Jon Venables is walking around the Mulberry Bush

Jon Venables is walking around the Mulberry Bush

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"Wakefield houses a Close Supervision Centre (CSC) a small therapeutic centre aiming to provide a supportive, safe, structured and consistent environment for some of the most challenging offenders".

I have read the injunction between Jon Venables and Robert Thompson v News Group Newspapers Ltd and Associated Newspapers Ltd and Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd, and have concluded that I am not bound by it for 3 reasons.

1) Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President of the Family Division, concluded that: "In my judgment, this case stands or falls on the application to it of the law of confidence". I am breaching no confidence. I have discovered the location of Jon Venables using my inside knowledge gained over my 35 years within prisons. By a process of elimination whittled it down from 139 prisons to just 3 possible prisons. Wakefield; Whitemoor; and Woodhill. It is just a coincidence that they each begin with the letter "W". There are 4 Close Supervision Centres within the system, 1 each in Wakefield and Whitemoor, and 2 within Woodhill. I have no interest in the location of Robert Thompson, and if I knew where he was I would not blog his location. The injunction only relates to their location upon release. Once subjected to recall, I contend that the injunction no longer protects Jon Venables in relation to his location.

2) The injunction was against the MainStreamMedia, and was meant to cover everybody in the whole wide world. Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss recognised that there was a problem in attempting to gag the internet.

3) Freedom of speech. Whilst I am bound by English law, my blog is hosted in the US and governed by US law, and the right to freedom of speech overrides any attempt to justify censorship.

In my view, the MoJ erred by subjecting Jon Venables to the adult prison system. It may have been better had they instead subjected him to house arrest like in the case of General Augusto José Ramón Pinochet, in a secret location, like somebody on the witness protection programme.

The Daily Mirror reports: "A hand-picked team of 20 officers are guarding Venables". Word of mouth spreads to colleagues, wives, family and friends, and some of them contact the media. Here there is a breach of confidence. It comes down to trust. However, according to the Yorkshire Evening Post: "Wakefield: Prison officers suspended over phone claims". In this account, 8 prison officers cannot be trusted. Or, 10 prison officers, in the Daily Mirror account: "Ten prison officers have been suspended on suspicion of smuggling mobile phones into one of Britain's top security jails". Throughout the system there are at least 2,000 bent screws. The MoJ has got a big problem on its hands trying to keep security on a secret.

"Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush,
On a cold and frosty morning."

This well-known children's nursery rhyme may have begun life as a song or chant by inmates of Wakefield prison as they exercised around a mulberry bush within the prison grounds.

The mulberry bush (or more accurately, tree) still thrives at the prison today.

When I was in Wakefield Prison during my life sentence and my budgie died I buried it beneath the Mulberry Bush. Six prison officers were in attendance on the burial detail.