NEWLOVE KILLER IN BID TO BE RELEASED
Ringleader asks for parole
THE ringleader of the gang of thugs who beat Garry Newlove to death is making a bid for freedom as his minimum sentence comes to an end.
Adam Swellings is the last of the killers still in prison. Drunk youths attacked the 47-year-old dad in 2007 after he told them off for vandalising cars. Swellings, then 19, had been freed on bail just hours earlier over a similar assault. He had ignored a court order banning him from Warrington, Cheshire, the scene of the killing.
Swellings’ minimum sentence of 17 years for murdering sales manager Garry is up in August.
He was cleared for a move to open prison conditions two years ago but the decision was blocked by the Justice Secretary at the time, Dominic Raab.
Garry’s widow Baroness Helen Newlove declined to comment on Swellings’ upcoming parole hearing but she is expected to read an impact statement at it. She has previously said parole hearings made her feel helpless, and backs the Mirror’s campaign for a victims’ rights bill.
The bill would give victims the right to be updated and consulted on their cases.
A victims’ code was introduced last year as a precursor to legislation yet be announced.
Baroness Newlove said: “The victims’ law would give THUG Adam Swellings a voice to victims. Only then will they be at the centre of our criminal justice system.” Swellings’ fellow killers Jordan Cunliffe and Stephen Sorton, then 16 and 17, received minimum jail terms of 12 and 15 years respectively in the 2008 trial. Two others were cleared. Sorton’s sentence was cut by two years on appeal and he and Cunliffe were released in 2020. A Parole Board review panel rejected thenJustice Secretary Robert Buckland’s attempt to keep Cunliffe in jail.