To be absolutely disgusted that Colin Pitchfork is being released?

[MrsTrustice]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-57737050

He is 61, he easily could have 30 years left to do it again. How the hell are women ever supposed to feel safe when men like this still get a second chance? A government appeal to stop the release was rejected ffs. Who makes these decisions? I feel ill.

This is awful. Just horrible.

Yanbu. I don’t see how they can possibly have assessed him as safe and even if he is, the brevity of his time served is an insult to his victims.

I don't see how anyone could be sufficiently confident enough to declare him safe enough for release. I am struck with dread at the thought of some unsuspecting community having this murderous man in their midst.

Even if he himself genuinely feels he won’t do it again, it’s one thing saying that from a prison cell. Once he’s free to roam the world again surely there’s the risk of him seeing an opportunity and getting an urge?

One saving grace is that there are at least images available of what he looks like now.

Absolutely disgusting

Yes it's appalling

Disgraceful

He left his baby alone in the back of a car to go and rape and murder a 15 year old girl. Three years later he raped and murdered another 15 year old girl. He was caught through DNA profiling (a mass screening of men in the area), eventually, as he persuaded a colleague to take the test for him.

What worries me is that the parole board and the judge are not listening to each other.

Came on to start this exact thread.

I’m horrified, our justice system is just beyond a joke. It needs a severe overhaul.

I feel worried about the fact he’s being released tbh, I have no idea how they can say for certain he’s safe to be released.

It makes you wonder how many women a serial killer has to kill before life means life. As many as Peter Sutcliffe perhaps? 😞

Will he be given a new identity? I can’t imagine he will be deemed to be safe out there.

And as an aside, is his name actually Pitchfork? Or is this a name which has come about somehow? I ask only because the fact that a murderer actually has the name “pitchfork” just seems too much like a horrible coincidence.

YANBU. It’s appalling.

@AlternativePerspective yes that was his original surname. I have read that he goes by a different surname these days, not surprising given how memorable the original is.

Apparently he's been in an open prison for some years and has been allowed to walk around Bristol on his own ffs.

Too many men on parole boards who dont really understand how bad rape is

It's the strangling to death of two 15 year old girls, in addition to their rape, that men on parole boards don't understand. This murderous man had his baby son with him when he raped and strangled a 15 year old girl, having left the baby sleeping in his car. He then went back home to his wife with the baby, as if he'd just been out for a stroll. It's chillingly psychopathic.

Quite. The issue is that men dont truly understand HOW abhorrent these crimes are to women. You can bet your bottom dollar that the decision makers here are mainly male.

A lot of the time men sympathise with men like Pitchfork, even if subconsciously. There was a lot of it with the colleagues of Sarah Everard’s killer.

It’s terrifying and makes you wonder what some men would be happy to do if they knew they’d get away with it.

@MrsTrustice
Agree 100%. Probably subconscious as you say, but a great deal of identification is going on that hugely affects decision making and policy.

It's disgusting. It stands to reason he'll offend again yet this time he has the benefit of living next door to someone using an assumed name. How lovely for society.

And don't get me started on the families of his victims, what a kick in the guts for them....

@AlternativePerspective Pitchfork is his real name and in even more horrible coincidence he lived on Haybarn Close.
I lived in Narborough at the time and it was an absolutely awful experience. Even more so after the second murder as by then we all knew there was a serial killer living on the doorstep.
Only a completely unredeemable psychopath could have lived undetected right in the middle of this community. Anyone with even the tiniest glimmer of humanity would have betrayed himself but he got away with this for years and almost, but for a series of small miracles, would have got away with it completely.

As well as the double rape and murder of these teenagers, he had many, many incidents of indecent exposure. How can a person who did this possibly reform?

Oh don’t worry about the families of the victims, @LeanneBrownsLonelyBraincell… The MoJ spokesperson had them covered - “ "Our sympathies remain with the families of Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth but they can be reassured that Pitchfork will be subject to close probation supervision for life and faces an immediate return to prison if he fails to comply with his licence conditions.”
I mean…they’ll of course be reassured
The dismissive arrogance of that spokesperson is unbelievable.

He has a right to parole as his minimum term has expired.

The only thing the parole board can consider is whether he is safe to be released. It is not in their gift to make moral judgements about whether someone should stay in prison or to extend anyone's sentence.

If Pitchfork was convicted of the same offences now, he would receive a longer tariff - the sentencing guidelines have been changed since he was convicted. If sentenced today, he would in all probability receive a whole life order.

However, you cannot try someone for the same crime twice, and you cannot extend someone's sentence for the same crime beyond that passed down to them, unless the circumstances of said crime are found to have changed. This is for good reason - imagine for example if the govt had political prisoners and just kept increasing the tariffs on the sentencing guidelines for their crimes so that they were never released.

This point of non-retroactivity is key in law - you can't go back and charge someone again or increase (or decrease) their sentence because the laws have changed since their conviction.

Those outraged at the exercise of these rights would do well to remember that they are rights we all have in law, and we would expect to be able to rely on them if we ever needed them. We can't take them away from someone because their case is high profile.

So yes, it is correct that he is being released. Do I agree with it? Emotionally, probably not. Do I think the parole board have got it wrong? I can't comment - I don't have the evidence they have access to.