The horrific murder of James Bulger will be examined in detail in a TV documentary this weekend.

CBS Reality series ‘Written in Blood’ will be looking at the case through the eyes of crime fiction writer Alex Marwood - who wrote The Wicked Girls in light of the Bulger case.

Two-year-old James Bulger was beaten and tortured to death, in 1993, by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson - who were just 10-years-old when they committed the heinous crime.

It was a murder that shook Merseyside and scared parents across the country because many could imagine themselves in the same position as James’ stricken mother Denise.

The toddler was led away from her while she was shopping with her son in the Strand shopping centre in Bootle .

James Bulger
James Bulger

Harrowing CCTV footage showed the tiny toddler being led away by the two boys - who then walked him two and a half miles - where his body was found two days later on a railway line.

The boys Venables and Thompson became the youngest convicted murderers in modern English history and were in custody until they reached 18.

They were then released under new identities and on a lifelong licence in June 2001.

The episode will tell how Venables and Thompson were truanting the day they snatched James before hatching the scheme which “became an act of extraordinary wickedness”.

Jon Venables and Robert Thompson
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson

It will also look at the effects the case had on those who worked on it and how James’ family would never again be the same.

Author Alex Marwood said: “It’s impossible to write anything on the subject of child murderers without parallels being drawn with Thompson and Venables and, of course, Mary Bell.

“What people often don’t seem to realise is that a handful of child-on-child killings happen every year in this country, and usually they’re a product of inadvertency, of kids of inappropriate age being left in charge, of bullying getting out of hand, and children simply not understanding the likely consequences of their actions.

“What fascinates me about Thompson and Venables was the sequence of events and agendas unrelated to their actions that led to them becoming somehow a cypher for all that is wicked in this country.”

Written in Blood will air on Sunday, September 10 on CBS Reality at 11pm.