Parole Board and Victim Support

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I welcome the new Secretary of State to his post, and I thank him for advance sight of the statement.

Our criminal justice system must always have the interests of the victims of crime at its heart. It is all too clear that victims of the vile crimes committed by John Worboys feel that this process has failed to do so, and such failings risk undermining public trust in our wider justice system. Many women—both the victims and others more widely—will be very anxious indeed about Mr Worboys being freed. The current legal restrictions on the Parole Board mean that we do not know why this decision was taken.

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement today. With respect, however, we do not need to debate whether there is a case for greater transparency. The Worboys case has underlined once and for all that there is a need for greater transparency, and the chair of the Parole Board has already called for this. Will the new Secretary of State for Justice therefore guarantee that his review will be about how to achieve greater transparency, and not about whether this is needed?

The failures go much wider than the rules governing the Parole Board. In fact, this whole matter has been dogged by failures from the outset. In 2009, John Worboys was convicted of 19 offences against 12 women, but the police have also linked Worboys to about 100 other cases. The public are asking questions about the failings in the police’s handling of the case, about why there were no further prosecutions and about failures of the victim contact scheme to notify victims of the parole hearing properly. The Worboys case raises so many serious questions that anything less than an independent end-to-end review into the handling of the case—from first reporting to the police of an attack right through to the Parole Board hearing—would let down the victims and the wider public.

The previous Secretary of State did not take up my request to undertake such an inquiry, but the new Secretary of State can bring a fresh perspective to all of this. He has the opportunity to reassure the victims and the wider public by going further than his predecessor and agreeing to an independent end-to-end review. That would be the right thing to do, and if he does so, I will congratulate him. I therefore ask the Secretary of State: will he agree to this proposal today?

There are also questions about whether wider problems in the justice system, a sector now subjected to the greatest cuts of any Department, have had an impact on this specific case. The failure to allow women victims the opportunity to participate in the parole hearing through written and oral statements, or to notify them of the hearings properly, was a real breach of their rights. The National Probation Service manages the victim contact scheme, and I would say that the House is all too familiar with the deep problems caused to probation by the chaotic reforms undertaken by the Secretary of State’s Government.

Does the Secretary of State believe that the changes to probation services have left the victim contact scheme more effective or less effective? Will he spell out today what his Department is doing to ensure that the scheme is functioning as it should and that we do not see a repeat of the failings witnessed last week? At the very least, will he consider amending the scheme so that victims opt out, rather than opt in to the system? Likewise, what is the Government’s assessment of the effectiveness of the current sex offender treatment programmes in prison? Last year, the Ministry of Justice found that its core programme actually increased reoffending among sex offenders. Does he know whether John Worboys was on one of the core programmes that were subsequently withdrawn? Will the Secretary of State take the opportunity to clarify what the current procedure is for prioritising which imprisonment for public protection cases are dealt with most pressingly? Are those on the shortest tariffs dealt with first?

Finally, I am pleased that the Government are now focusing on victims’ rights. However, in 2014, the High Court found that the Metropolitan police had breached the rights of victims of Worboys under the Human Rights Act 1998 by failing properly to investigate many of the crimes Worboys was linked to. That decision was later upheld by the Court of Appeal. I think that many will be surprised and disappointed that the Government—through the current Home Secretary and her predecessor, who is now the Prime Minister—backed taking Worboys’ victims to the Supreme Court last year. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to express regret for treating the victims in that way?

[Mr Gauke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. He makes the case for transparency, as did Nick Hardwick, and I completely see and, indeed, sympathise with the argument being made. This case does demonstrate the need for us to look at the issue of transparency again, and it is important that we do so in some detail. I say to the House that I start off on the basis that more transparency is needed, as this case has demonstrated.



The hon. Gentleman asked me about an end-to-end review. It is right that we focus on how we can make this system more transparent to provide reassurance to the public that it is working in the way that it should. That should be a priority, as should victim support. The hon. Gentleman asked whether the basis of the system should be not opting in but opting out. That is something that the review will be able to consider.

We must be sensitive to the fact that, whereas some victims of crime will be keen to be fully informed at every stage, others simply may not want to hear the name of that criminal again. Different people will have different views about how they want to be treated, and we need to find a system that accommodates both approaches.

I was also asked about prioritising cases. Clearly, there is a need to look at cases in which the tariff has been completed. They will be higher priority than cases in which the tariff still has some years to run. That is what happens in practice.

The hon. Gentleman raised the Supreme Court case. The matter is sub judice and I cannot comment further on it, but I reassure him and the House that we need a system that has the confidence of victims. That is what we all want to ensure.