Legislation planned to end automatic release

TERROR: Parole Board to be given more active role in decision-making

Emergency legislation is needed to make sure terrorists are not released automatically from prison halfway through their sentence, the justice secretary has said.

Speaking in the wake of the latest terror attack in Streatham, Robert Buckland also said the Parole Board should review cases before such offenders are freed.

Sudesh Amman was shot dead by police after grabbing a knife from a shop and attacking two bystanders in Streatham High Road, south London, on Sunday. A third person was injured by flying glass during the gunfire.

Mr Buckland told the House of Commons yesterday: “Yesterday’s appalling incident makes the case plainly for immediate action.

“We cannot have the situation, as we saw tragically in yesterday’s case, where an offender – a known risk to innocent members of the public – is released early by automatic process of law without any oversight by the Parole Board.

“We will be doing everything we can to protect the public, that is our primary duty.

“We will, therefore, introduce emergency legislation to ensure an end to terrorist offenders getting released automatically having served half of their sentence with no check or review.”

The 20-year-old, who was jailed for possessing and distributing terrorist documents in December 2018, was freed from prison less than a fortnight ago and had been staying at a bail hostel in nearby Leigham Court Road.

Scotland Yard said armed officers were following Amman on foot as part of a “proactive counter-terrorism surveillance operation” in Streatham High Road.

The three victims were taken by ambulance to south London hospitals.

One man, in his 40s, is no longer considered to be in a life-threatening condition following treatment.

A female teacher in her 50s had nonlife threatening injuries and has been discharged from hospital.

Police said a second woman, in her 20s, who suffered minor injuries believed to have been caused by glass following the discharge of a police firearm, continues to receive treatment.

Yesterday Amman’s mother, Haleema Faraz Khan, told Sky News that her son, who had wanted to study biomedical science, had seemed “normal” when she visited him on Thursday.

She said: “He became more religious inside prison, that’s where I think he became radicalised.

“He was watching and listening to things online which brainwashed him.”

Investigations continue with officers also searching two addresses in south London and Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire.

Mr Buckland said offenders will not be considered for release until they have served two-thirds of their sentence and that no terrorists will be released before the end of their full custodial term unless the Parole Board agrees.

The Parole Board would be “strengthened” to deal more effectively with the risks that terrorists pose and steps would be taken to introduce the plans “as soon as possible”, Mr Buckland said.

The government will also consider making new legislation to ensure that extremists are more closely monitored on release and will review whether the current maximum sentences for terrorist offences are sufficient.

But Clare Collier, an advocacy director for campaign group Liberty, said the plans were “a cause of increasing concern for our civil liberties”, describing it as a “threat to break the law by changing people’s sentences retrospectively” which could “create more problems than it solves”.

The atrocity follows an attack at Fishmongers’ Hall in the City of London in November, when another convicted terrorist, Usman Khan, murdered two people despite being on probation.

Cambridge graduates Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, were stabbed to death at a rehabilitation conference.

Picture: Shutterstock. Police forensics officers continue their search of the crime scene yesterday.

Fanatic Sudesh Amman was shot dead after knife attack.