For The Benefit Of All

Martin Kelly writes:

Jack Straw is wrong to meet Denise Fergus. He is also equally wrong to make any revelation concerning why Jon Venables has been recalled to prison. The statement Straw has made regarding the reasons for the revocation of Venables's licence is outrageous. It is an attack upon the confidentiality granted by law to a prisoner; a person who for many other legal purposes is regarded as being vulnerable. It cannot stand. Where is Saint Shami Chakrabarti when you need her?

The individual currently in custody would only ever appear to be known as Jon Venables for the purposes of their supervision by the prison system and parole authorities. For better or worse, he has been granted lifelong anonymity. It is not known whether the conduct for which he has been returned to prison has resulted in a conviction; the BBC's quotation of the word 'allegations' suggests that it has not. Accordingly, the only insight that reports of his reincarceration can afford us are into the level of supervision which some of those who live under life licence must live under, and the rigour with which the authorities police life licence.

And it is wrong for Jack Straw to meet Denise Fergus. I can offer Mrs. Fergus no appropriate words of comfort other than that I know a mother who lost her son to a violent end; and no matter how old they are when they are taken or the manner of their passing, I know that that particular pain never goes away. No matter how much counselling is received, there is no manual to help deal with it.

However, as I wrote yesterday, in the UK justice is dispensed by the Queen's courts in her name and for the benefit of all; I should have written 'in her name, and in public, for the benefit of all'. After Thompson and Venables were sent down, the Bulger family had no locus in the case any more. The introduction of 'victim impact statements' into the criminal justice system is to be deplored. For all their faults, the British judiciary tends to be really quite good at hunting down the correct sentence for a particular crime. As the recent case of Munir Hussain has shown, when they do get it wrong they get pulled up for it pretty quickly. Our largely despicable press often likes to claim the credit for such victories, but they are victories for the system just as much as the original failures are failures of the system. Those who dispense justice have their own families; that the death of a child under any circumstances causes their bereaved parent pain and suffering should be considered to be a matter within judicial knowledge, and be allowed to rest at that. At least, that's what good taste and common sense might suggest. The victim impact statement is an assault on the impartiality of the sentencing process, and should be abolished forthwith.

If one feels that way, one cannot see why a minister of Cabinet rank, someone with no judicial function whatsoever, should be meeting with the parent of a crime victim. Justice has been done; it has been seen to be done; the case is closed. Where it becomes actively dangerous for Straw to meet with Mrs. Fergus is on account of his responsibility for administering the prison and probation services. Just as the victim impact statement assaults the impartiality of the sentencing process, meetings between those responsible for administering rehabilitation services and the families of their victims are assaults upon the penal process. Are the views of crime victims or their survivors to be heard not merely upon the level and nature of sentence imposed, but upon how sentence is carried out?

In the UK, prisoners are responsibility of the state. There is a great deal of talk, much of it idle and uninformed, of how 'cushy' prisons are - I stopped visiting them in the late '90's, and things may have changed since then, but by the time I'd done the rounds I'd been inside almost every male prison in Scotland bar Inverness and Dumfries, and had been inside the female prison as well, and the one insight you came away with from all of them was that you wouldn't want to spend a moment on the wrong side of the bars. Talk of cushy prisons is the ignorant populism of the saloon bar; for better or worse, we live in a country of law and the rule of law. What do those who speak of cushy prisons really want? The return of the treadmill? Rockbreaking? The law dictates that prisoners be treated in a certain way. If you don't like it, campaign for the law to be changed. If the government won't change the law, campaign to change the government.

It is possible, perhaps even probable, that Venables has been returned to custody on account of allegations entirely unrelated to his original crime - if nothing else, Mrs. Fergus might hopefully be able to see that, in this case, the system of life licence seems to be working, and perhaps draw some comfort from that. If she does meet with Straw, then she should remember that although he might utter sincere words and might even believe them, he is a politician and his real priority is re-election. That's all he really cares about.