Vanessa George: Early Release from Prison

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Robert Buckland)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I add my thanks to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) for securing the debate. I am grateful to him for his remarks. He has approached this issue very constructively, because he seeks a higher degree of justice for the constituents he represents. That is absolutely right and proper.

I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) for his contribution. He rightly reminded us that, although my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) is not with us today, they have worked with people affected by what were heinous and wicked crimes.

I well remember the commission of these offences because my children were of that age at that time. I think there are very few of us, either in the House or outside it, who do not remember our revulsion and shock when we heard about these appalling acts. It was a shocking abuse of trust. It was a series of offences that left us all shocked. The remarks of Mr Justice Royce, the trial judge, summed it up very well. I have read the transcript of his remarks and obtained at least one version of the indictment to understand fully the offences to which this offender pleaded guilty. There were 11 in all: five counts of sexual assault, one count of making 124 indecent images, and five counts of distributing a range of indecent images of children, not alone but with others. That brought home to me the dangers of the internet for the first time and how this level of abuse can be magnified by people who stop at nothing to satisfy either their own dreadful compulsions or the lusts of others. It is a particularly horrible case.

Vanessa George was sentenced in December 2009 and received what was then still available to the court: a sentence of imprisonment for public protection—an IPP, as we call it—with a minimum term of imprisonment at seven years. The judge calculated the seriousness of the offending to mean this: had George contested the trial, she would have received a determinate term of 21 years. The judge, as the law requires, had to give her credit for a guilty plea of one third, so she would have received a determinate term of 14 years if she had pleaded guilty. The calculation of the seven-year term was in accordance with the law as it then stood.

It is important to understand that, because from my reading of the judge’s remarks and my understanding of the indictment, it seems to me that the full extent of the criminality was reflected in the indictment. There do not seem to be any other offences that were left to lie on the file. I have conducted a preliminary investigation, which I will conclude, and if there is any change in that position, I will write to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport.

That is an important distinction between this case and the John Worboys case. Hon. Members will recollect that Worboys had been made subject to a similar IPP sentence and the Parole Board had directed that he was to be released on licence in January 2018, but in March the High Court quashed the decision and ordered the Parole Board to take a fresh one. It did that and concluded that the public could be protected only by keeping Worboys in closed prison conditions. As a result of that important case, the Government introduced a number of new safeguards to ensure that the mistakes made then should not be repeated. We need to view the Parole Board’s decision to direct the release of George in the light of those safeguards and, indeed, the more robust system now in place as a result of the action taken by the Government.

I will answer as best I can the hon. Gentleman’s questions. The new regime came into force on Monday of this week—22 July—just after he and I spoke about the case. That does not have a retrospective effect, but it will affect cases from now on. I also assure him that, from what I am told, there was no attempt by the legal team to try to expedite the hearing to avoid the new rules.

An oral hearing in the George case took place over two days. The first date was 21 May. On 2 July, another day was set aside for the Parole Board to hear statements from the victims who had been identified and to take fully on board their concerns and position. After that two-day hearing, a decision was made. The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s first question about the review is that because it predates the change, the only course of conduct open to me or the Department is a judicial review, and I have to say that on my examination so far of the procedure, I do not see the sort of flaw that would justify a court giving permission for judicial review.

I think the hon. Gentleman knows what I am talking about when it comes to the test that has to be applied for judicial review. In reaching any release decision, the parole board must follow a detailed process. It must comply with the statutory rules in place, which include the panel considering a dossier of evidence sent by Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. New checks were introduced by the Government on that procedure after it was discovered that, in the case of Worboys, the dossier had not included the important sentencing remarks to which I referred, because that will tell the Parole Board, as it did in this case, what the judge took into account in terms of the sentence. In the case of Vanessa George, the judge rightly took into account her refusal then to reveal the full identities of the children she had abused. He made specific and important acknowledgement of that. Just as he took into account her guilty pleas, he tempered that with what was obviously an aggravating factor at the time. I confirm that those remarks were very much in the dossier in this case.

There were also deficiencies in the Worboys case to do with the reports themselves, which did not deal in sufficient depth with the considerable evidence of wider offending, even though Worboys had not been prosecuted for all the offences he was alleged to have committed. It was then that HMPPS issued guidance to report writers on how such evidence should be addressed. Indeed, as I have said, it seems that, on my reading of the indictment, there is not evidence of wider offending in this case.

We know that an oral hearing was held, and I confirm that at that hearing a representative of the Secretary of State was present. Unlike in the Worboys case, in the George case all the report writers recommended release.

I have spoken about the victim contact scheme. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there was a problem there, in that because of the lack of identification, we did not have a statutory basis on which to operate. However, the National Probation Service did offer the victim contact service on a discretionary basis to the 18 parents who responded to the initial contact in 2009 and said that they wished to be kept informed of developments. Eight victims responded to further contact, of whom six submitted a victim personal statement. Representations were also made about licence conditions, which would be imposed should George be released, including an exclusion zone for the entirety of Devon and Cornwall, which has been agreed to. Further, the panel has left it open to any other victims to make representations regarding licence conditions should they wish to do so in future. I invite the hon. Gentleman to ensure that that happens—we have spoken about it already—and I will do everything I can to facilitate the process. I absolutely understand the widespread concern about the decision, but as I have explained, on the information that I have been given, it seems that there are not the grounds for me to make a legal challenge.

Before the hon. Gentleman comes back, let me say a little more about how the offender will be managed in the community. George is barred for life from working with children. She is on the sex offenders register for an indefinite period. She will be supervised by the National Probation Service, working with the police via the multi-agency protection arrangements, and there is an extensive set of licence conditions. If she fails to comply in any way, and in such a way as to indicate a heightened risk, she will be recalled; that means further incarceration behind bars.

The hon. Gentleman also asked me about the position with regard to the victims code. I readily agree to the suggestion, and I am sure that the new victims’ commissioner, Dame Vera Baird—I know her well—will be interested to speak to him and to victims to feed into the important process on strengthening the code.

The question of remorse is a subjective one. That, in my view, is not really where the Parole Board should direct its attention; it should look to the question of acknowledgment and whether it can be satisfied on what it hears that the offender has really started to acknowledge, or has acknowledged, the gravity and impact of her offending. Remorse, frankly, is a subjective matter, and I would be very concerned if that became the only or major criterion by which a Parole Board assessed the risk of an offender. It has to be about risk rather than mere words that can be said in a hearing.

With those assurances, I hope that the hon. Gentleman has received at least some answers to his important questions.

[Luke Pollard]

rose—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. Is the Minister giving way?

[Robert Buckland]

I have finished.

Question put and agreed to.