REGARDING your report (LET, July 2) about the family of Robert Thompson, one of the Jamie Bulger killers, having to go into hiding for the ninth time in eight years after an alleged revenge attack, they and the family of Jon Venables must be suffering intolerably in the knowledge of what their children were capable of.

The mother of Robert Thompson is rightly afraid for the safety of her young children and she cannot be held responsible for the crime committed by another member of her family.

Those who say that Thompsn and Venables haven't been punished enough might pause to reflect that they will be punished every day for the rest of their lives by having to live with the enormity of what they did.

At the risk of attracting howls of derision, I would ask if their crime was attributable to sheer badness, or in part, to something which rapidly got out of hand in an escalation of events created by fantasy in their minds, as children of that age often create 'friends' they talk with, but who exist only in their imagination.

However, one thing is certain -- the families and the children of those families, deserve better.

ALBERT MORRIS, Clement View, Nelson.