Life sentences ‘must not be reserved for acid attack victims’
Rudd wants longer jail terms Big overhaul after horror spree
ACID attack victim Adele Bellis feels like she is a serving a life sentence. And she is painfully aware that the man who injured her, melting off her ear and half of her hair, is not.
Jason Harrison – who threw sulphuric acid at Adele on the orders of her possessive ex-boyfriend Anthony Riley – is now free, after just two-and-a-half years behind bars.
Along with the horrific injuries to her ear and scalp, Adele also suffered horrendous damage to the skin on her neck and arm. She tells how she feels that acid attacks are “worse than murder”.
Echoing Home Secretary Amber Rudd’s call for tougher sentences, Adele 25, of Lowestoft, Suffolk, says she believes Harrison should still be paying the price for his crime.
Speaking before today’s parliamentary debate
GUILTY Ex-love Riley, left, and Harrison
on how to tackle acid attacks, she says: “He definitely hasn’t served long enough. The justice system is rubbish.
“I don’t feel I have had justice. He should have got more than 10 years at least. He was the one who disfigured me, then ran away, and then hid for eight months until the police found him. And all the time I was in hospital.”
Adele adds: “I would say this crime was worse than murder. There were a few times in my recovery when I thought, ‘Why didn’t you kill me?’
“I would rather he had shot me. The amount of pain and trauma I went through, then the years of recovery. It’s such a long process.
“I have not been told where he is, only that he is 200 miles away. When I heard he was coming out I felt vulnerable, helpless. There was nothing I could do. All I can do is try to get on with my life.”
Harrison, 29, doused beautician Adele with sulphuric acid in 2014 as she waited for a bus to work. Because her abusive ex, Riley, was the mastermind behind the attack, Harrison was jailed for just four years and four months. He was released in May after serving just over half of his sentence. Alarmingly, reported assaults involving