Outrage as double killer ‘moves towards freedom’
RELATIVES of a beheading victim are furious the murderer has been moved out of a high-security psychiatric hospital to a less secure unit.
Double killer John Latus, 47, was jailed for life for the murder of Julian Sanders, 20, who was found dumped in a park in 2000.
He was also convicted of a second killing and the attempted murder of his own mother.
The parents of Mr Sanders said they are living in fear of schizophrenic Latus as they believe that the move from Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside is on the “slippery road” of his freedom. And they claim the victims of mentally ill criminals are not being listened to.
Julian’s father, Russell Sanders Royle, 62, said: “If he is fit enough to be moved to a less secure hospital then he is fit enough to be moved to a proper prison. It is the slippery road to freedom.”
His wife Avril, the victim’s stepmother, insisted that Latus is still dangerous.
She said: “We have no qualms at all that he will murder again. We want Latus put back in a secure mental hospital.
“Even when he was first in Ashworth, I wrote to them to ask ‘What is your escape rate because I do not feel safe?’. I have to keep all my doors locked whenever I am in the house on my own and I still do that to this day.”
Smokescreen
At a meeting with Ashworth last week, Mrs Sanders Royle, 67, asked about the killer’s mental health.
She said: “They said we can’t discuss anything because of patient confidentiality. What we can do is seek his permission to discuss his case with us. So they are going to seek Latus’ permission to talk to us.
“They try to hide behind this smokescreen of patient confidentiality and the rights of the Mentally Disordered Offender.
“That is not right because that MDO has taken away the first human right, which is the right to life.”
A report last year by Victims’ Commissioner Baroness Newlove said such victims are being “ignored” in England and Wales.
Her findings were later backed by an independent review into the Mental Health Act.
Julian’s decapitated body was discovered in Cofton Park, Birmingham, in May 2000.
His head was nearby and a postmortem examination found that he was alive but unconscious when it was severed.
The trainee welder from Shrewsbury was pals with work colleague Colin Foulkes, 50. He was also killed by Latus, who had shared a home with him. Police suspected Latus was the killer but had no evidence until the following year when he attacked his mother Christine Artiss with an axe at her home in Corwen, North Wales.
She survived and he was arrested. Police later found the body of Mr Foulkes in a wood near his home in
FREED SEX OFFENDERS BEING HOUSED IN BUDGET HOTELS USED BY FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN
FREED sex offenders have been housed in budget hotels instead of in bail hostels, it was revealed yesterday.
And of 120 probation cases, only 17 offenders started a programme to reduce the risk of re-offending, out of 42 ordered to complete one. A shock joint report Wroxeter, Shropshire. Farm labourer Latus admitted the manslaughter of Mr Foulkes and was convicted of Julian’s murder and the attempted murder of his mother. Latus was jailed for life in 2003.
Speaking of Latus’ transfer, Ashworth Hospital last night said by the prison and probation inspectorates concluded not enough is being done to protect the public from sex offenders.
Chief Inspector of Probation Dame Glenys Stacey said: “It’s not a happy picture, it’s a very troubling picture indeed.”
She said the public might they are aware has caused to this decision”.
A spokesman added: “We are unable to discuss individual patients because of rules governing patient confidentiality but decisions like this are never taken lightly and are of the “upset this those affected by assume everything possible was being done in prisons and in the community to reduce the risk of reoffending but “that is simply not the case”.
She said it was “unacceptable” that sex offenders had been rehoused where there were potentially women, children and only made after consulting clinical advice and the permission of the Ministry of Justice.”
A MoJ spokesman said patients could not be treated in the community “until it is determined that they no longer need to be detained in a psychiatric hospital”. families staying. There are currently 13,580 prisoners serving jail terms for sexual offences, nearly a fifth of the total prison population.
The inspectorates called for “urgent and much-needed progress in the management and supervision of sexual offenders”.