Should child killer Mary Bell remain under lifelong anonymity?

Question

This is old news, but I was curious as to what people think about Mary Bell.

For anyone who doesn't know, Bell killed a 3 year old child in 1968 when she herself was 11. Bell's mother, a prostitute, tried to murder her 4 times when she was a kid and regularly 'rented' her to customers, which was obviously seen as a cause of her diagnosed psychopathy. She was rehabilitated and freed, and is now 50.

Several years ago the press found her, Bell was released from custody in 1980 and was granted anonymity to start a new life with her daughter, born in 1984. This daughter did not know of her mother's past until Bell's location was discovered by reporters: she and her mother had to leave their house with bed sheets over their heads. The daughter's anonymity was originally protected until she reached the age of 18. However, on May 21, 2003, Bell won a High Court battle to have her own anonymity and that of her daughter extended for life.

Answer 1

No matter what you think of Mary Bell she was not even a teenager. She was a small child and suffering appalling sexual abuse. This should happen to no child. When it does the country is up in arms. But not for Mary Bell.



Not for one moment has she excused her actions. She has not manipulated her past to defend her actions. She now has lived her life quietly and she has a child of her own. Realistically the authorities will have been watching her very closely. Mary Bell lives with what she has done. Surely that combined with the punishment of years of sexual abuse and 12 years in prison is punishment enough?

Answer 2

I feel so awful for her daughter - imagine being a kid, suddenly finding your house surrounded by press 24 hours a day, and then your mum telling you that she was responsible for one of the most notorious and well known murders in the UK. It astounds me how the press could quite deliberately screw up a young girl's head like that.



I think Mary Bell should be left alone to get on with her life. What she did was hideous and vile, but the fact is that she was a 10 year old being subjected to regular murder attempts from her own mother, not to mention the dreadful sexual abuse she suffered from her mother's punters, throughout the first 11 years of her life. It was all she'd known. That's not an excuse, but it obviously warped her to the point of becoming psychotic.



Your point about child abuse hits me hard for personal reasons. I can't imagine myself ever having become a murderess, but I didn't develop a serious mental problem, whereas Bell did. You're quite right about this not being any justification for her behaviour, but she was diagnosed as a psychopath.



She's been rehabilitated, as you said. This has been the case since 1980. Let her be. What use is there in hounding her now, 30 years after she was freed, being deemed as no danger to the public?

Answer 3

I have just looked up this story, and it's just one sick mess.

As I read about this, it made my stomach turn. It's really hard not to react emotionally. I think that whatever the punishment, there is often little or no comfort for the parents' of the victim/s. I have often felt that when if a life has been taken, then the perpetrator also gives up his/her right to a 'normal' life, by that I mean, at least lifelong incarceration. (I am not sure quite decided on the death penalty issue.) Unlike stealing, it's hard to decide on what is a suitable punishment for murder coz no matter what you do, it doesn't bring back the victims. In this whole saga, the only person I feel sorry for is this woman's child, because now she has to carry the burden of the mother's sin. Will her daughter ever be able to bring back a fella and say: "this is my mum, oh by the way..."

If anyone's identity should be protected then hers, coz she had nothing to do with this.

Answer 4

Yes I think anonymity should remain. It was a tragic situation. A child killing a child. Mary Bell herself was a victim of terrible abuse, I also feel for the parents of the child she killed.

Let some good come out of this situation, I hope Mary Bell's daughter will go on to have a decent, happy life and be a good mother herself.

Answer 5

Good question.

I went to a public meeting 2 years ago in which the subject came up - living in the area there are still some raw nerves. One woman who knew the victim was livid about the fact that Bell was now free, and so were her neighbours.

This has some repercussions with the James Bulger case if the boys are ever released. Also remember when Maxine Carr was released, but she didn't murder anyone? The press hounded her for months and she had to change her identity.



I'm not advocating not punishing murderers but it does seem as if the press are taking the law into their own hands far too much. If they have done their time then leave them be.

Answer 6

It's hard to know what to think about child cases like Mary Bell and her accomplice Norma, as well as the Jamie Bulger killers Thompson and Venables.

On the one hand, if they are deemed rehabilitated and have paid their debt to society, then they should be left alone to get on with their lives.

On the other hand, to behave as they did at the age of ten, and in the girls' case, not once, but twice, is shocking, to say the least. If they were diagnosed psychotic, and had acted out to such an extreme at that young age, then you have to question what rehabilitation really means.

My son is ten. He's not a psychotic, and I know he would never contemplate such things, and never will. By the same token, children who act with such dispassion and violence at the age of ten are pretty well set in the mould of the people they are.

I don't know, it's tough. I don't advocate the press hounding them, and I certainly don't think Bell's daughter should ever have been brought into it, but I would want to know she was living nearby if it were my neighbourhood.

Bring me sunshine: The Jamie Bulger killers were released in 2001, are now living under assumed identities, courtesy of the taxpayers, and one of them has had at least one child that I know of...

Answer 7

Definitely,given the general mob mentality of people in this country,spurred on by the tabloid press.Mary Bell came from an horrendous background,and was only a child when she committed her acts.Given the fact that she has been successfully rehabilitated,I think she deserves the right to lifelong anonymity(along with her daughter)to avoid a witch hunt.What hope is there in a civilised society,if people who have already been punished are subjected to further harassment?



Excellent question-one of the best that I've seen on here.

Answer 8

She should keep her anonymity - she has suffered enough.

Without taking anything away from the parents of the child she killed when she was but a child herself, Mary Bell had such an abusive childhood that she should be allowed to try to build herself a new life.

The essence of the matter is that if we could trust the Great British Public to be sane and sensible about ex-offenders in society, instead of seeing them turn into baying lynch mobs if they get so much as a sniff of someone like Mary living in their area then she wouldn't need to be anonymous.

It says more about society than about Mary Bell.

Answer 9

i'm staggering myself via asserting this yet i think of she and her daughter might desire to hold the anonymity - rather her daughter, who wasn't at fault interior the 1st place. Mary Bell develop into basically a baby herself whilst she committed this homicide. below customary circumstances, i might have stated that allowances should not be made in simple terms as a results of fact SHE develop into abused, etc. yet her project develop right into a techniques from customary. recently, ADULTS get a existence sentence which frequently ability 7 years and that they are out in approximately 4 - some quicker. This female has served approximately 40 bloody years. bypass away her and her wean in peace.

Answer 10

Well first off I have to say what a disturbing story. Just spent the last hour reading up on it. Poor girl I feel bad for her also. I think she may show now she is reformed because it has been years but upon her release they could not determine her reformed because I dont think she ever opened up about her abuse. I think people got lucky with this one and so did her daughter. But she did serve her time and her daughter had nothing to do with this so yes I do think at this point they deserve it. I would not go as far as saying they knew she was reformed just from her own word of mouth however when she was released. I would say she is a rare statistic to not have done it again. I would actually like to read her book now to see if she says anything about things that happened to her that may have led her to be this way. This story reminds me alot of the James Blunger one. I wonder if the boys that killed James Blunger had info on the Mary Bell case and thought they could do the same. I think crimes and details should be not displayed for all to see because there is to many wacked people out there that are copy cats and want to see if they can get away with it.

Answer 11

If Mary Bell had posed a danger I feel 100% sure that her baby would have been removed from her care and placed for adoption. Would people then, still think it right to reveal her identity?



Mary Bell more than paid her debt to society, as far as I remember her mother and her clients didn't.



I hope that what happened when her identity was made known to her daughter, didn't destroy their relationship and trust.There has been nothing to suggest any wrongdoing - why couldn't they just leave them alone?

Answer 12

Mary Bell and her daughter should be left alone because the public cannot be trusted. This is shown by the journalists who insist on finding and exposing her. She has served her sentence and is entitled to a quiet life like everyone else. The daughter is wholly innocent, but would be hounded unmercifully by the press/ papparazzi were it not for the law.

Answer 13

Its a shame for her daughter, who is guilty of nothing, but Mary Bell still killed a child, that child doesn't have a life any more, OK she served her sentence, but that still doesn't take away the fact that despite her own childhood horrors, she committed the ultimate crime against a fellow human being, and if that the price she has to pay, then so be it. If you asked the parent of the child she killed how they feel, then i bet they could not give a dam about the way the press are treating her., after all their child has not been allowed to grow up and give them grand children, and that child was innocent too.

Answer 14

I'm a couple of years older than Mary and was brought up in the same area. I remember the case very well, it was horendous, I remember the stories that went around about what she did to the child. She was a child herself and who can say how they would have reacted to her experiences growing up. She should be left in peace and anyone who exposes her should be arrested, not sure what the charges would be though. It's time to let her and her daughter get on with their lives and hopefully be happy.

Great question although it brought back some disturbing memories.

Answer 15

There can't be justice that where no foregiveness or mitigating circumstances in life. She paid her debt to society, if she is being hounded by reporters, her daughter hasn't done anything to be punished.



As for paying her debt to society, Society still owes a debt to Mary Bell when Mary Bell was being prostituted by her mother as a child or when her mother tried to kill her four times. Has Society paid the debt it owes Mary Bell yet?

Answer 16

mary bells daughter should be left alone she had nothing to do with the murder of that child as for mary bell she should be known who is to say that she is no longer a threat to a child my theory is once a threat always a threat wether she is supposedly rehabilitated or not

Answer 17

she should keep her anonimity, and if she represents no danger to others she should be left alone she payed her debt to society i know the family of her victim will feel differently about my sentiment as would i if it had been my child. its a terrible situation i know bells family were hounded at the time so they were victims of that event as well its only my opinion on a complex issue, no winners

Answer 18

Yes of course she and her daughter should be left alone. She was a child herself who'd suffered appalling abuse and never had a safe childhood. Her own daughter is completely innocent. What possible justification could there be in hounding her? Mary Bell is no danger to anyone . So what's your problem? Just leave her alone. If you want to 'name and shame' someone why not the adults who destroyed her childhood and corrupted her? Did any of them serve time?

Answer 19

She was a child living in horrible circumstances she has been through enough already. I say its time to leave her alone and let her have some kind of life. Her daughter should not have been exposed to this.

Answer 20

yes i think she should she was just a kid herself when it happened and not a very right one at that.

Answer 21

OK, from what you've written here, I'd say leave her alone.



But after reading the full story, I say NO WAY! And didn't she move back in with her mother after she was released from prison??? Am I wrong. Please, someone, tell me that I am.



There are a lot of people who have horrible, abusive childhoods and do NOT murder people. I really think it takes someone special to do this sort of thing and I don't think the nature of the individual ever really changes. Nurture, alone, does not explain this behavior.



It's one thing for an 11 year old to fire a gun, but it's something very different for an 11 year old to strangle a child with her own hands and mutilate the body.

Answer 22

yes i think so, she hasnt re offended and it was a long time ago,hope she learnt her lesson

Answer 23

yes,

how can we ever expect people to reform if they are hounded for their past crimes

Answer 24

Yes , she is a victim of her upbringing. She should be protected.

Answer 25

wow! omg! wtf?



presumably, bell has paid her debt to society, is rehabilitated, and should be left alone.



what's the story with her child? why should she be hounded? seems to me she's innocent and should be left alone as well....

Answer 26

yes, i think so because,i mean come on anyone that would be that bad to kill someone should stay in jail for what they have done.especially kids...

Answer 27

We should tattoo anyone on the forehead that has done anything bad, if they have aids, or are gay. That way we can immediately recognize the good people from the bad people and stay away from all the bad people.