One of James Bulger’s killers claimed he ‘had a better life’ for murdering the toddler.
Robert Thompson made the remarks at a parole board hearing just eight years after he and Jon Venables had abducted and brutally tortured the two-year-old.
Thompson’s statement is set to be heard for the first time in Channel 5’s documentary James Bulger: The New Revelations on Wednesday evening.
Both he and Venables were aged 10 at time time of James’s 1993 murder, when they had him away from his mother at Bootle’s Strand shopping centre.
The pair were released in 2001, upon turning 18 years old, with a recommendation from the Parole Board that they were given new identities.
Speaking before his release, Thompson, now 36, admitted at his pre-release hearing that the conviction had allowed him to enjoy a better quality of life.
He said: “I do feel aware that I am now a better person and have had a better life and a better education than if I had not committed the murder.
“There is obviously an irony to this, but it is part of my remorseful feelings as well.
“I, personally, wish Mr and Mrs Bulger and their families to know that I am desperately sorry for what I did, and aware of the enormity of what I did.
“Mr and Mrs Bulger have made statements in the press indicating that they would view any statement of remorse by me as a cynical manoeuvre to secure my release.
“It is difficult, given that, to see how I could ever communicate my remorse in an effective way.”
“I am deeply ashamed of what I did, and of having played a part in this horrible murder”, Thompson added.