Published: News of the World, 13 June 2010
In the four years that I was Home Secretary, it fell to me on too many occasions to meet, listen to and try to bring some comfort to parents of children who had been murdered.
At that time, the Home Office had responsibility for sentencing, trying to apply common sense to the punishment of those who committed these crimes and protecting the public from it happening again.
My view was very simple. When the death penalty was abolished, it was presumed those who would otherwise have hanged for their crimes would be incarcerated for the rest of their lives.
After all, the life that they had taken would never return; and the lives of those who loved their victim would be affected for ever.
That was the situation I faced when Roy Whiting was found guilty of the abduction and murder of Sarah Payne.
Every member of her family—including her remarkable mother, Sara—was affected.
They remain hurt, distraught and intent on justice. They had once again to go through the trauma of a court judgment and the argument that the 50-year sentence I imposed was "disproportionate" to the taking of a child's life, not by accident or even in a fit of madness, but in a calculated and terrible manner.
At the time I approved that sentence, I was in a battle with the judiciary. I demanded civil rights—not for perpetrators, but for victims.
Just a few hours after the court ruling that Whiting's sentence should be slashed, giving him a chance of being out of jail for the latter years of his life, a debate was taking place in the Commons.
Accusations were being thrown about which suggested that former ministers, like myself, had been far too harsh on civil liberties.
Damian Green, the new Home Office minister, put it succinctly: "The civil libertarians are now in the ascendance in the Conservative Party." This was greeted by cheers from the coalition benches.
I was accused by these civil libertarians of being far too tough in demanding life should mean life. I was condemned for "taking away" the "freedom" of judges to deliver lower sentences and for fighting the judgment from Europe that the Home Secretary's right to determine the sentence for the most heinous crimes should be removed. ''
I was still able to give Whiting 50 years—the nearest thing I could come to ensuring life really would mean life. I remain convinced that it was the right thing to do.
It was not only an attempt to provide justice but also a signal we were not prepared to compromise on the horror of the murder of a child.
If the public are to have confidence in sentencing and judges, they need to know those who rule us feel, think and react like any intelligent, caring member of the public.
Confidence in the system ensures the real progress we've made in reducing child murders and the locking away for life of those who would most likely re-offend, protects us all from the horror of the death of yet another child.
Never again do I want a Justice or Home Secretary to have to explain to a traumatised mother or father that the elected politicians have no power to grant them justice.
In a democracy, judges have a responsibility to listen and respond. We owe no less to the memory of Sarah Payne.
Comments