\n<\/p>\n
More women will die if ministers include domestic abusers in the early prison release scheme, the parents of a woman murdered by her partner shortly after he was freed have warned.<\/p>\n
Michaela Hall, a 49-year-old charity worker, was killed in her home in Cornwall, by Lee Kendall in 2021 two weeks after he was released from prison, where he had been serving a sentence for assaulting her.<\/p>\n
The Probation Service incorrectly assessed Kendall as medium risk, despite the fact he had strangled Hall, threatened her with weapons and police had received 34 pieces ofintelligence about his abuse against her.<\/p>\n
At an inquest into her death, probation staff cited \u201chorrendous work pressures\u201d as part of the reason why the error was made.<\/p>\n
Hall\u2019s parents, Anne and Peter, said domestic abuse victims across the country would be \u201cabsolutely petrified\u201d at the prospect of their abusers being released early.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s going to be more violence and there\u2019s going to be more death. It\u2019s very simple,\u201d Peter said. \u201cThe Probation Service can\u2019t cope on a day-to-day basis. They certainly can\u2019t cope with 5,000 prisoners being released. It\u2019s the most ridiculous thing I\u2019ve ever heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
From October, the government is planning to release 5,000 offenders in England and Wales earlier than scheduled to create more space in overcrowded prisons.<\/p>\n
Probation officers have voted overwhelmingly in favour of potential strike action over excessive workloads and the chief inspector of probation for England and Wales, Martin Jones, has said he does not think the system will be able to cope.<\/p>\n
Prisoners convicted of rape, serious child sex offences and grooming charges will be excluded from early release after an intervention by the prime minister, Andy Burnham, in response to backlash over the plans.<\/p>\n
Farah Nazeer, the chief executive of Women\u2019s Aid, said it was \u201creally upsetting and troubling\u201d that domestic abuse perpetrators would not be excluded.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re releasing prisoners early when they won\u2019t have had proper rehabilitation. Probation is probably not able to manage them effectively. They\u2019re going to be angry. Where do you think they\u2019re going to go first? It\u2019s absolutely appalling,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen will die as a result of this. There is no doubt in my mind. Survivors need to come forward and they need to seek help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nazeer criticised the government for failing to give survivors enough time to prepare for the early release and said it would \u201ccompletely undermine\u201d Labour\u2019s goal to halve violence against women in a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t have a halving violence against women strategy and then choose to release the perpetrators of the biggest crime against women and children early,\u201d she said. \u201cWhy does the government think it\u2019s OK to trade women\u2019s safety up?\u201d<\/p>\n
The government has announced \u00a310m for victim support, a national helpline and greater involvement for victims in setting licence conditions, but Nazeer said this was not enough to help inundated support services.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re having to refuse 50% of women and children into refuge because the funding isn\u2019t there,\u201d she said. \u201c\u00a310m doesn\u2019t even begin to cut it against the need that\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hall family have launched a legal challenge under the Human Rights Act against the Probation Service and police over their handling of Hall\u2019s case. While the service miscategorised Kendall\u2019s risk level, meaning he was released with minimal supervision, police officers also failed to enter Hall\u2019s property on the night she was murdered despite a call from a friend saying she was being attacked.<\/p>\n
As they drove away, one officer said: \u201cWhat can you do if she don\u2019t help herself?\u201d<\/p>\n
Anne said: \u201cOur daughter was stabbed by some evil person that should never have been anywhere near her because they all didn\u2019t do their jobs properly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s left two children without their mum and the rest of the family absolutely shattered. It was a catalogue of mistakes, laziness and victim blaming which is the most dreadful thing that you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peter said the aim of the legal action was to get justice for his daughter but also to help prevent future deaths. \u201cThis won\u2019t help us, it doesn\u2019t make us feel any better,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are only doing this to bring about change and so other people don\u2019t have to suffer. We hear so much nowadays that these services are just not doing their job properly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Catherine Knight, the deputy head of legal at the Good Law Project, which is acting for the family, said: \u201cWe would hope [the legal challenge] would force the authorities to change the way they operate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the government wants to go ahead with the early release scheme then we need to ensure the systems supporting offenders and victims are robust and do work as they should but, at present, there are systemic issues within the service.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: \u201cThe murder of Michaela Hall was a horrific crime, and our thoughts remain with her loved ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have always stated we wanted to go further to protect the public, and we are fast-tracking a plan to keep more of the most dangerous offenders behind bars. That\u2019s on top of murderers, anyone on life sentences and those in prison for rape, serious child sexual abuse and grooming offences who are already blocked from any changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur record \u00a3700m investment in probation is ensuring staff have the resources, powers and technology they need to manage offenders safely in the community, and we are tagging a record number of offenders to track their every move, alongside investing a record \u00a3550m in victim support.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More women will die if ministers include domestic abusers in the early prison release scheme, the parents of a woman murdered by her partner shortly after he was freed have warned. Michaela Hall, a 49-year-old charity worker, was killed in her home in Cornwall, by Lee Kendall in 2021 two weeks after he was released<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1553,7142,1386,442,2957,630,2798,2933,1388,1952,418],"class_list":{"0":"post-51813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-abusers","9":"tag-die","10":"tag-domestic","11":"tag-early","12":"tag-leave","13":"tag-parents","14":"tag-prison","15":"tag-victims","16":"tag-violence","17":"tag-warn","18":"tag-women"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}