THROW AWAY THE KEY JAIL HAS NICKED OUR SWEENEY
Youngest female killer set to stay locked up forever
THE youngest female murderer in Britain could be locked up for ever after a court heard she plotted to kill another inmate.
Sharon Carr – dubbed the Devil’s Daughter – lost a legal bid for cushier conditions after her sick fantasies emerged.
And last night crime campaigners called for the authorities to “throw away the key”.
Carr is serving life for the knife killing, when she was only 12, of a teenage hairdresser nearly three decades ago. She had begged judges for a relaxation of her “restricted prisoner” status, which sees her often kept in solitary.
But it was thrown out after it was discovered she dreamed of splitting open another lag’s head and hurling her down stairs.
The High Court ruled people would be at risk if Carr, now 40, was moved to softer surroundings. And she was denied permission to appeal – meaning she faces being locked up indefinitely.
In his judgment Mr Justice Julian Knowles said there was “no convincing evidence” that the risk
Carr posed to the public “had significantly reduced”. He wrote she had “thoughts of wanting to murder another resident by splitting her head open and throwing her down the stairs to snap her neck, whilst also being involved in an altercation with another resident with whom she had been in a relationship”.
Carr picked on Katie Rackliff, 18, at random in Farnborough, Hants, in 1992, stabbing her 32 times. Katie’s parents Joseph and Helen spoke at a press conference after the savage attack.
Two years later Carr struck in Camberley, Surrey, attacking a girl with a knife. While in a young offender institute for that crime she bragged of killing Katie and was convicted in 1997.
In a diary she had written: “I wish I could kill you again. Your screams turn me on.” Another diary entry read: “I’m a killer. Killing is my business. Business is good.”
And a third revealed: “Every night I see the Devil in my dreams but I realise it was just me.”
Carr claimed her rights were breached when prison bosses decided in a private meeting not to relax her conditions at HMP Bronzefield, Surrey.
Her lawyers said she should have been present at the hearing. But judge Mr Justice Knowles said her case for a review was “not arguable”. Katie’s mum campaigned for her to stay locked up.
Rights crusader Lynne Baird, 63, whose son Daniel, 26, was murdered in 2017, said: “I don’t doubt Carr would kill again if she had the means. The best thing to do would be to throw away the key.”
HUNDREDS of female prisoners are demanding justice after a TV blackout robbed them of Minder, Kojak, Quincy and The Sweeney.
ITV4 – also home to classics such as The Professionals – vanished from several of the ten wings at HMP Eastwood Park, Glos.
A source said: “The ladies here are very miffed. They love the old shows and are always doing the catchphrases like, ‘Get your trousers on, You’re nicked’ and, ‘Listen you slag’. They’ve been reduced to the normal terrestrial channels and reckon the new cop shows aren’t a patch on the oldies. Let’s face it, Death In Paradise isn’t really going to do the same job.”
Inmates spend 14 hours a day in their cells and pay a pound a week for a TV.
But an outdated aerial system means ITV4 and other channels like Film4 have vanished.
The lack of channels was the most common complaint about living conditions among inmates, according to inspectors from the Independent Monitoring Board. Their report said: “Eastwood Park has an old and complex system for delivering TV channels to the wings. A refit was considered to be too expensive.”
Peter Clarke, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, commented last year on how bored inmates looked. “I was immediately struck by the sight of rows of women’s faces pressed against the open observation hatches of their locked doors, peering out into the narrow, dark, cell block corridor,” he wrote.
“It was as if they were waiting for anything to happen, however mundane, to relieve the monotony of their existence.”