Colin Pitchfork: Double schoolgirl murderer can be released

Those poor girls and their families. I remember this case at the time, I was the same age as the second victim, Dawn Ashworth. It looks like the South Leicestershire MP, Alberto Costa, tried to prevent this from happening, and the Justice Secretary may try to reconsider the parole decision under this mechanism:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/parole-board-reconsideration-mechanism-decisions

There are fairly narrow grounds to reconsider, similar to the judicial review test:

Procedurally unfair - the correct process was not followed in the review of the offender for parole - for example, important evidence was not shared
OR
Irrational - the decision makes no sense based on the evidence of risk that was considered and that no other rational panel could come to the same conclusion. Being unhappy with the decision is not grounds for reconsideration.

I'm not fancying their chances, provided the procedure was correct, the rationality one is a difficult threshold, even in the case of this evil man. I wonder if there's some other reason they have let him out, illness or something? All the licence conditions involved don't sound like they apply to a fully rehabilitated individual.

It's a justice system created by men for men. There is literally nothing a man can do that won't have him garner sympathy and excuses from other men.

Around the time of the John Worboys debacle, somebody on this board linked to an article written, IIRC, by a former prison governor who had also sat on parole boards. He argued that those working in the justice system are more invested in proving the system works than in actually making it work and are too ready to be convinced that prisoners have been rehabilitated. Most often parolees have been through several processes, e.g. sexual offenders' courses, but there is no evidence that the processes have actually worked.

Thinking of Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth, and their families.