In June 1997, the High Court had already stripped the Home Secretary of the power to decide on minimum terms for life sentence prisoners who were convicted before the age of 18, following a legal challenge by solicitors acting for Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. The pair had been found guilty of murdering Merseyside toddler James Bulger in 1993, when they were 11 years old. The trial judge's initial recommendation was that they should not be considered for parole for at least eight years. The Lord Chief Justice later ruled that the pair should serve a minimum sentence of 10 years, but following a petition by "The Sun" newspaper, Home Secretary Michael Howard had ruled during 1994 that the pair should not be released until they had spent at least 15 years in custody.