Soham murderer Huntley to sue after prison attack

FAIRSCAPE COMMENT Huntley would almost certainly have been sent to Area 7 in Fairscape for his crimes beyond the pale. Forgiveness from the victims relatives is hardly likely; public approval of extra resources spent on him would be almost non-existent. However, the present state of Huntley's safe keeping would not be scandalous as it is today. Fairscape would hold him safely and humanely with no chance of prisoners from other areas being able to attack him. However, Huntley is unlikely to obtain five agency approvals for his release at any time in the future, therefore he would spend the rest of his natural life incarcerated in Fairscape. Click here for the Fairscape website.

AFP – 31 July 2010

LONDON — Soham murderer Ian Huntley is suing the prison service after being attacked by another inmate, the Ministry of Justice confirmed on Saturday.

Huntley, who is serving a life sentence for killing schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, had his throat slashed in March.

He is now claiming that the prison service failed in their duty of care towards him.

"Ian Huntley is bringing a claim against the Ministry of Justice following an assault by another prisoner," a Ministry of Justice spokesman said, adding that the claim was being "vigorously defended".

It was reported on Friday that Huntley could win almost £100,000 in damages, in a case which could cost the taxpayer more than £1million in legal aid fees.

The Daily Mail said Huntley was seeking £20,000 for injuries, £60,000 for authorities failing in their duty of care and £15,000 through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

Gunman Raoul Moat kills himself after police stand off

 

FAIRSCAPE COMMENT Another notorious incident of madness and murder. Moat would never have left Fairscape in his confused and murderous state of mind. It is possible that he would not have even wanted freedom. His ex-girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart, would not have been seriously injured, her boyfriend Chris Brown would still be alive, PC David Rathband would not have been blinded, and the friends, family and community would not have been traumatised. It is time this country with its abhorrent criminal holding system admitted it is running a useless system that kills and maims its citizens. We must support the Fairscape system because there will be another Raoul Moat. Click here for the Fairscape website.

Fugitive gunman Raoul Moat has killed himself after a six-hour stand-off with armed officers, police have confirmed. A spokesman said the 37-year-old shot himself after being cornered close to a river in Rothbury, Northumberland. He was pronounced dead in hospital at 0220 BST on Saturday. It has emerged police used a Taser stun gun on Moat. Officers had been negotiating with Moat, who was spotted near the centre of Rothbury after a week-long manhunt.

Eyewitness Peter Abiston, whose house overlooks the scene of the incident, told the BBC: "From what I can see he shot himself. He lay down and shot himself.

A convicted child sex offender has been violently murdered

FAIRSCAPE COMMENT A sad tragic ending to a sad derelict life. The persons or persons will almost certainly be caught and spend a large amount of their life in prison with the stigma of murder blighting the rest of it. Under the Fairscape system Andrew Cunningham would be securely and comfortably held and only be released if all five agencies considered him no longer a danger to the public at large. In practice this is unlikely to have happened so that he would have never have ended up in a squalid caravan inviting murder from reckless vigilantes.  Click here for the Fairscape website.

SKY News Online - December 12 2008

Police found 52-year-old Andrew Cunningham naked and covered in blood in his caravan at Wandsworth, south London.

He had been stabbed in the head, neck and chest but had also suffered "non-fatal injuries" to other parts of his body. There are reports that these included wounds to his genitals, although police have refused to confirm this.The Metropolitan Police said the gruesome discovery was made at 8am on Wednesday at the Windmill Business Centre in Riverside Road.Det Chief Insp Nick Scola, leading the investigation, said: "It is the case that Andrew had previously been on the sex offenders register for an offence he committed in 2000".

Rhys Killer Jailed For 22 Years

SKY News - Tuesday December 16, 2008

Sean Mercer

 

FAIRSCAPE COMMENT A case that gripped the nation for its calm brutality in plain daylight outside an ordinary pub. This a classic case of a criminal who would gather little sympathy in the public at large. In Fairscape, Sean Mercer would be released when the five agencies believed he would do no more wrong. This is difficult to imagine at this present time. One of the requirements would be for Rhys' father, Stephen Jones, to be in communication with Mercer. That would also be unlikely at this time. Probably Mercer would be sent to Area 6 or even 7. Apparently Mercer has shown not a scrap of remorse for his deed. The staff would ever be on the lookout for this emotion in Mercer's very long journey at Fairscape. Click here for the Fairscape website.

The parents of Rhys Jones say justice has finally been done after their son's killer Sean Mercer was jailed for a minimum of 22 years.

Police said Mercer, who was 16 when he killed the 11-year-old in August 2007, showed "no remorse whatsoever" over the Liverpool schoolboy's death. He opened fire in front of a busy pub - and the second of three bullets hit Rhys in the neck as he walked home from football practice.

After seeing Mercer convicted, Rhys' father Stephen Jones said outside court: "Finally justice has been done for Rhys."

Crime figures row as 48 commit serious offence on probation

Richard Ford, The Times Home Correspondent October 26, 2009

FAIRSCAPE COMMENT This would not happen in Fairscape. Those 48 dangerous people would be known to be dangerous, therefore they would have not earned their freedom. They would have to give assurances beyond reasonable doubt to five agencies that they would commit no further crime. Click here for the Fairscape website.

Forty eight dangerous offenders being supervised by police and the probation service last year were charged with murder, rape or another serious offence, according to figures published today.

Almost a further 1,500 dangerous criminals being monitored in the community were sent back to prison for breaking the terms of their release from jail or breaching an order which bars sex offenders from a range of activities.

The figures also show that the number of people on the sex offender register rose by just under 1,000 to reach 32,000 last year.

But a row broke out after it emerged that the Ministry of Justice had changed the way the figures are compiled and published, making it impossible to compare the total number of violent and dangerous offenders supervised in 2008-9 with numbers for previous years.

Young offenders should face victims, says Prison Reform Trust

Posted: 29 October 2009: writes Camilla Pemberton

FAIRSCAPE COMMENTThis is exactly what Fairscape has been campaigning for. Victims are an essential part of the restorative process - for themselves as well as the criminal. However, Fairscape calls for a legal link between criminal and victim. The victim should have a veto, if they want it, against the release of the criminal. Click here for the Fairscape website

Restorative justice, where offenders face their victims, has a greater impact on youth re offending rates than custodial sentencing and satisfies 89% of victims, according to a new report from the Prison Reform Trust.

The prison charity is calling for a restorative youth justice system to be established in England and Wales, after the report - based on evidence from a model used in Northern Ireland - found that only a third (38%) of 10 to 17 year old offenders, who faced their victims, re-offended within a year. This compares with 71% of those given custodial sentences in 2006.

Probation service 'performing worse since student murders'

The Telegraph / 02 Nov 2009

Jack Straw was responsible for the Probation Service

FAIRSCAPE COMMENT The problem is not the willingness or even the competence of the probation staff that is the problem. The problem is the system. We are asking a service such as the probation office to do a job that is virtually impossible to do. Fairscape would not give a person their liberty unless five agencies declared that they believed this person fit to operate in a free society. Click here for the Fairscape website.

The probation service criticised for its part in failing to prevent serial offender Dano Sonnex from killing two French students is mishandling almost half its cases, a report says.

The performance of the London Probation Service has even got worse in the year since the brutal murders, in which Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo were tortured and stabbed 244 times by Sonnex and accomplice Nigel Farmer. It later emerged that Sonnex was due to be recalled to prison for an earlier crime at the time of the attack.

A scathing report, commissioned in response to the killings, found that in only 54 per cent of cases was the service performing its role of protecting the public to a sufficiently high standard. That is down from the 63 per cent found during a review last year, which was itself below the national average.

There are "many worrying shortcomings" in the risk assessment of offenders, the potential danger to victims is not given enough attention and, in some cases, offenders should have been classed a higher risk than they were given, Andrew Bridges, the Chief Inspector of Probation, found.

Scotland's only women's prison in 'state of crisis', says inspector.

Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 January 2010 13.04 GMT

Brigadier Hugh Monro

FAIRSCAPE COMMENT Little more need be said. This appalling state of affairs - if we are led to believe this report - will create more female criminals. These women should be working every day to rehabilitate themselves so that they may re-enter society as active, non-offending, good people. Fairscape could do it for these women. Click here for the Fairscape website.

Scotland's only women's prison is in a "state of crisis" with most of its inmates living in unacceptable and worsening conditions, a damning report by the chief Scottish prisons inspector has concluded.

Brigadier Hugh Monro said many of the 351 women and teenage offenders at Cornton Vale prison near Stirling were living with inadequate bedding, food and toilets, while too many inmates "spend too much time confined to their cells".

Despite its well-documented problems, particularly from over-crowding, Monro alleged that senior executives in the Scottish prison service (SPS) had been ignoring the prison and had allowed it to decay further.

Ronnie Lee Gardner put to death by firing squad

By Nick Allen in Los Angeles - Published: 7:34AM BST 18 Jun 2010

FAIRSCAPE COMMENT The slaughtering of criminals should have long disappeared. But the players in this macabre game of Ronnie Lee had their hands tied as much as Ronnie Lee's. The law is the law. The man must pay for his crimes. People are bewildered about what else could be done. Ronnie gets shot or he gets away with it. That's the mindset. In Fairscape there would be a path to redemption. Ronnie would have found it hard work. The skeptics would have access to his progress. Five separate agencies would have access to his progress - each able to veto all the others. How would we know whether Ronnie was lying about being a changed man? Fairscape would know. Click here for the Fairscape website.

A death row prisoner died in a barrage of bullets early Friday as the US carried out its first firing squad execution in 14 years.

Gardner, 49, chose to die by firing squad - an option open to him because he was convicted before Utah adopted lethal injection in 2004. He was strapped to a black metal chair surrounded by sandbags to stop ricochets.

A white target was then pinned over his heart, a hood placed over his head, and five volunteer marksmen armed with .30-caliber rifles opened fire from behind a wall.

Only four of the weapons were loaded with live rounds and one contained a wax bullet, allowing the marksmen to retain some doubt over whether they fired the fatal shot. He was pronounced dead at 12:17 am. The executioners were all certified police officers who remain anonymous. They stood about 25 feet from Gardner.