In the Worboys case any element of retribution in the sentencing was sadly lacking

SIR – Nick Timothy (Comment, March 29) is correct in saying that our whole criminal justice system is flawed, but he misses one vital point: the need for retribution.

Today, retribution is regarded as unacceptable, with rehabilitation the sine qua non, but any justice system that ignores this requirement loses public support.

Our primitive ancestors understood this. Crime hurts, and the hurt is doubled if victims see the guilty free and laughing while their pain persists. But personal vengeance creates vicious cycles and destroys communities. Our ancestors therefore took from the individual the right to pursue their own justice in return for a contract from the community that it would avenge their hurt.

For decades now, society has reneged on its side of the contract. Crimes are left uninvestigated and the criminals let off lightly, while the victims’ suffering, and sense of violation and insecurity persist.

The desire for retribution may be ignoble, but it is human and must be humanely accommodated. As with Worboys, our justice system must go back to asking: has the criminal’s punishment matched and outlasted their victim’s pain? If not, why not?

Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

SIR – Mina Bowater (Letters, March 30) starts from the wrong premise in denouncing the proposition that unprosecuted crimes be taken into account in deciding fitness for release in the Worboys case.

The proper starting point is that Worboys was given an indeterminate sentence, with a minimum term of eight years. The question the Parole Board must answer, at its broadest is: has he shown that he is fit for release?

In answering this question, there is no question of him being punished for crimes that are alleged but not proved. As the judgment makes clear, what has to be undertaken is a risk assessment of the likelihood of re-offending. A risk assessment, by its very nature, does not require proof beyond reasonable doubt.

It is clear from the judgment that Worboys only latterly admitted to the crimes of which he was convicted and sought at all times to minimise the seriousness of the offences he had committed. His statement during the Parole Board process contained inconsistencies.

Although it did not express it in these terms, the court found that the Parole Board had not conducted a sufficiently thorough risk assessment in the circumstances of this case and that the process has now to be repeated properly.

If he is released, Worboys will always be liable to be returned to prison if he transgresses. This, however, will be scant comfort to any future victims if he is released but re-offends.

London SW6

SIR – In its otherwise fair criticisms of the justice system, your Leading Article (March 29) was wrong to include “a judiciary that handed out an overly lenient eight-year tariff, when one of the offences was rape, which carries a life sentence”. As Nick Timothy noted on the Comment page, the judge overseeing Worboys’s trial was tough and handed down an indeterminate sentence with a minimum of eight years.

The now-repealed indeterminate sentence in practice meant that the prisoner served a life sentence unless and until released by the Parole Board after the minimum term had been served. The highly experienced judge’s sentence was, moreover, exactly within sentencing guidelines applicable at the time.

It should hardly need adding that it could punish Worboys only for the offences of which he had been convicted and not have regard to other like allegations, however serious and numerous, unless the defendant had admitted them.

His Honour Peter Birts

London SW6