I think Andy Burnham is making a mistake with PC Harper’s killers

[SereneFinch]

Of course no-one wants to see them released early but to single out a particular case for political reasons undermines our justice system doesn’t it?

Everyone must be treated the same and to not will invite some sort of appeal from them and no doubt result in lengthy reviews and hearings about their treatment. Which costs money and gives them more attention.

Plus there will be many other cases where an early release is equally infuriating but those families won’t be heard.

Michael Howard did this with the Bulger case and it resulted in sentencing powers being taken away from the Home Secretary and put solely in the hands of judges.

I think this is going to be a huge problem for him if he’s not careful.

Completely agree

My concern about Burnham is that he may be too eager to be liked. And that popular decisions are not always the right ones.

However, as things stand, I believe he is merely asking Alex Norris to look for further options to prevent the early release of certain prisoners including PC Harper's killers, and there is no suggestion that an exception will be made for this case only? Or have I missed something?

The same killers that have had £4.2 million spent on revamping their campsite?

This Government has done nothing but kick PC Harper's family in the teeth since his death.

Winding his widow up in the media is an unedifying sight.

if people who’ve committed manslaughter are being let out and we leave those two in- they’ll sue upon release and we’ll be letting them out early and giving them hundreds of thousands.

I agree. The law must apply to everyone equally, or it makes a mockery of our justice system.

That said, I haven’t read the draft legislation, so I am not sure whether it allows for discretion and on what grounds. If it does, AND those grounds apply to these men then that would be ok - but that needs to be properly communicated or it is an insult to others whose loved ones have died at the hands of criminals but their cases haven’t garnered similar publicity.

They could stop the release of all those involved in the death of a vital service worker. That would then stop the individual targeting and deal with the issue. Imo anyone who harms a service worker, ambulance, health, fire, police... should have a very high minimum sentence. That's a solution.

I don't think they can do that retrospectively - my understanding is that they must be treated the same as those with the same convictions, which I presume includes anyone with a conviction of manslaughter.

Are there plans to build extra prisons? We clearly need them!

I also agree with you. I want clarity. If you do x then y happens. There will always be some grey, but I don't like sub clauses like "unless your case reaches national news headlines". What about any other emergency services or first responder staff who've been harmed or murdered - if their families or colleagues don't speak up then it's ok to release them early?

I signed the petition to keep the policeman’s killers in jail, but I also agree that it will start to set a precedent and people whose cases are not as high profile will want similar treatment. I can’t say I blame them , but maybe changing the law around the deaths of anyone in the services to have longer sentences may work.

Yeah this was my first thought too

You’re joking???

I don’t care if they are overcrowded 10 to a cell, none of them should be released early.

Anyone with a manslaughter conviction should be exempt from early release. There will always be friends and family of victims who are impacted by the early release. The two who killed PC Harper had no remorse and contributed nothing but harm to society. They should have got longer

Would you want to work in a prison where prisoners are overcrowded 10 to a cell?

I'd negotiate it down to 8 per cell maybe.
'uman rights n'all that.

I think changing the law to be different if you kill a copper would require primary legislation and that could not be retrospectively applied.

Vera Baird on newsnight last night was excellent- I assume there’s some work going on to actually quantify how many are held indefinitely without sentence and to look at sentencing them and probably releasing some of them. Also joint enterprise probably needs a revisit.

abd yes, there will be more prisons built. I also think we could probably turn a few women’s prisons into men’s ones and release quite a few of the victimised women who are currently inside.

I don’t think many people want killers and murderers to have anything, but if we continue to have the current laws in place around sentencing then they will have to build more prisons or just have many people in together. There is an option of capital punishment, but that is a whole other thread and will never happen of course.

BBC News - Revamp of traveller site linked to PC's death nears completion - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr52r7rpqnyo?app-referrer=deep-link

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr52r7rpqnyo

I wish it was a joke. Can you imagine how his family felt reading this?

That should never have been allowed to happen.

The law was changed after this case but laws are not usually retrospective and the emergency services law wasn't. As PP say, everyone has to be treated equitably under the law. I'm not happy about media-driven 'justice'. I would hope that the prison system could find an internal reason for delaying their release but would also hope that this would have been communicated to the Justice Secretary already.

Completely agree @SereneFinch

the PM to be involved in a populist movement with a hierarchy of “bad killers” is a very poor move

I think the point is no one should be allowed out early ?
The scheme is a farce. I'm addition they killed an emergency worker and showed no understanding or remorse and laughed.

We shouldn't even be having this conversation .