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A prisoner locked up alongside Jon Venables today reveals how he attacked the child-killer for laughing about the murder of James Bulger.

James Heap says Venables bragged that killing the two-year-old was “easy... just like going to the shop”.

Ex-lag James said: “The look on ­Venables’ face as he laughed about the murder will stay with me forever.

“He’s got this mad face when he grins, the most evil little face you’ve ever seen.

“That was enough for me – I didn’t want to hear any more of that.”

James punched Venables in the face and says: “It made me want to kill him.”

He spoke after Venables was last week sent back to jail for having paedophile images – and he backed calls for the killer’s new identity to be revealed.

(Image: John Gladwin/Sunday Mirror)

(Image: PA)

James also revealed how Venables:

Almost died in a second attack just two months after the punching.

Recited horrific details of his crime.

Refused to show any remorse.

Lied that he was inside for burglary.

Threatened younger boys he would “go after” their family when he was released.

Venables was 11 and James was 14 when they clashed at the Red Bank secure unit on Merseyside.

James, now 39 and from Birmingham, spoke in chilling detail about his encounters with Venables back in 1994.

He said: “I asked him what he was in for and he told me burglary. But a few days later I found out who he was and what he was really in for. I was shocked.

“He was playing on a games console when I said to him: ‘Why the hell did you do that to that kid?’

“He just laughed. I said ‘What’s so funny?’ But he just kept laughing.

“I punched him in the mouth. To laugh about that is just sick. He talked about how he took the kid and how he was too good or too clever for anyone to see him. I remember he said: ‘I done it easy’.

(Image: PA)

“He said it like it was a normal thing to do, like going to buy a newspaper. Like it was easy to him and nothing to him.

“It was like it didn’t matter – like he was proud. There wasn’t any remorse on his face, not one bit. No shame, nothing.

“It was mental. You’d have to hear him and see the face on him when he was saying it to be able to believe it.”

James was on remand for burglary. Other youths at Red Bank shared his fury and Venables came under attack again.

Recalling the second episode, James said: “He was in the video room and a lad went in, grabbed him from behind and pulled him down. He had hold of him by his neck on the floor and wouldn’t let go.

“Venables went purple, he couldn’t breathe and his eyes were popping out.

“I was thinking ‘f****** hell, he’s really doing it.’ Another 20 seconds and I think he’d have gone. Suddenly one of the staff came walking up the corridor, saw what was going on and pressed the riot bell.

“Loads of staff came and started dragging the lad off by his neck. He wouldn’t let go, but in the end they got him off.”

Despite being a target, Venables liked to lord it over younger detainees – and made vile threats about what he would do to relatives, James said.

He added: “He’d threaten other kids. He’d be going ‘you watch till I get out, I’ll s**g your sister, I’ll kill your mother’. ”

Venables spent eight years at Red Bank. But James claimed it was a pampered existence. The unit was kitted out with a pool table, football tables, a games room with a Super Nintendo games console, a TV and video player and even a full-size snooker table.

(Image: John Gladwin/Sunday Mirror)

James suggested Venables was given special treatment and a string of ­privileges, including his own Game Boy. He went on: “People think Venables has been punished for his crime, but it wasn’t punishment, it was privileged.

“James Bulger’s parents would have been sickened if they’d seen his life in there. They’d be so heartbroken. They’ve got no justice whatsoever. He didn’t serve a sentence, he sat there eating ice cream and jelly, watching videos and laughing his head off while playing computer games.

“It was like a holiday camp to him. He was given special treatment and had everything in his room – music, a radio, his Game Boy. He was the only one with one. The rest of us had nothing. It caused a lot of resentment. We all hated him.

“One day we got sick of him on his Game Boy and someone smashed it, but the staff got him another one.

“You used to have to earn privileges – if you behaved you got a reward like a go on the games console. Not him, he could play whenever he wanted.

“If one of us swore at staff we’d get reprimanded, but he’d say anything and just get away with it.

“Every day he’d have a fit and kick off shouting ‘I’m not doing this, I’m not doing that... f*** off, f*** off, f*** off’. But they’d go ‘right Jon, calm down please’ and put him in his room with his Game Boy. In the video room you had to watch what he wanted or he’d kick off. Staff would say ‘let Jon watch what he wants, he’s younger than you’.”

(Image: PA)

“And he was a fat greedy little s***. He would never stop eating.

“It was all home-cooked food, it wasn’t like prison food in there. He was first for everything and always had second helpings. You’d have a nice big dinner like bangers and mash or chicken. It was brilliant food.

“He’d have more than everyone else. He’d have jelly and ice cream, massive bowls, throwing it down him. His mum used to visit every couple of weeks. He would wear nice tracksuits and decent trainers. I presume his mum bought them for him.

“She used to bring him carrier bags full of sweets and chocolates. His locker was rammed full of them, it was like he had his own little shop.”

James spoke to the Mirror after Venables was jailed last week for 40 months for downloading more than 1,000 child abuse images and a paedophile manual. Some depicted horrific assaults on babies.

It was his second similar offence in seven years.

(Image: John Gladwin/Sunday Mirror)

Venables and Robert Thompson, both now 35, killed James Bulger in 1993 – beating him to death on a rail track after leading him from a shopping centre in Bootle, Merseyside.

They were aged 10 at the time. The pair were released on licence aged 18 and given new identities and anonymity for life.

But after Venables’ latest offences, James Bulger’s dad Ralph plans a High Court challenge that could see the killer’s identity revealed. Ex-prisoner James said: “Everyone should know what his new name is, what he looks like, so they can protect their kids.”

The former lag admits that after being released from Red Bank he was in and out of jail more than 20 times before finally going straight.

And he says that in all his years inside, no one had such a lasting impression on him as Venables.

James, now a block paver, added: “I’ve seen loads of murderers in my time in prison. But I’ve never met another one who was as evil as him. He should never be let out.”