Category Archives: UK criminal justice

UN highlights ‘psychological harm’ to UK man jailed since 2012 for phone theft

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Exclusive: Expert repeats call to review indefinite sentences such as Thomas White’s, whose family says now suffers from psychosis

A UN torture expert has called the case of a man driven to psychosis after being jailed in the UK for more than a decade for stealing a mobile phone “emblematic of the psychological harm” caused by indeterminate sentences.

Thomas White was handed an imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence in 2012 for stealing a mobile phone – four months before such prison terms were abolished. He has been in jail ever since after initially receiving a minimum two-year tariff.

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Sexual harassment allegations cost local authorities at least £2.5m

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Exclusive: Data from past five years in England and Wales includes wage costs and victim payments for claims such as upskirting, indecent exposure and inappropriate videos

Local authorities in England and Wales have spent at least £2.5m in the past five years on costs relating to allegations of sexual harassment, an investigation by the Observer can reveal today.

Data obtained through freedom of information (FoI) laws shows that since 2018, 62 councils spent more than £1,728,900 to cover wage costs of staff who were suspended after allegations of sexual harassment, with accusations ranging from indecent exposure, upskirting, inappropriate comments and sexual assault to stalking and abuse of power.

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Lucy Letby sentenced to whole-life jail term after murdering seven babies

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Former nurse will never be released from prison as judge describes ‘deep malevolence bordering on sadism’

The serial killer nurse Lucy Letby will never be released from prison after a judge sentenced her to a rare whole-life term for the “sadistic” murder of seven babies.

Letby, 33, is one of only three women alive to have been given such a jail term in the UK. She was sentenced at Manchester crown court on Monday.

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Miscarriages of justice body has ‘attitude problem’, says Andrew Malkinson

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Exclusive: Man imprisoned for rape he did not commit says Criminal Cases Review Commission has yet to contact him

Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, has accused the body that investigates miscarriages of justice of having an “attitude problem” and said it had still not contacted him since he was cleared by the court of appeal last month.

Malkinson and his legal team first heard that the Criminal Cases Review Commission was launching a review into its handling of his case after the Guardian contacted them about it on Thursday.

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Rape, DNA and injustice: a timeline of the Andrew Malkinson case

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After spending 17 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, the 57-year-old’s conviction was finally overturned last month

A 33-year-old woman is raped and left for dead on a motorway embankment in Salford as she walks home. She recalls causing a “deep scratch” to her attacker’s face. Andrew Malkinson is visited by police officers the next day who see he has no scratch. He is arrested two weeks later and then picked out of a video lineup.

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Police and CPS had key DNA evidence 16 years before Andrew Malkinson cleared of rape

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Exclusive: No action taken despite 2007 discovery of searchable male DNA profile on rape victim’s top that did not match Malkinson’s

Police and prosecutors in the Andrew Malkinson case knew there was another man’s DNA on the victim’s clothes in 2007 – three years after he was wrongly convicted of rape – but he remained in prison for another 13 years.

Malkinson was cleared by the appeal court last month after spending 17 years in prison for a 2003 rape he did not commit. His exoneration came after fresh DNA testing linked another man to the crime.

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Ian Watkins, singer jailed for child sex offences, ‘stabbed in prison’

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Former Lostprophets frontman reportedly taken to hospital after being held hostage by other inmates at HMP Wakefield

Ian Watkins, the former lead singer with Lostprophets who was jailed for 29 years for child sex offences, has reportedly been stabbed at HMP Wakefield.

He is said to have been taken to hospital after being stabbed at the prison in West Yorkshire.

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Wrongly convicted in Britain no longer forced to pay ‘saved living costs’ in prison

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The government has scrapped controversial guidance over deductions to compensation in miscarriage of justice cases

People who have been wrongly convicted will no longer have to pay living expenses for the time they spent in prison, the government will announce on Sunday after widespread outrage over the case of Andrew Malkinson.

One of Britain’s longest-serving victims of a miscarriage of justice, Malkinson, 57, had his conviction overturned last month by the court of appeal after spending 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.

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Jailing shoplifters will not address root causes, says senior Tory

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Sir Bob Neill criticises government plan for failing to consider mental health and addiction problems of many offenders

Ministers cannot “warehouse” addicts and people with mental health problems who commit crimes such as shoplifting, a senior Conservative MP has said in response to a plan to give shoplifters mandatory sentences.

Sir Bob Neill, the chair of the Commons justice select committee, said the new policy would “pump low-level offenders” into almost-full jails at huge public expense and do nothing to change the “chaotic lives” of offenders.

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Fix ‘endemic’ problems in youth custody, urges prisons watchdog

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Monitoring boards chief warns of poor conditions at four young offender institutions in England

A prisons watchdog has warned that poor conditions are “endemic” at four young offender institutions in England and urged ministers to take urgent action to improve them.

In her new role as the national chair of the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs), Elisabeth Davies has taken the unusual step of writing a letter to the prisons minister, Damian Hinds, to raise serious concerns about the welfare of children in YOIs in England.

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Legal aid cuts denying vulnerable women access to justice, says thinktank

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Women’s Budget Group says changes have disproportionately affected women and cut critical lifeline in England and Wales

Vulnerable women in England and Wales, including survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, are being denied justice because of cuts to the civil legal aid budget, a thinktank has said.

The Women’s Budget Group says a decade on from major changes to legal aid, women have been disproportionately affected, leaving them without essential support to fight discrimination, violence and housing insecurity.

Ineligibility, for example some employment discrimination not being included in legal aid.

Inaccessibility due to insufficient legal aid providers.

Lack of awareness and signposting of what qualifies for legal aid.

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Drug rehab facility offers women an alternative to prison

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Hope Street scheme in Southampton aims to keep women in criminal justice system out of jail and with their children

It all started when Edwina Grosvenor spent an hour with two heroin addicts at a drug rehabilitation centre in Liverpool, almost 30 years ago.

Her parents – Natalia and Gerald Grosvenor, who was one the richest men in the UK and the sixth Duke of Westminster – decided to take her to the centre at the age of 12 or 13 to show her that there was a world beyond her privileged bubble. “At that moment I learned about empathy,” Lady Grosvenor said.

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Calls for abortion to be decriminalised amid row over jailing of UK woman

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Leading expert warns of ‘sustained attacks’ on reproductive rights after sentence imposed on Monday

Leading women’s health experts have warned of an attack on women’s reproductive rights and the potential for more prosecutions, following the jailing of a woman for terminating her pregnancy after the legal time limit.

The president of the UK’s leading body for sexual health professionals said that women should be “more worried than they are” following the sentencing, adding that it could lead to sustained attacks on established rights, and efforts to curtail reforms.

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Call to overhaul ‘out of date’ UK abortion laws after woman jailed

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Tory MP speaks out amid anger over 44-year-old’s sentence for taking abortion pills beyond legal limit

Abortion legislation is “very much out of date” and should be overhauled, the chair of the Commons women and equalities committee has said, after a woman was jailed for procuring drugs to induce an abortion after the legal limit.

There was outrage on Monday after the woman, a mother of three, was sentenced to more than two years in prison.

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Plan to scrap specialist sex offender teams ‘a danger to public safety’, says probation union

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Highly skilled officers in England and Wales to be replaced by less qualified staff under MoJ proposals

Plans to disband specialist teams that deliver treatment courses for sex offenders have prompted fears public safety will be jeopardised.

Under the Ministry of Justice proposals, which are being fiercely resisted internally, behaviour programmes for a wide variety of offenders would be delivered by staff who are not fully qualified probation officers.

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Boris Becker: UK prison sentence was ‘brutal’ experience

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Three-times Wimbledon champion describes eight months in jail as ‘very, very different experience to what you see in the movies’

Boris Becker has spoken of his “brutal” prison experience in the UK, adding that during his incarceration he had to surround himself with “tough boys” for protection.

The three-times Wimbledon men’s singles champion served eight months of his two-and-a-half-year sentence for hiding £2.5m of assets and loans in a bankruptcy fraud case. He was released from prison in December and deported from the UK.

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Dominic Raab to push for tougher minimum sentence in domestic homicides

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Move follows pressure from campaigners such as Julie Devey and Carole Gould whose daughters were murdered

Domestic abusers in England and Wales who kill their partners or ex-partners are to face tougher sentences under government plans after a campaign by bereaved families.

The justice secretary and lord chancellor, Dominic Raab, will push for a change in the law after pressure from campaigners such as Julie Devey and Carole Gould, who have been calling since 2020 for a change to the minimum sentence for domestic homicide.

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Prison thrown into chaos by policy change

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Prison specialising in people convicted of violent crimes was changed into a category C training prison in October

A prison which specialised in people convicted of violent crimes has been “thrown into chaos” by a policy change introduced by Dominic Raab’s Ministry of Justice to cope with a national rise in inmate numbers, an official watchdog has found.

HMP Aylesbury was “suddenly and without sufficient consultation, notice or support” changed into a category C training prison in October, the chief inspector of prisons said.

Only four out of every 10 prisoners went into settled accommodation on release from custody.

Just 8% of those available for work went into employment.

Recall rates were high, with 30% on average being returned to custody – four in 10 of these were within 28 days of being released.

There is an 30% shortfall of full-time employed probation officers in post against the required staffing level of 6,160.

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Trans violent offenders banned from women’s prisons in England and Wales

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New rules also cover transgender women ‘with their male genitalia intact’, says Dominic Raab

Rules barring some transgender women from female prisons in England and Wales are to come into force on Monday, the justice secretary has announced.

Dominic Raab had already announced in October that trans women with male genitalia or who had committed sexual offences would not be allowed in women’s prisons.

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Trans woman guilty of raping two women remanded in female prison in Scotland

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Politicians, campaigners and UN special rapporteur concerned by case of Isla Bryson, who offended before she had transitioned

Politicians, campaigners and a UN special rapporteur have all expressed grave concerns that a transgender woman found guilty of raping two women before transitioning is being remanded in a female prison.

Opponents of the Scottish government’s gender recognition reforms – which the UK government has blocked from going for royal assent because of “safety issues for women and children” – said that the case vindicated their concerns about lack of safeguards in the bill.

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