Victims given right to attend all Parole Board hearings

VICTIMS of crime are to be allowed to attend all Parole Board hearings after outrage over the secretive decisionmaking surrounding the early release of John Worboys, the black cab rapist.

The parole board will next month launch trials of its “open justice” approach to hearings where victims can present personal impact statements in person.

Previously, victims were able to read a statement – or have it read for them – at parole hearings when offenders are considered for release but were not able to attend full hearings where all the evidence is presented to a panel.

Between five and 10 per cent of victims take up these options – and it is thought a similar proportion may want to attend the hearings. Officials are promising specialist support and advice for victims, as intimate personal details about the offender could be aired.

The proposal is part of a root-andbranch shake-up of the Parole Board, whose hearings are held behind closed doors. Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, can block the release of high-risk criminals and introduce more prescriptive guidance on when other prisoners should be freed.

It comes as the Parole Board today decides if Tracey Connelly, the mother of Baby P, should be freed after Mr Raab used his statutory powers to ask it last month to reconsider its decision to free her.

Connelly’s son Peter died in 2007 after suffering more than 50 injuries at the hands of her partner, Steven Barker, and his paedophile brother, Jason Owen, over an eight-month period.

Connelly, 40, was jailed in 2008 over the death of Baby P and released in 2013 but sent back to jail after breaking the terms of her release. She had been selling pornographic pictures of herself.

The moves follow the scandal over the proposed 2018 release of Worboys, who was convicted in 2009 of raping and attacking 12 women. Some of his victims were not told about the decision to release him, which was overturned by the High Court. He was given two life sentences in 2019 after admitting four other attacks on women.