Jon Venables will not face a public parole hearing despite a plea from murdered toddler James Bulger's mother, the Parole Board has decided.

Denise Fergus demanded that the upcoming hearing for her son's killer, now 44, be held in public so he is forced to 'face up' to his crimes.

Venables – who abducted, tortured and murdered two-year-old James in 1993 – will have his case heard by parole chiefs at an oral hearing more than two years after his last appeal.

Parole Board hearings are usually held in private but they can be made public 'in the interests of justice'. A number of media organisations also applied for a public hearing.

Ms Fergus had asked for the hearing to be held in public also to help combat 'misinformation' about the case which had a 'retraumatising impact' on her. 

But in reaching its decision, the board noted that making the case public would increase 'the risk of identifying the prisoner and of sensationalising the case'. 

It added that a public hearing would make it 'very difficult for Jon Venables to give evidence' because he could be 'being listened to by people who are seeking to get information so that they can kill him'. 

Venables was given lifetime anonymity because he committed the crime as a child.

John Saunders, on behalf of the Parole Board, wrote on the decision: 'I note that a high bar has been set for a public hearing to be in the interests of justice and I have decided that this high bar is not met in this case.'

Venables was just ten when he and his friend Robert Thompson led James away from his mother at a shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside. The boy's mutilated body was found on a railway line two and a half miles away.

Venables was first released on licence in 2001 but has since twice been recalled to prison after being convicted of possessing indecent images of children in 2010 and again in 2017.

His last attempt to secure release was rejected in 2023. However, Mrs Fergus was informed in January that he would be given another opportunity to put his case before the Parole Board.

A spokesman for Ms Fergus previously said her application to observe the hearing had been granted.

Victims have been able to attend parole hearings held in private under reforms rolled out nationally in April as part of efforts to boost confidence in the justice system.

The rules began to change after a successful legal challenge over the decision to release black cab rapist Jon Worboys in 2018. The High Court later overturned that decision and also struck down the secrecy rules surrounding Parole Board decisions.

The Government subsequently introduced rules allowing members of the public to apply for hearings to be held in public in certain circumstances, although the Parole Board can still refuse those applications.