused to accept it. To this day, she still doesn’t know the full extent of his injuries.
‘Even after the police told me they’d found his body, I still believed I would get him back. I was in complete denial,’ says Denise, who launched the James Bulger Memorial Trust in 2011, a charity which provides free holidays for bereaved children, youngsters who are crime victims or who have done good for others.
‘I was numb. It was as if someone had put a black veil in front of my face. I couldn’t see beyond that veil. Voices made no sense to me. I didn’t know what was happening around me. I was in a world of the unknown.
‘The police tried to protect me, but I wonder now if they did me any favours because I’m still finding out things about how James died 20 years later, which isn’t right. I t’s upsetting because I don’t know what’s true or not. That’s the part that really hurts deeply, that’s the part that never heals.
‘I know James suffered, but I try to think that he didn’t suffer too much â€" but reading between the lines I think he did, didn’t he? I don’t like to look back. I’m very happily married now and I have three gorgeous kids. I don’t want to go back to those dark days. I want the light to still shine.
‘If I thought all the time about what Thompson and Venables did to James, then part of me would die and they would have killed me too, and I can’t let that happen because I have three boys who need me.’
                                            Denise Fergus
Denise says she would not be alive today had she not fallen pregnant with Michael in those desperate weeks after James’s murder. Her son became her sole reason for living.
‘James was taken in the February and Michael was born that December. I’d just lost a baby and I found myself holding another,’ she says.
‘Michael got me through the darkest days of my life when I didn’t want to live. He gave me the strength to carry on. He wasn’t a replacement baby, because I could never replace James. Michael may have looked like James when he was born, but he was his own person with his own character. Caring for him gave me a big lift. He needed me and I had to be there for him.’
The birth of Michael, however, could not save the Bulger’s marriage.
Last weekend, Ralph Bulger revealed in his new book, My James, that despite the united front the couple put on in public after their son’s murder, Ralph privately blamed Denise.
He wrote: ‘Later, there would be times when â€" quite unfairly â€" I blamed Denise. I was wrong. Very, very wrong. It was just part of my raging grief. I wanted to scream “Why did you let go of his hand? Why did you let him out of your sight? He would still be here if it wasn’t for youâ€.
Denise flinches and says: ‘It’s no comfort to me that Ralph now feels ashamed for that. Yes, he did blame me and it was devastating to hear, especially when I was at my lowest ebb. At the time, I blamed myself, too. Even today, sometimes I think of the “what ifsâ€. I think “if only I hadn’t reached into my bag to pull out my purse†or “If only I hadn’t gone into the butchersâ€.
‘I only stopped blaming myself when I heard that Thompson and Venables had tried to abduct another toddler earlier that day. If it hadn’t been James, it would have been someone else’s child . James didn’t stand a chance against those two.’
Denise says it wasn’t her decision to end their marriage. ‘Ralph had his reasons for leaving and I had no choice but to live with it,’ she says.
‘I felt the rug had been pulled out from under my feet and I’d hit another brick wall. But at least I still had Michael and knew I had to stay strong for him.’
After his parents’ divorce, Michael used to see his father Ralph every Saturday, but that changed when he was 13 after he changed his surname legally to Fergus, his stepfather’s name.
Denise was applying for Michael’s first passport, to go on holiday to Spain, and Michael says he simply wanted the same name as his brothers and family. ‘After we went on holiday, I hardly ever saw my dad Ralph again. He never called for me and that was that,’ Michael explains.
‘I feel sad for him, losing James. It’s not a nice thing to go through, but I have never shared my feelings with him. Stuart is my dad now. My name is Fergus and Stuart’s always been there for me.
‘We are a happy family, me, my mum and dad, Thomas and Leon. We have a laugh. I suppose we’re what you’d call close and that’s the way we like it. I would never let anyone hurt my Mum.’
forjames.org; epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/33458
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