James Patrick Bulger was a two-year-old boy from Kirkby, Merseyside, England, who was abducted, tortured, and murdered by two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, on February 12, 1993. Thompson and Venables led Bulger away from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, after his mother had taken her eyes off him momentarily. They took him to a railway line in Walton, Liverpool, where they killed him by bludgeoning him with bricks and a metal bar. His mutilated body was found two days later, on the railway line, two and a half miles away from where he was abducted.

Thompson and Venables were charged on February 20, 1993, with abduction and murder. They were found guilty on November 24, making them the youngest convicted murderers in modern British history. They were sentenced to indefinite detention at Her Majestys pleasure and remained in custody until a Parole Board decision in June 2001 recommended their release on a lifelong licence at age 18. Venables was sent back to prison in 2010 and 2017 for possessing indecent images of children and was refused parole in 2020.