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.

@whymewhynowwhy in an ideal world maybe not. But our prisons are full, and we are therefore releasing early armed robbers, murderers, human traffickers, violent thugs etc etc. I would rather send non-UK nationals back to their home country after a short prison term or even no prison term at all, than have hundreds of British criminals released early.

And it wouldn't feel like winning the jackpot to them. They clearly hated their lives back home, hence coming to the UK. They may consider deportation a worse punishment than prison.

The top 5 nationalities are :

• Albanian
• Irish
• Polish
• Romanian
• Indian

We can do deals with these countries to take back their wrong'uns and lock them up.

In this case, we are not talking of increasing the sentences of the Court.
We are talking of the concession of early release. Concessions do not become obligatory.
IMO that should include other factors such as their conduct whilst in prison.

Then if your relative was "only" a shop assistant, you'd be annoyed they were treated differently. Anyone who deliberately hurts others badly shouldn't be out in society.

In Ireland we still have capital murder as a crime without the capital punishment.

If you commit murder of a serving police officer that attracts a capital murder charge and as such it is treated differently to a typical murder and attracts a different sentence.

You don’t seem to have that in the UK I think this might help if it was introduced in the UK. You cannot expect people to put themselves between violent criminals and members of the public without that being taken really seriously by the law.

Police etc put themselves in danger for us, that is the difference

No it isn’t a joke and certainly not funny - you could apply your researching talents
as its all out there, the site has had tall fence around it for months, locked gates, i. Ufton Nervet.

I believe that we used to until 1965. Now apparently we are a more civilised country.

Spot on imo

My dad was murdered in his home as an old man

Is that less deserving than a cop?

It becomes too difficult to decide on a hierarchy.

I’ve chosen forgiveness, so that I have no interest in if the guy gets released early

Changes nothing

And most people who kill someone won’t do it again

Of course they will because their ilk think they are above the law. They are scum and my heart goes out to PC Harper’s family, friends and colleagues.

A perfect example of rewarding wrongdoing. That community tried to cover up for the murder.
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

I completely agree.
High profile cases should not be treated differently. Our laws should apply equally. It’s a short sighted play for popularity.

Murderers should not be let out at all. Any of them. They knew what they were doing and deserve to rot in prison.

Burnham has no idea what he is doing at all. His inexperience is already evident. The prisons are filling up - but you don't let out the dangerous criminals nor the ones making a mockery of the legal system.

We have tens of thousands of prisoners that could be deported which would solve the issue straight away, many of whom are here illegally anyway.

He's not inexperienced, he's been in the cabinet. Early release was started by the Tories before Labour was elected.

Would we need to do a deal? Australia sends our criminal citizens back to us. We should be able to send other countries criminal citizens back to them.

That law was passed subsequent to PC Harper's death
The problem now is that these offenders were sentenced under the law as it was at the time of the offence.

Ten years ago!! He is entirely out of the loop now and it really shows.

I have no issue with early release, actually, I do have an issue with letting thousands of dangerous criminals out, that is completely different!

Burnham is failing and floundering already. His vanity tour is doing nothing to address the major headwinds we are facing. Labour are driving us into serious recession and this country is now at breaking point.

Nobody is thinking about what they will actually do when released?
What's the chances of them being taken on by a firm full time and paying their way

No doubt whenever they are released they will soon be back inside

What plans are work are they doing inside for release?

Too true
I was reading about some gang members who killed a delivery driver in 2023.
They shouldn't have been in the country. They will be deported on release from prison. That is 28 years time though.

28 years taking up space and costing the taxpayer money. Send them away now. Do the time in the country they come from.

I think we have to, to a degree, take the personal element out of how look at the possible effect of releasing these killers. It's beyond awful that he was a young, newly married man who was killed in a horrific way but we have to also look at what he was: a serving police officer that was killed in the line of duty. If the government send a message that committing ANY crime will most likely see you free before a third of your sentence has passed, sending the message that killing a first responder (be that police, fire, ambulance, A&E workers) is treated the same way it negates their caution of the consequences for injuring these workers. This is absolutely not to say their lives are of higher value than anyone else's at all, it's just how the situation could change for the worst. First responder death is thankfully very low in this coutry. If this pattern of thinking takes hold, we could potentially end up with the American first responder scenarios where their lives at risk constantly in the line of duty.

There can't be that many police killers in jail. Perfectly possible to keep them in without making a rod for their back.

I find it difficult to believe that there aren't people in jail who've been found guilty of less heinous crimes who can't be released first to make some room.

Admittedly I've not read the legislation for this so I don't know what the parameters are.

The problem is that some countries will release them. I was reading something the other day about someone who was sent back to (I think) Turkey and was released on day two!