London: Murderers and those convicted of serious offences could face US-style jail sentences of more than 100 years under plans backed by the prime minister.
The sharp increase in prison terms is one of several schemes being explored by the government as a means of circumventing the European court of human rights’ effective ban on whole-life sentences.
Commenting on the proposal, David Cameron said on Thursday: “There are some people who commit such dreadful crimes that they should be sent to prison and life should mean life. Whatever the European court has said, we must put in place arrangements to make sure that can continue.”
The Ministry of Justice has confirmed that it is considering a number of options in response to the ruling by the Strasbourg court in July last year, which concluded that whole-life terms without any prospect of release or review amount to inhuman and degrading treatment.
The US-style sentencing proposal was initially revealed by the justice and policing minister, Damian Green, who is also in charge of co-ordinating the Conservatives’ pre-election manifesto that will set out in the coming weeks how the party intends to reform the UK’s relationship with the ECHR.
Senior ministers, including the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, have stated that they wish to give the UK’s supreme court ultimate authority on interpreting human rights legislation in order to prevent the Strasbourg court expanding its jurisdiction.
The government, meanwhile, has to deal with the immediate implications of the Strasbourg court’s decision on whole-life sentences before the 2015 election.
There are currently 49 criminals in England and Wales serving whole-life tariffs. Some are bringing appeals against sentence in the coming months on the basis of the ECHR judgment.
“British laws must be made in Britain,” Green told The Daily Telegraph. “I want to restore the respectability of human rights. I think it is absurd and damaging that the phrase human rights has become a ‘boo’ phrase.
“It is a sign of system that has gone horribly wrong that a phrase that should be motherhood and apple pie has now gone as badly wrong as health and safety.”
Under the government’s plans, prisoners sentenced to exceptionally long terms would be able to have their tariffs reviewed and potentially reduced thereby conforming with Strasbourg’s requirements.
The US has for a long time imposed impossibly lengthy sentences on convicted criminals. Ariel Castro, who kidnapped three women in Ohio, was last year sentenced to 1,000 years in jail. He later committed suicide.
MoJ lawyers are investigating whether the law needs to be changed to permit judges to hand down exceptionally long terms. The sentencing council may also be asked to set out a framework for how the system would operate.
One prisoner currently planning to appeal against his whole-life term is Mark Bridger, 47, who was sentenced in May last year for the murder of five-year-old Welsh schoolgirl April Jones.
The attorney general, Dominic Grieve, is also due to appeal against a 40-year sentence imposed last October on Ian McLoughlin, 55, who admitted killing a man in Hertfordshire while on prison day-release, on the grounds that is unduly lenient.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
