On the Murder of James Bulger Recast Task

Venables and Thompson: Monsters or Children?
In early 1993, a young boy was brutally murdered, his tiny body cruelly beaten and battered until he died. Who could do such a thing, you may ask yourself. Well, the answer may just shock you. The toddler, James Bulger, was murdered by two other children, two ten year old boys called Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Is this what makes the story all the more chilling?
        Is the fact that the cold-hearted killers are young and supposedly innocent children that we want to empathise more with them? Usually we hear about thugs and brutes, brought up in bad environments who lash out for attention or simply have a negative view of life. It's shocking to hear that a child could cause such harm to another child, it almost brings the issue closer to home because we feel we can relate to the issue and empathise. As humans, when we hear about killers and the horrible crimes they've committed, we instantly express our hatred for them and what disgusting human beings they are. However, to hear that children could do such a thing, we almost feel that we have to make excuses for them and that there must be a reason behind it, maybe they didn't understand what they were doing or maybe they're just poor misunderstood little tykes.
        This story shocked the whole country and was widely covered in the media, the pictures of smiling Bulger pulled on the heartstrings of Britain. The whole country was still in this dilemma of whether or not to feel hatred towards the two boys for what they did, or if they should just see it as childish mistake. There is a lot to consider, a lot to understand and a lot to think about.
        In this programme we'll investigate the motive behind the killings and what actually happened on that cold, February day.

Commentary
The opening sentence "In early 1993..." is effective as it sets the scene and engages the audience immediately as it goes straight into the story. The pre-modifiers "brutally", "tiny" and "cruelly" are used as emotive words to try and make the audience feel emotion and make the story more interesting and dramatic. The use of rhetorical questions is effective as, again, they engage the audience and keep them interested. The collective term "we" makes it seem that the narrator is talking with the audience as opposed to talking at them or to them. The final sentence "In this programme we'll investigate..." is effective because it is relevant to the purpose of the text, the use of the noun "programme" shows that the text is a voiceover for a documentary and works effectively as it explains what the documentary will be about.