Eilis O’Hanlon: a day out for killers makes a mockery of justice system
There must be a full, open public discussion on the rights and wrongs of how we rehabilitate prisoners before release,
There’s a world of difference between knowing in the abstract that there are former prisoners convicted of murder back out on the streets, and actually seeing those who are still supposed to be behind bars taken on a hiking trip in the Mourne Mountains before enjoying a stroll and a cup of tea on Newcastle seafront.
The five men who were recently pictured enjoying that privilege have been called “notorious killers”, but that barely scratches the surface of the evil which the group, all inmates at Maghaberry, inflicted on their mainly female victims.
Academic Gerard O’Kane bludgeoned, strangled and stabbed his wife Annie to death in a premeditated attack for which the judge at his trial could find no remorse.
William Mahwinney drowned his partner, Lorraine, in the bath.
Former policeman Kenneth McConnell suffocated pensioner Annabella Symington in her own home in 1989.
Triad hitman Siu Ching Wong strangled pregnant waitress Candy Ho in a so-called honour killing.
Lastly, there’s Billy Moore, an ex-boxer jailed for the UDA murder of a man in 2003.
These are the kind of men one expects to find stalking the pages of the most gruesome crime fiction, not taking the air at the seaside in County Down.
It hardly bears thinking about what the effect might have been on the families of their victims if they’d happened to see them walking around nonchalantly last Thursday. It’s one of the biggest torments for
those touched by violent death that, upon release, they might one day inadvertently bump into the person responsible.
It’s not the first time these men have been spotted out and about either. They’re also reported to have enjoyed fishing trips and walks along the Lagan Towpath. Who knows what prison management has in store for them next week? A slap-up lunch at Titanic Centre, perhaps, followed by a wee dander up to the Giant’s Causeway, all paid for out of some poor sucker’s taxes.
It’s a wonder they don’t just take them to Disneyland and really make a day of it.
The fact that men who murdered innocent victims in the most unforgivable of circumstances should be free to pose as if they were harmless sightseers makes a mockery of the justice system. It’s as if the only purpose of locking up those who commit the worst crimes the human mind can imagine is to make a grand show of punishment before quietly letting them out again once their crimes have faded from public memory.
Of course, hundreds of prisoners were released as part of the Belfast Agreement and are now strutting around freely. That was a painful compromise for Northern Irish society, arrived at after anguished disagreement and negotiation. We didn’t like it, but we knew what we were doing. This couldn’t be more different. This obscene situation, which paradoxically happens both in secret and right under our noses, has evolved without any prior discussion whatsoever.
Ronnie Armour, director general of the Northern Ireland Prison Service, admitted that the hike in the Mournes was controversial — that’s certainly a nice way of putting it — but justified the decision on the basis that the prison service has a requirement to prepare prisoners for eventual release. Letting them out on limited excursions under the watchful eye of trained staff was, he explained in these pages yesterday, a “test” of carefully selected prisoners’ suitability for reintegration into the community. As such, he insisted that each prisoner is “individually assessed”. This would only be reassuring were such assessments infallible. If only that was true.
Too many dangerous men and women have been released back into the community on the word of experts who insisted that they were no longer a danger to others, all at the behest of well-meaning do-gooders who constantly bleat on about prisoners having “served their time” and deserving a second chance.
Victims don’t get a second chance, and the punishment for their families has no time limit.
Armour talks about “risk assessment” as if it was a science, rather than an unreliable mixture of guesswork and crossing one’s fingers and hoping for the best, whilst admitting that only “a small number” of prisoners fail this pre-release test. Then it can’t be as “challenging” as he claims, can it? If the vast majority of prisoners are ultimately deemed suitable for release, it suggests instead the testing programme is already loaded in their favour.
To be fair, he’s right to point out that there are no such things in Northern Ireland as “life means life” sentences. Everyone, in theory, gets out eventually.
But they should at least be seen to have fully served their sentences first.
William Mawhinney was only jailed in 2011, with a recommendation that he serve at least 12 years before he could be considered for release.
That was only seven years ago. How can it be right that he is already being prepped for release?
When Gerard O’Kane was convicted in 2012 of stabbing his wife to death, the presiding judge told him that he must serve “every single day” of his 14-year sentence. It’s unlikely that, when the judge laid down his stipulation, he understood serving every single day to mean that some of them would be spent in the Mournes.
What is the point of judges even imposing minimum sentences? The prison service may call it a test, but it surely looks to most people very much like a reward. It isn’t right. Sorry if that sounds overly simplistic to the people on high who run our world, but it just isn’t.
There’s a delicate balance to maintain between punishment and rehabilitation, but it’s shifted too far and too fast. Punishment is not an add-on. It should be regarded by all as the primary function of imprisonment.
More importantly, it must be seen to be imposed.
That’s why Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie was right to demand that the prison board be more open and transparent about its decision-making process.
Sadly, Ronnie Armour’s lengthy justification did not help to that end. It boiled down a simple message: We know best, so trust us.
That’s asking too much. Prison officers have vast experience, and must be respected, but their word on the rights and wrongs of rehabilitation cannot automatically be accepted without a full, honest public discussion.
That it takes an outcry before these conversations can even begin simply exposes the massive disjoint between what ordinary people think and feel and what officialdom decides on our behalf.
This is what’s stoking discontent with the system as a whole. They’ve let us down too often to expect deference now.
This obscene situation, at once secret and under our noses, has evolved without prior discussion