"Webmanager_CritEst" wrote in message
news:5d5b0772-98a7-414d-af3c-0d4d3bf5785d@m3g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
> On May 14, 3:18 pm, Halleh Luya wrote:
>> Story from BBC
>> NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/bradford/7400324.stm
>>
>> Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe is aiming to win his freedom by
>> claiming his human rights have been breached, a leading law firm has
>> confirmed.
>>
>> Sutcliffe murdered 13 women and tried to kill seven others across
>> northern England in the 1970s and 80s.
>>
>> But now a lawyer specialising in human rights cases is to argue that
>> the Home Office has fallen foul of the law.
>>
>> Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said it was "hard to imagine circumstances"
>> in which Sutcliffe would be freed.
>>
>> But lawyer Saimo Chahal, a partner at London-based Bindmans & Partners,
>> believes although Sutcliffe was told he would serve a minimum of 30
>> years in jail, the tariff was never formalised.
>>
>> Sutcliffe began his sentence in 1981, but three years later was
>> diagnosed with schizophrenia and moved to Broadmoor Hospital.
>>
>> Now the lawyer aims to get Sutcliffe back into the prison system and
>> has requested a reassessment of his psychiatric condition.
>>
>> If he were returned to the mainstream prison system then a decision
>> would be taken on the length of sentence he must serve.
>>
>> I find it hard to imagine circumstances in which he should be
>> Home Secretary Jacqui Smith
>>
>> A profile of Ms Chahal on the Bindmans LLP legal firm website confirmed
>> that she acts for Sutcliffe and added: "The Secretary of State is in
>> breach of Article Five of the ECHR (European Convention of Human
>> Rights) in failing to set a tariff."
>>
>> Ms Chahal was named Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year in a 2006 poll for
>> "repeatedly pushing the boundaries of the law on behalf of those with
>> mental illness".
>>
>> But Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she could not see how Sutcliffe
>> could be freed.
>>
>> "I find it hard to imagine circumstances in which he should be; but
>> that is something that needs to be considered on the basis of the
>> facts.
>>
>> "Top of my list of priorities, I have to say, is not Peter Sutcliffe's
>> rights, it's the rights of those people who were his victims, and how
>> we keep this country safe."
>>
>> Story from BBC
>> NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/bradford/7400324.stm
>>
>> Published: 2008/05/14 10:58:02 GMT
>
> "Top of my list of priorities, I have to say, is not Peter Sutcliffe's
> rights, it's the rights of those people who were his victims, and how
> we keep this country safe."
The top of any Home Secretary's list of priorities is, and always has been,
the need to win the approval of the Daily Mail and to placate the hanging
and flogging brigade. Of all the slimy hypocrites in Her Majesty's
government, the worst is always the Home Secretary.
The only Home Secretary with integrity and common sense in the last 20
years, was Kenneth Clarke.
If you were to say to a Home Secretary "the doctors and the parole board
recommend that we free Prisoner X, who is now a model prisoner and is not
likely to be a danger to the public" the wily politician will say "but how
will that affect the bye-election and council elections that are coming up
this year? It can only lose us votes! Can I just stall for time and leave
it for the next Home Secretary to sort out?" And the answer from the civil
servants will always be yes.
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