Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think that people who rape or murder children should not ever be released from prison

84 replies

redglobox · 05/04/2023 16:09

Reading about yet another man who raped and murdered a child being released from prison.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11941953/Child-killer-raped-murdered-seven-year-old-niece-released-45-years-bars.html#comments-11941953

Just like Colin Pitchford before him.

Surely the vast majority of us think that if a person rapes or murders a child they should never be released.

Who makes the rules that allow this? Who wants this? Who thinks this is the right thing to do? This isn't justice. I can't imagine how the victim's family feel seeing him walking from jail free. Life should mean life.

(For what it's worth, I'll be writing to my MP again to say, again, that these people should get life without the possibility of parole)

Monster who raped and murdered his seven-year-old niece is released

In 1977 Peter Chester raped and murdered his niece Donna Marie while she slept in her bed. The monster was given life but today he's a free man serving 45-years and gaining parole.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11941953/Child-killer-raped-murdered-seven-year-old-niece-released-45-years-bars.html#comments-11941953

OP posts:
ShirleyPhallus · 05/04/2023 16:12

My god, yet another case so similar to others

The poor poor mother, she sounds broken

FamilyLife2point4 · 05/04/2023 16:14

Put them on an island together - hunger games style!!! Let them kill each other off - justice plus no expense for tax payers.

Georgeandzippyzoo · 05/04/2023 16:47

I'm not going to read the story because they break my heart. BUT
Yep, totally agree that such crimes against children is an automatic 'never let out , every'
I, and probably most people, believe that such heinous people can never be rehabilitated. Why release them to cause such agony on other families?!

missingthewinchesterboys · 05/04/2023 17:25

I actually read a book that imagined a uk with prisons on it's islands. So Lundy was the main island in the story but they mentioned others equally hard to escape from.
All prisoners were dropped on the island and left to run their own prisons, no guards and supplies air dropped once a week.

I think we should do that for any sexual offenders

lunar1 · 05/04/2023 17:30

I think there are a lot of people who should never be released, anyone who's crime is in any way violent for a start.

Their rights to rehabilitation should be seen as insignificant compared to the rights of the public to be safe.

I also think child molesters/abusers and their accomplice's should be irreversibly sterilised.

It's probably a good job I don't make the rules.

Nimbostratus100 · 05/04/2023 17:33

he is out of prison, but I imagine he has a life sentence, and will be tagged, or supervised for the rest of his life

thebaneofmylifeisacat · 05/04/2023 17:37

Think now premeditated murder of a child is a whole life sentence.

But yes totally op

Laiste · 05/04/2023 17:40

YANBU

How many of us really agree with keeping these scum alive in prison at all? For years and years or forever? What's the point?

Do i want him 'rehabilitated'? No i'd like him hung.

Iam4eels · 05/04/2023 17:46

Laiste · 05/04/2023 17:40

YANBU

How many of us really agree with keeping these scum alive in prison at all? For years and years or forever? What's the point?

Do i want him 'rehabilitated'? No i'd like him hung.

Hanging isn't justice, it's state sanctioned murder and has no place in a civilised society. From a practical viewpoint it costs far more than life imprisonment so would also be financially unviable

TrashyPanda · 05/04/2023 17:54

murder should always be a life sentence.
no parole.

and a life sentence should be life

Laiste · 05/04/2023 18:02

Chester went to his sister’s flat while drunk and while looking for the bathroom, entered his niece’s bedroom and raped and strangled her.

The married killer then placed Donna Marie back under the bed covers as though she was asleep and put her favourite cuddly toy alongside her.
Her mother found the body of her daughter the following morning.

I'd say hanging him is justice, but i know not everyone feels the same.

Average cost to keep a man in prison is 46k per year. Out of interest.

proppy · 05/04/2023 18:05

Put them on an island together - hunger games style!!! Let them kill each other off - justice plus no expense for tax payers.

I'd vote for it!

proppy · 05/04/2023 18:06

Their rights to rehabilitation should be seen as insignificant compared to the rights of the public to be safe.

yes & it's insult to the victims & their families that they get a second chance.

MereDintofPandiculation · 05/04/2023 18:07

I wonder about the safety of prison officers in prisons where there are a large number of people who have no hope of release.

girlfriend44 · 05/04/2023 18:08

Bullet between the eyes would be OK with me.

Kanaloa · 05/04/2023 18:13

Can’t believe he had the audacity to complain about his human rights being violated by not being able to vote. Get a clue.

It’s not right. It’s not right that anybody can cruelly and carelessly take a child’s life and then one day live their own life free in the world with the rest of us. On top of that, how do you weigh the risks? Surely if there is even the tiniest chance they will reoffend, it is still too much.

sadnessonthehills · 05/04/2023 18:15

I thought killing children with intent was life and meant life in the UK?

For example, Rose West. She's never getting out I don't think? Never been offered parole etc

Always4Brenner · 05/04/2023 18:18

Life should mean life you leave in a coffin.

BenCoopersSupportWren · 05/04/2023 18:19

MereDintofPandiculation · 05/04/2023 18:07

I wonder about the safety of prison officers in prisons where there are a large number of people who have no hope of release.

This is a very important point. People with no hope have nothing to lose, and prisons full of violent offenders with nothing to lose makes for a very unsafe environment for prison staff.

On a practical note, to keep all murderers / child murderers / child rapists / whatever the criteria agreed was in prison for life would mean a significant expansion of the male prison estate would be needed, including new prisons built, and much more rehabilitation resource directed to those non-whole-life prisoners who could be released, to minimise recidivism and relieve the pressure on the prison service. Unfortunately the people who shout “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” are often the same people who turn very NIMBY if a new prison is proposed in the vicinity of their town or village, and “we’ll spend more money on the resources needed to turn prisoners’ lives around and make them useful members of society” tends not to be a vote-winner when you have the Daily Mail headlines screeching about prisoners eating fresh eggs and bacon for breakfast (from hens and pigs they reared themselves on prison land which actually worked out cheaper than buying in catering services, but never let the facts get in the way of a good froth).

Ludo19 · 05/04/2023 18:23

I don't think someone like him could be successfully rehabilitated. If I had children and this happened to one of mine I'd definitely want him hanged, I could not and would not think it unjust.

Iam4eels · 05/04/2023 19:29

Average cost to keep a man in prison is 46k per year. Out of interest.

It's difficult to compare costs when we don't have the death penalty here but for comparative purposes, the USA does have the death penalty in several states and death sentences cost taxpayers approximately $90 million a year more than life sentences.

For example, California pays approximately $137 million per year for death row prisoners compared to $11 million for all other prisoners. Since 1978 they have only executed 13 prisoners - still think that's value for money? £46k per year is practically good value by comparison.

An additional factor is that the death penalty does nothing to reduce murder rates. In fact, it's the opposite and countries with the death penalty tend towards higher murder rates than those without.

davegrohll · 05/04/2023 21:42

Yep, I'd want the bastard hung aswell.

ShipSpace · 05/04/2023 21:56

Iam4eels · 05/04/2023 19:29

Average cost to keep a man in prison is 46k per year. Out of interest.

It's difficult to compare costs when we don't have the death penalty here but for comparative purposes, the USA does have the death penalty in several states and death sentences cost taxpayers approximately $90 million a year more than life sentences.

For example, California pays approximately $137 million per year for death row prisoners compared to $11 million for all other prisoners. Since 1978 they have only executed 13 prisoners - still think that's value for money? £46k per year is practically good value by comparison.

An additional factor is that the death penalty does nothing to reduce murder rates. In fact, it's the opposite and countries with the death penalty tend towards higher murder rates than those without.

But that’s because they’re not bloody killing them!

It wouldn’t cost that if they just got on with the job, would it.

anon90210 · 05/04/2023 22:01

I think they should be shot.

Iam4eels · 05/04/2023 22:03

It would still cost that even if they were carrying out executions daily - initial trial, appeal(s), accomodation separate from the prison population, specialist guard services including 24/7 suicide watch, facilities to carry out the execution including staffing, maintenance, etc and then the means of execution, paying everyone involved, and so on.