Killer’s jail transfer bid blocked
SADISTIC Christmas Day killer Steven Ling will stay behind bars, after his bid to be transferred to an open prison was blocked by Justice Secretary Dominic Raab.
Mr Raab overruled the parole board’s recommendation, following a plea from the mother of Ling’s victim, Joanne Tulip, who was raped and stabbed 60 times by Ling after he lured her to his Stamfordham home on Christmas Day 25 years ago.
The Justice Secretary decided Ling, now 47, who was jailed for life in 1998, should remain in a secure closed prison. It is the first time that a Justice Secretary has exercised his personal powers to block such a parole board decision in the interests of public safety and justice.
Joanne’s mother, Doreen Soulsby, of Wall, near Hexham, was horrified when she heard that Ling had been recommended to move to an open prison and wrote to Mr Raab, demanding that he remain in a closed prison. On Friday morning, she received the news that she had been waiting for that the Justice Secretary had decided the transfer was “unsuitable.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The Deputy Prime Minister has rejected Steven Ling’s move to open conditions in the interest of public protection.”
Mrs Soulsby said: “It’s such a relief. All the effort and campaigning has been really worthwhile in the end.”
Mrs Soulsby’s campaign in her daughter’s memory won her the support of MPS across the political spectrum, including Hexham’s Guy Opperman, who described her as “one of the bravest and most resilient of my many amazing constituents”.
Mrs Soulsby, said: “I don’t think anyone would believe that a killer like
Ling would ever be considered to be moved to an open prison.”