James Bulger’s mother Denise Fergus says in new book she is haunted by so many ‘what ifs’

The mother of James Bulger says she is still haunted by so many ‘what ifs’ surrounding her son’s murder.

Two-year-old James was killed on February 12, 1993 by ten-year-olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson in a case that horrified the nation.

In a new book, I Let Him Go, which will be published next month, his mother Denise Fergus, 50, writes about the pain of dealing with her son’s death 25 years on.

She writes how her son’s killers, who served only eight years in prison for the crime, would have been jailed for longer had the full extent of their attack been put on public record.

James was led away by the two boys from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Merseyside, while his mother was paying for groceries.

His body was found two days later on a railway line in nearby Walton, Liverpool.

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In her book, extracts of which have been published by The Mirror, Ms Fergus writes: ‘People often ask if I blame myself for what happened – for taking my eyes off James for that split second.

‘I’m haunted by so many “what ifs” – what if I had taken a buggy to the shopping centre and not just held his hand? The only time I let go was to pay for the chops.

‘But do you know what my biggest regret is? That I didn’t turn right instead of left when I came out the shop – if I had taken the right turn and gone around the corner, I would have seen James being led away.’

In the book, Ms Fergus says she decided to stay away from the trial to avoid ‘hearing terrible details about my son’s death’.

She writes: ‘Deep down I knew I couldn’t face it.

‘I only found out afterwards that the decision was taken, in conjunction with the Crown Prosecution Service, not to use all the evidence they had because they thought it would be unnecessarily upsetting for us.

‘They selected the evidence they needed to secure a conviction but didn’t put everything in the public domain. Everyone did what they thought was right at the time.

‘But as our solicitor Sean Sexton later said: “Perhaps had everything Venables and Thompson did been in the public domain, they would have been given longer sentences and James might have had the justice he deserved. At the very least they would have seen the inside of an actual prison.”’

After serving eight-year terms as young offenders, Venables and Thompson were released on licence in 2001 when they were 18 and given new identities.

In 2010, Venables returned to jail for two years for reportedly downloading child pornography.

Last November, he was sent to prison again for allegedly possessing child abuse images on his computer.