The Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner have called on the government to pause their new early release scheme. Labour MPs abstained on a vote last night to prevent the release of grooming gang members, rapists, paedophiles and child sex offenders before their terms are up…
Labour’s emergency release of more than 38,000 prisoners had exemptions for prisoners convicted of domestic abuse, terrorism, or other serious crimes. The party’s new sentencing legislation allows for further large releases with no such exemptions…
The Victims’ Commissioner said:
“I was repeatedly assured victims would be well informed and safeguarded before offenders were released early. Those assurances have not been delivered. I have called for early release to be halted until those protections are in place. Victim safety cannot be an afterthought.”
Lammy was unable to offer an apology to victims in DPMQs when challenged by James Cleverly and attacked the Tories instead before adding:
“Of course, we think of every victim and that’s why we’re notifying victims, in discussion with all victims. I sat last week in my surgery with a victim of grooming gangs. All of us want to see offenders locked up – that’s why we’ve got to have prison capacity.”
Would anyone convinced by that please raise their hand…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”