Weeping witness held James's hand

JAMES BULGER'S hand was prised briefly from the grip of an alleged abductor by a woman suspicious of a couple of boys who claimed they were taking the toddler to the safety of a police station.

'I was going to take the boy to the police station myself,' Elizabeth McCarrick, 51, yesterday told the jury trying two 11-year-olds for the abduction and murder of James.

Walking her daughter home from school in Walton, Liverpool, Mrs McCarrick succeeded in getting one of the boys, allegedly boy A, to let go of James's hand. 'I managed to get my little girl to hold his hand, but the taller boy (allegedly B) said: 'He's all right. We'll take him.'

'I asked the little boy if he was all right because he looked tired. He didn't say anything,' Mrs McCarrick told Preston Crown Court.

She wept during her evidence, taking frequent sips of water as she recalled James being virtually lifted along the road.

She first saw the trio heading towards a subway. Another woman was questioning the older boys, who claimed they were on their way to Walton Lane police station. They were going the wrong way, Mrs McCarrick said, and she was suspicious of their account of having found the young child at the Strand shopping centre, Bootle.

She asked: 'Why not take him to the police station by the Strand?' Both boys said they had been directed to Walton Lane, which was on their way home.

Boy B had a 'calm manner, as if he was in control and the senior one'. Boy A grabbed hold of James's hand, and Mrs McCarrick told them not to go down the subway. They were adamant they could take the baby to the police, she told the court.

The prosecution says the boys had earlier stolen James from his mother's side on 12 February at the Strand precinct, two miles away. Later, they stoned him to death on a railway embankment. Both deny the charges, and the attempted abduction of another small child.

Schoolboy tells of tears, page 3

Comfort in strangers, page 23