James was two years old on 12 February 1993 when he was abducted from a shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside, by two boys then known as Jon Venables and Robert Thompson.

His body was found on a railway line, after he had been beaten to death with bricks and a metal bar.

Speaking before today's anniversary of the murder, Michael Fergus - who was born eight months after his brother's death - said the two killers "robbed me of my childhood".

Mr Fergus, 29, told the Sunday Express: "My brother's killers will never be forgiven.

"They took away my older brother who I never got to meet.

"I would have loved to have looked up to him, asked him questions, talked to him about exams, cars, going to bars, normal stuff.

"But because of those two, I never got the chance.

"They robbed me of my childhood, in a nutshell."

Mr Fergus, a landscape gardener living in northwest England, said that "justice for James" would mean "keeping Venables behind bars" to provide "peace of mind" for the family, particularly their mother.

Venables and Thompson were jailed for life but were released on licence with new identities in 2001.

Venables, 40, was sent back to prison in 2010 and 2017 for possessing indecent images of children, and was refused parole in 2020.

In December, The Sun reported that he could have another parole hearing early this year, quoting sources as saying that he has a "strong chance" of going free because of his "positive" progress in jail.

But in January, Denise Fergus - mother of James - said Justice Secretary Dominic Raab had promised the killer would remain in jail under his proposed new "two strikes and you stay in" policy.

The Ministry of Justice has said that Mr Raab will "do everything in his power to keep dangerous offenders behind bars and has set out plans to overhaul the parole process and put victims at the heart of the process".