Mixed Feelings

March 28, 2018 Longrider Civil Liberties, General News, misanthropy 34

Occasionally there’s a news item that leaves me wondering what, exactly, I think. This is one.

A decision by the Parole Board to release the rapist John Worboys has been quashed, prompting the board’s chairman Nick Hardwick to resign.

A legal challenge by two victims was upheld by the High Court, and the Parole Board praised the “bravery” of the women who brought the action.

Worboys, 60, has served 10 years, including remand time, of an indeterminate prison sentence.

“A lot of women will be sleeping a lot easier tonight,” one victim said.

The victim – known as DSD – said she was thrilled with the result and was confident the Parole Board would “make the right decision next time because the information will be put in front of them”.

On the one hand, I agree with the victims here, this man should be inside and the original sentencing wasn’t long enough. I believe that he will probably be a risk if let out. Certainly when I heard he was due for parole and was about to be released, my initial thoughts were “already?”

However… Once someone has served their time – and Worboys was eligible for parole once he had served eight years – then they should be allowed out, having served their sentence. This case seems a bit like “make it up as you go along” to me and that makes me uncomfortable as well.

Hence my conflict. Gut instinct tells me that this is the right decision. Reason tells me that he should be let out and that you don’t go retrospectively sentencing. But, also, I believe the parole board got it wrong as well.

No, I don’t have any answers.

34 Comments

  1. For once, Sir, I am afraid I disagree with you: just because someone is eligible “to be considered for parole” is no reason at all to say they should be automatically granted it.

    • No, I’m not suggesting they should. However, he was granted it. That’s why I am uncomfortable.
      Let me expand on that a little bit – I don’t think he should have been eligible for parole after so short a time. Hence my comment about initial sentencing.

  2. So now we let , allegators (ie alleged ‘victims’) decide the length of sentence or had a court found Warboys guilty of attacking those *specific* ‘brave’ victims?
    I share your disquiet on this one. Hopefully Warboys can appeal against this appeal and more rational minds will prevail. If not I forsee the Daily Xenophobe being tasked by the Parole Board to conduct binding referenda for every unsavoury person eligible for release.

    • It’s a case of difficult cases making bad law. No, I don’t want sentences decided by the victims. It’s that element that causes me disquiet as well.

      He should have received a stiffer sentence in the first instance, I think.

      • Agreed.
        Even more slippery, BBC TV London News claimed that at his revised parole hearing the alleged offences for which he WASN’T tried will be taken into account!
        My jaw pretty much hit the floor at that point.
        If true, (and if not, it is terrible wishful-thinking from the BBC) that seems to be only a small step and a half from not bothering to try anyone for anything in the first place – just jail by accusation.

        The trouble is that inevitably totalitarian measures taken against appalling scum who deserve everything they get will be used against people who don’t.

  3. Aye and there’s a horrible case in the mail today of two murderers out on parole who raped and burned to death a young woman.

    I agree with you absolutely about worboys.

    It is clear that the parole system needs a thorough overhaul.

    • Those two vile pieces of scum were both murders. I thought the compact with the citizenry was ‘we will abolish hanging for murder but jail murderers for life’. Then this is watered down to 12 or 14 years. If these two had been hanged they would not have tortured, raped and burnt that woman. You can point to miscarriages of justice where an innocent man would have been hanged but these two………

  4. My thought too was that the initial sentence was too lenient and also that parole shouldn’t have been granted. As he was a serial offender, I would think it highly unlikely that he would become a reformed person and hence it is highly likely that there would have been further victims. When the almost inevitable happened there would then be all the recriminations and crap about lessons being learned.

    Like you I am also very uncomfortable about the feeling that the PTB are making up the law on the hoof and that we should all be worried about such things. In this case, almost everyone agreed that the original decision was wrong but I’m not sure whether that really makes it OK.

  5. This case seems a bit like “make it up as you go along” to me and that makes me uncomfortable as well.

    Hence my conflict. Gut instinct tells me that this is the right decision. Reason tells me that he should be let out and that you don’t go retrospectively sentencing.

    Exactly. If sentence was too lenient, CPS/DPP should have appealed then – Keir Starmer at fault.

    This was a Left SJW Feminist campaign and Gov’t should have ignored it. Typically, Left SJW Feminists May & Rudd encouraged it.

    Now we have double standards – white male adult rapist refused release on license vs RoP child rapisits released on license and silence from BBC/C4/MSM/Left SJW Feminist.

    H/T
    Debate: The #MeToo Movement Has Gone Too Far
    Article: http://www.melaniephillips.com/metoo-gone-too-far/
    Event: http://www.howtoacademy.com/conferences/metoo-movement-gone-too-far-debate
    Debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX1gNTF7liM

  6. Worboys would have had his sentence reduced by half ‘for good behaviour’ as soon as the prison van drove through the gates. This system should be changed so that any reduction for good behaviour should only be made after good behaviour has been shown for a specific period of time. However, the nameless bean counters in government need to save money so sentences are automatically reduced. If someone on parole commits a crime, the victim is an acceptable casualty, and the bean counter remains nameless. Similarly with the parole board. If they recommend parole and the prisoner then commits another crime, the parole board members should be held partly responsible. Won’t hold my breath.

  7. It is perfectly reasonable that every aspect of the judicial process is subject to review, including granting or refusing bail.

    Sir Brian Leveson delivered a 91 page report cataloguing the errors made by the parole board, errors serious enough for Nick Hardwick to feel compelled to resign.

    Worboys has made out of court settlements with 11 victims, only three of whom were involved in cases for which he was convicted.

  8. Worboys was sentenced to an indeterminate term for public protection, so didn’t have a fixed period to serve. That type of sentence has now, rightly, been banned, but that’s the fact of the matter.

    Plus you’re only entitled to apply for parole if you can demonstrate genuine remorse and repentance, about which there are serious doubts in this case.

  9. Sentencing asside, once he was told he was a free man, there should be no going back on that. It’s up to the parole board to make the right choices, but if there is an error, you shouldn’t be able to tell someone they’re free and then say, Just kidding

      • Meanwhile victims of RoP Child rape gangs are ignored when “scum” released

        They are and they’ve been complaining to Police, Councillors & MPs, but nobody will listen and BBC/C4 won’t report it.

        Released are back in same streets, hanging around outside schools, working in same cafes.

        Police told one complainant it was OK for Mr “released on license” RoP to loiter outside school as he was…

        … In His Car

        No “abandon principles” for, in my opinion, much worse criminals who showed no remorse and flaunt their return to victims’ streets.

    • “Subject to the appeals process, you’ll be granted parole, you utterly worthless piece of shit who is a permanent threat to decent women everywhere. It is the right of your victims, or indeed any citizen who can see through the charade of your so called remorse in a way that government appointed psychologists cannot, to challenge the error ridden parole board hearing and ensure that the public is protected from you, so don’t get your hopes up, you evil bastard”.

      I’d far rather that women are protected from this truly evil piece of shit than that we show concern for his delicate sensitivities. The bloke is a monster and for as long as he can get an erection he should stay inside.

      • Oh, I agree. I just don’t like the smell of the whole thing. It has a whiff of making it up to suit the situation about it, hence my feeling twitchy about it. I’d probably feel better if it was made perfectly clear right at the beginning that the parole decision was subject to a possible appeal – but so far as I am aware, it wasn’t.

        I would also feel less twitchy if he had been locked up for thirty years or more right up front – none of this “you are eligible for parole after eight years” nonsense. Eight years is way too little.

        • I’d like to retract the adjective “decent” (in my defense, it was nearly 2 in the morning here in Queensland). All women, irrespective of their degree of decency, are entitled to be protected from this monster.

          • Again, I agree. Worboys should have gone to jail for life without parole – at least he would have if I had anything to do with it. My niggle here isn’t Worboys, it’s the process that followed.

      • DocBud, let’s be clear here – Worboys is no back alleyway and park prowler in a balaclava with a knife. His victims made themselves vulnerable.

        Why should I fear him once released, because I’m female too?

        • Wow, mega victim blaming, JuliaM. Not everyone on this planet is as intelligent or street savvy as you and I. Just because someone is naive enough to fall for the “I’ve one millions, have a glass of champers with me” line, doesn’t make them deserved of being raped or sexually assaulted. He certainly was an evil predator, he had a ‘rape kit’ that he carried with him for when a suitable occasion arose.

          Do you seriously believe that rape is not so bad if the perpetrator doesn’t have a knife or balaclava?

          • Oh, please! Not the ‘victim blaming’ deflection again?

            Tell me, when the police put up ‘pickpockets, be aware!’ and ‘don’t leave valuables in your car!’ signs, is that victim blaming too? Do people that do that deserve to be victims of theft?

          • No, that’s not victim blaming. But suggesting that rape is at least ‘understandable’ if the victims make themselves vulnerable is victim blaming. If you wear a mini skirt that gives a glimpse of underwear with a low cut top that shows your nipples at 2 in the morning, no more justifies rape than if you are wearing a nun’s habit at 2 in the afternoon.

          • And do I believe that rape is ‘not so bad’ if it’s not a strangers with a knife and balaclava…?

            No.

            But I grade my risks appropriately. And someone who needs his victim to take a hand in rendering themselves vulnerable isn’t as much of a risk. Just as a sad pervert enticing a child to perform acts on a webcam isn’t as much of a risk to a smart streetwise child as a ‘Roy Whiting with a van’ type.

            That’s just self-evident.

          • @DocBud

            If I walk into a Celtic pub late at night wearing Ranger’s regalia and am attacked; am I an innocent victim or did my behaviour & clothing incentivise/provoke the attack?

            It’s called Personal Responsibility & Personal Security (PerSec).

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