Sentencing Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to make a brief contribution to this Second Reading debate. I hope to add to points that I have raised during the progress of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). He always makes substantial contributions, on these matters and others, to which it is always a pleasure to listen.

In January 2020, my constituent Mike O’Leary was murdered in what prosecutors during the subsequent trial labelled a “carefully planned execution”. His body was desecrated in an attempt to hide the crime. The key bit of evidence that secured the guilty verdict was found only in March 2020, when a search of the murderer’s property found tissue matter that matched Mike’s DNA: a piece of small intestine in an oil barrel.

As I have said in previous debates, it is difficult to imagine the suffering of the bereaved family. Losing a loved one is bad enough, but being unable to process grief with a proper burial or cremation brings extra suffering, as does knowing what was done to their remains. The family have been extremely brave. Discussing the history of the case with Mike’s mother, Val, will haunt me. I knew Mike’s sister, Lesley, many years before entering this place—she has become an active campaigner on victims’ issues—as well as Mike’s wife, Sian, and their sons Wayne, Simon and Phillip. I pay tribute to them all for their strength and courage.

The family have thrown their energy at the campaign for a second Helen’s law. Ministers will remember the campaign for the first Helen’s law, led by the family of Helen McCourt, who was murdered in 1988 at the age of only 22. Her body has never been recovered. Her mother, Marie, successfully campaigned for a law—the Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Act 2020—to make it more difficult for perpetrators to obtain parole if they do not reveal the location of remains. I met Marie and her husband John to discuss her campaign for a second Helen’s law. They are also an incredible family and a source of inspiration; they find the strength to carry on despite the worst that life throws at them.

Both the families that I have mentioned support a new crime of desecration or concealment of a murdered body, to reflect the extra suffering caused for bereaved families. Another option would be for the Government to revise the sentencing guidelines so that perpetrators of such heinous crimes receive an extra penalty. The families tell me that there is currently no consistency in sentencing. In some cases, murderers receive longer sentences than the killer of my constituent despite there having been no premeditation or effort to destroy or conceal the body. I am sure that Members across the House would agree that desecration or concealment of a murdered body is an additional cruel act that deserves additional punishment and should be reflected in the law. Regrettably, such acts are becoming more prevalent. The law must be used as a disincentive. The Bill is the perfect opportunity for the Government to act, and I hope that Ministers will use it to make it clear that those who commit evil acts of that nature will be punished accordingly.