Political opinion with Kieran Mullan MP: Putting victims first in our justice system

Now that Parliament has returned from the summer recess, one of Kemi Badenoch’s first acts after the summer was to reshuffle the MPs supporting her as Shadow Ministers. I was delighted to be reappointed as Shadow Justice Minister. 

Justice has always been an important issue for me. My father was a police officer and I also served as a volunteer police officer before entering Parliament. I served on the Justice Select Committee for four years. It is clear to me, going back decades across different governments, that our justice system doesn’t deliver justice often enough. 

One of the biggest issues I have worked on over the past year has been Labour’s plan to release criminals even earlier from prison. Pressures on prison space are not new. But releasing very serious offenders including rapists, child sex offenders and grooming offenders should never be the answer. Labour made the wrong choice instead of deporting more foreign offenders, supercharging the prison building programme and renting prison spaces abroad if necessary. We fought against this but Labour and the Liberal Democrats worked together to defeat us in Parliament. 

It took victims receiving letters warning them that the person responsible for the worst experiences of their lives would be released sooner to give the issue the attention it deserved. Kemi and I held a press conference with victims and helped amplify their voices. 

As a result of their courage in speaking out, Andy Burnham announced that rape, serious child sexual offences and grooming offences would be excluded from the early releases. This was followed by a further concession for the killers of PC Harper and similar offenders guilty of manslaughter. Whilst there are still some serious offenders getting out earlier, the change of course was a big victory for victims that I was pleased to be able to support. 

I was also pleased to support prison officer Lenny Scott’s family in securing an important change to the law. He was murdered by a former prisoner he stood up to whilst working in prison. This vile criminal tracked him down years later and murdered him in revenge. Normally murderers of prison or police officers have to spend the rest of their lives in prison. His case exposed a loophole for those murdered after their service had ended. I worked with Lenny’s mother and father to persuade the government to change the law. Nothing can undo what happened, but this change sends a clear message that those who serve and protect the public should themselves be protected by the law. 

There are more major justice reforms coming back before Parliament in the months ahead, including changes to the courts. I will be looking closely at those proposals and making sure that the Government does not reach for easy answers to problems that need much harder work to solve. 

A Conservative approach to justice should be prepared to do the difficult things needed to make the system work. It should also be an approach that puts victims’ rights and wishes first and foremost. Yes, we want to rehabilitate offenders guilty of crimes like shoplifting or young people caught up in anti-social behaviour. But some people cross a line, and some people have lived a life of crime for so many years that rehabilitation can be difficult. In those cases, protecting the public and securing justice for victims should come first.