Video game pulled over Bulger image

His mother, Denise Fergus, complained to the manufacturers of Law and Order: Double or Nothing about the game which she criticised as "sick".

The photograph features as a background image on a noticeboard for the game which is based on the US TV series of the same name which is broadcast in the UK.

It has a striking similarity with the footage captured at the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Merseyside, which was the last sighting of the two-year-old before he was led to his death by his killers Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.

Ms Fergus, 37, wrote to Global Software demanding that the offending image be removed. She complained the game dehumanised the memory of her son and that he was being treated as if he was public property. She had only become recently aware of the game, which was first published in 2003.

The California-based developer of Law and Order: Double of Nothing, Legacy Interactive, is reported to have apologised for any distress caused and said the photograph would be removed from future copies. The game has been withdrawn from sale by its UK distributor Global Software.

Chris Johnson, a spokesman for Ms Fergus, told BBC Radio Merseyside: "It is something she feels strongly about, that images of James should not be used and abused in this way as if he is some kind of public property.

"It is as if it dehumanises James and it seems like his death enters into some kind of myth or legend. To her it is very real and an ever-present emotion that she lives with every day of her life."

Thompson and Venables, both aged 10 at the time, lured James away from his mother while she was shopping in 1993. They walked him to a railway line and battered him to death with bricks and an iron bar, then left his body on the track to be cut in half.

After being convicted of murder, the pair spent eight years in youth custody before being released in 2001 with new identities.