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Right. I’ve now had the pleasure of reading the full interview. And it’s even more legally illiterate than the headline suggests.
Johnson’s focus is on serious violent or sexual offenders who are being let out after they’ve served only half the sentence pronounced in court.
This is a chimera.
This is a chimera.
While release is automatic at the halfway stage for all prisoners serving standard sentences, the law is different for those who have committed violent or sexual offences and who are deemed dangerous by the courts.
Such dangerous offenders can receive “extended determinate sentences”, where there is no automatic release. At the two thirds stage, they are eligible for parole. But if they don’t satisfy the parole board that they are no longer a risk, they serve the full custodial sentence.
Johnson wants to target offenders who receive 14 years or more. Let me tell you - if you’re receiving 14 years for a violent or sexual offence, it is highly likely you will also be deemed dangerous and so will receive an extended determinate sentence.
As for what he means by “judges will be barred from reducing sentences to compensate”, who the hell knows. To compensate for what? This is meaningless.
Johnson’s motivation is apparently derived from the Worboys case, understandably perhaps given his personal links to it. But this is entirely unrelated. Worboys was not released “early”. He in fact served his full minimum term.
Worboys received imprisonment for public protection (IPP). This was similar to a life sentence in that the court sets the minimum term a prisoner must serve before eligible for parole. Once eligible, if they can’t satisfy the parole board, they remain in prison indefinitely.
The error in Worboys’ case was because the Parole Board’s decision to deem him safe for release was seriously flawed.
It had NOTHING at all to do with the court sentencing him.
It had NOTHING at all to do with the court sentencing him.
So, once again, Johnson wades into the sentencing debate without the first clue of what he’s talking about. And in the week that the Telegraph was forced to apologise for his last column on criminal justice in which he told complete lies. thesecretbarrister.com/2019/05/24/ign…
