Overview
- The Parole Board panel refused Jon Venables' latest bid for release after an oral hearing that the board published a summary of on Monday.
- Panel members heard reports from prison and community probation officers, three psychologists and a psychiatrist and concluded all but one professional recommended continued detention.
- The panel said specialists identified continuing sexual preoccupation and a realistic risk of future viewing of indecent images or progression to contact offences as reasons to deny release.
- Venables told the hearing he accepted the need for further offending work in custody and said he was not seeking release, while the Bulger family criticised the decision to hold the hearing in private.
- Under the current law he remains eligible for another review in due course and the Ministry of Justice will set the date for any future parole hearing; his case history includes a 2001 release on licence and multiple later recalls for offences involving indecent images.