Why was my mum’s killer with 46 convictions on the streets?
were understaffed and overworked and there were oversights, but then conclude that nothing was done wrong.”
The probe comes after it emerged London Bridge attacker Usman Khan was being monitored by the probation service when he stabbed two people to death.
Last week a report found that dangerous criminals including rapists and murderers are not always properly managed after leaving jail.
Hampered
Watchdogs said the National Probation Service was being hampered by staff shortages, overstretched middle managers and poor facilities. Just days later a coroner hit out at the “woefully inadequate” support given to an inexperienced probation officer after an inquest into the death of murdered teenager Conner Marshall.
Coroner Nadim Bashir said the officer supervising his killer David Braddon was “overwhelmed” by her caseload.
Last night Ian Lawrence, general secretary of the probation officers’ union Napo, said: “Probation is a vital service for protecting the public and rehabilitating clients back into society. Since its part privatisation introduced by Chris Grayling, it has been brought to its knees.”
DEVASTATED Ian Burgess said he was astonished the probation service allowed Johnny Brazil to continue offending.
He said: “They let him walk the streets to kill my mother. He was like a time bomb waiting to go off.
“It beggars belief that Brazil could keep on reoffending while he was under supervision.
“His crimes and his violence were getting progressively worse and nobody took him to task for it.
“He became a law unto himself. They have given him the impression that he is beyond the hands of the law because they have let him get away with so much.
“I just can’t understand why something wasn’t done about him before. The last place you expect your loved one to be attacked is in their own home. It makes you wonder how many other dangerous men like him are wandering around out there due to the failure of the probation service.”
Brazil, 27, was jailed for 23 years at Guildford Crown Court last August after he admitted robbing and killing Joyce.
The widow had been “doing him a good turn” after he asked for water on a hot day in July 2018. She left
Ian Burgess: Brazil was a ‘time bomb’
the front door open while she went to the kitchen, then found Brazil rifling through her handbag in the living room. When she challenged him, Brazil launched into the attack which left Joyce covered in blood and suffering head and chest injuries and two broken bones in her arms.
She seemed to be recovering but died in hospital after a heart attack.
After the attack at Joyce’s detached home in Woking, Surrey,
Brazil struck again at the homes of four other women pensioners – apparently following a local transport service dropping off the elderly after doctor appointments.
He broke into the home of an 89-year-old woman as she slept stealing two handbags and two necklaces. A 96-year-old woman woke in the early hours to find Brazil in her bedroom and later discovered a box of sentimental jewellery was missing.
The court heard he had 46 convictions for 79 offences going back to 2005 including battery, burglary and sexual offences.
Ian – who is retired and lives with his wife Donna, 62, in Turkey – called for urgent action in the wake of the official report over the death of his widowed mother Joyce, 84.
He said: “How can they list error after error and then say the case had been well managed and everything possible had been done to keep the public safe. It seems to me the probation service are a law unto themselves.
“They say over and over in the report that they couldn’t manage him. It seems they don’t want people like him on their books, they want them out on the street.” warned about the dangers of splitting up the probation service.
Napo takes no pleasure in saying we told you so but the reality has been far worse than we could ever have predicted.
We have seen an increase in Serious Further Offending (SFO), ever increasing workloads, staff shortages, a private sector that has had to be held up financially by government bungs and a significant drop in the quality of service.
The HMIP report highlighted that the National Probation Service still has no strategic plan for sharing lessons learnt from an SFO review. Napo would like to see HMIP take over responsibility for investigating SFOs.This is now a priority to not only ensure that all investigations are independent but also to ensure that they are a learning exercise first and foremost.