309 KILLED IN PROBATION SCANDAL
Freed criminals ‘monitored’ by private firms commit a murder every four days
A SHOCKING 309 people have been killed by offenders being monitored by private probation firms since the service was part-privatised.
Last year alone 84 were murdered – an average of one every four days.
Nadine Marshall, whose son Conner was beaten to death, said: “It’s tragic and unacceptable for the victims’ families.”
Probation must be in the public sector and funded properly
LIZ SAVILLE ROBERTS ON PRIVATISATION SHAMBLES
A MUM whose son was killed by an offender being monitored by a private probation firm has told of her fury that such murders have soared under Tory outsourcing.
Last year 138 people were killed by monitored offenders, nearly double the toll of 71 in 2014.
Of last year’s victims, 84 – by far the majority – were killed by those under the watch of private community rehabilitation companies.
It means there was a murder every four days on average by criminals whose probation was outsourced.
Nadine Marshall, whose son Conner, 18, was an early victim of the system, said: “It’s tragic. Conner’s death was senseless and unnecessary. The lessons just aren’t being learned.”
Conner was beaten to death in Porthcawl, South Wales, in March 2015 by David Braddon, who was on probation at the time and is now serving a life sentence.
A total of 309 people have been murdered by criminals monitored by private firms in the six years since the shake-up, figures released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.
It far outnumbers the 196 killed by those managed by the National Probation Service in the same period. Nadine, who hopes to stand for Plaid Cymru in May’s Police and Crime Commissioner elections in South Wales, said: “It’s unacceptable for those victims’ families, it makes me so angry. What more proof do we need that there needs to be change? I can’t see how they can keep making statements saying that things are changing and money is going into probation when the figures don’t show that.
“We can’t just keep letting this happen and that is why I am going to try to help change things.”
Private CRCs manage some 150,000 medium and low-risk offenders while the Government’s NPS is responsible for 106,000 high-risk criminals.
Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville Roberts said: “The privatised probation experiment clearly hasn’t worked. Companies have clearly cut corners putting profit before people’s safety. The Ministry of Justice must act quickly to bring the whole probation back into the public sector and fund it properly.”
Last year’s toll of 84 killed by CRCmonitored offenders was double the 42 in 2015, the year after Chris Grayling ushered in the changes as Justice Secretary. Problems with the partprivatisation cost nearly £500million, the National Audit Office said.
Campaign group We Own It said: “Private probation companies cannot be trusted to keep the public safe.”
All probation will be put back in the public sector from December – but it is too late for the 309 victims.
The Ministry of Justice said: “We are bringing all offender management back under the National Probation Service and have 800 new probation officers in training. Less than 0.5% of offenders on probation are convicted of a serious further offence.”
THE killing spree by criminals supposedly being monitored by privatised probation services leaves the Tories responsible for this carnage with blood on their hands.
Destroying the service was a fatal mistake, and reversing this foolish commercialisation of public protection will come too late for those already grieving over lost loved ones.
Of all Chris Grayling’s blunders, and there were many, privatising the probation service while he was Justice Secretary ranks among the very worst.
He ignored the warnings with a deafness the Tories still apply in other areas – from the pain of Universal Credit to the compelling case for the renationalisation of the railways.
Expensive mistakes are harder to take when those failures were predicted.
When the Conservatives value ideological madness over common sense, it is always going to end in tears.
Those who have lost their loved ones are entitled to be furious.