A double child murderer will not be placed on the sex offenders register because of a legal loophole, it has emerged.
Colin Pitchfork, 61, who raped and murdered 15-year-olds Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth in 1983 and 1986, is set to be freed from HMP Leyhill in Gloucestershire after serving 33 years in prison.
However, given that his crimes and sentencing were before 1997
You are charged, tried and sentenced under the law – whatever it was – at the time of your charging, trial and sentence. Actually, to be precise, at the time of the alleged crime.
That’s not a loophole, that’s justice.
Of course he should have been strung up upon conviction in 1988 and forgotten by now.
I suspect he will quickly want to be back in prison and forgotten.
I imagine having a criminal record of rape and murder, combined with his parole conditions means whether he is technically on the sex register or not is totally irrelevant and would make little to no difference to how he is monitored.
Of course, the Left opened this door (to revising conviction parameters) when they insisted on pardoning people rightfully convicted under historic laws that wouldn’t be applied now, didn’t they?
Now, where’s that popcorn?
Let’s hope the Parole Board don’t come to regret their decision.
Tractor Gent said:
“Let’s hope the Parole Board don’t come to regret their decision.”
Other people might regret it, but I doubt the great and good who are paid to sit on the parole board will ever do so.
You are charged, tried and sentenced under the law . . . at the time of the alleged crime.
Nowadays you can just go straight to the register. No need for a crime.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9798849/Man-gets-racial-hatred-police-record-whistling-Bob-Builder-theme-tune.html
Wasn’t there some sort of promise when capital punishment was scrapped that Life would mean Life? Or is that my imagination?
The sentence still is life. Although you can get out on licence…..
‘Of course he should have been strung up upon conviction in 1988 and forgotten by now.’
Quite true MC.
When he was convicted IIRC it was the home secretary who was going to decide when he should be released.
Ideally she still would do that would be justice.
“Although you can get out on licence…..” So that Life needn’t mean Life.
When he was convicted IIRC it was the home secretary who was going to decide when he should be released.
Ideally she still would do that would be justice.
Didn’t that protection of the public get taken away by some human rights court?
The sentence still is life. Although you can get out on licence…..
That was a great piece of sophistry, everyone took “life means life” to mean behind bars until the end of their natural life. If they’d said it meant until a parole board decided to set them free on licence I suspect it would have been a completely different debate and outcome.
The sex offender register was a new idea. To whom should it apply? If the law had said, to anyone now or in future serving a sentence for a sex crime, that would not have been retrospective. Tying the register to sentencing would have made it retrospective, so that’s the loophole Pitchfork goes through. Badly thought out law is not justice.
The sex offenders’ register is interesting because it’s one of the rare instances in justice where an entire group is tarred with the same brush, rather than judged on an individual basis (and thus subject to the whims of increasingly liberal judges).
A more liberal order would tear up the register as unfair to rehabilitated offenders. I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened.
Never have we seen a study/analysis that purports to justify the existence of the registered sex offender sentence and list. There are all kinds of misapplication of justice in the USA with regard to the lists. Most unfairly tarring men either innocent or listed on very questionable technicalities. Legal pretzels are commonly manufactured to keep women off said lists.
Due to “legal loopholes” people who have served their punishment go free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I believe the threat of the register is one of the negotiating tools American prosecutors use in plea bargaining, a practice that seems nothing short of coercion and extortion and I imagine would be illegal if anyone but the legal system was doing it
Oh well, it wasn’t even not a loophole.
Double child killer and rapist Colin Pitchfork WILL go on the sex offence register
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9811959/Double-child-killer-rapist-Colin-Pitchfork-sex-offence-register.html