Serial Killers Can Spend Life In Prison
Britain’s most dangerous and notorious criminals can be kept behind bars for the rest of their lives, European judges have ruled.
North Wales serial killer Peter Moore and two other convicted murderers lost their appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that whole-life tariffs condemning prisoners to die in jail amounted to “inhuman or degrading treatment”.
The whole-life tariff is not “grossly disproportionate” and in each case London’s High Court had “decided that an all-life tariff was required, relatively recently and following a fair and detailed consideration”, the judges ruled.
Moore, who ran a theatre and cinema, was convicted of four counts of murder in 1996 after killing four gay men for his sexual gratification.
Dubbed “the man in black”, Moore’s first victim was Henry Roberts, 56, stabbed to death at his home in Anglesey in September 1995.
The next, Edward Carthy, 28, was stabbed and buried in a forest after meeting Moore in a gay bar.
Keith Randles, 49, a traffic safety manager, was similarly killed as he slept in his caravan at roadworks on the A5 in Anglesey in November 1995.
The last man to die was Tony Davies, 40, a married father of two. He was stabbed at a beach near Abergele on the North Wales coast in December 1995.
At his trial, it was claimed that Moore attacked more than 50 other men in what the judge described as “20 years of terror”.
Moore, who befriended serial killer Harold Shipman in prison, claimed the killings were carried out by a fictitious homosexual lover named Jason.
He received four life sentences, the Home Secretary later recommended he should never be released.
Moore’s legal team also represented convicted killers Jeremy Bamber and Douglas Vinter.
Bamber attacked the court decision.
I am sure that the court was upset that Bamber and his ‘supporters’ did not agree with them.
In a statement released by his supporters, he said: “If the state wishes to have a death penalty, then they should be honest and re-introduce hanging.
“Instead, this political decision that I must die in jail is the death penalty using old age or infirmity as the method.
“It is a method whereby I’m locked in a cell until I’m dead – no matter if it should take 70 or 80 years to happen. I shall be dead the next time I leave jail.
“This despite that the trial judge said 25 years was punishment enough for a crime I did not commit.”
Oh Please! This guy has had SOO many appeals. Many people who did support him have stopped supporting him as the evidence keeps coming out, it all points to him. Yes, the police investigation was horrible but the inital mistakes made were made in his favor.
Know something else, I support them bringing back the D.P. Hang him and the other 2 a.s.a.p. Save some tax payer $$, stop allowing them to get ‘supporters’ and ‘fans’ and let the victim’s families finally have peace.
Moore’s legal team submitted the application to the ECHR in December 2009.
But their claims were strongly opposed by Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke, who has said the Government has been “fighting the case vigorously and defending the principle of the whole-life tariff”.
Under current law, whole-life tariff prisoners will almost certainly never be released from prison as their offences are deemed to be so serious.
They can be freed only by the Justice Secretary, who can give discretion on compassionate grounds when the prisoner is terminally ill or seriously incapacitated.
Bamber has been behind bars for more than 25 years for shooting his wealthy adopted parents June and Neville, his sister Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twin sons Daniel and Nicholas at their farmhouse in Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Essex.The 51-year-old was given a whole-life tariff after being convicted of the murders in October 1986.
But he has always protested his innocence and claims his schizophrenic sister Ms Caffell shot her family before turning the gun on herself in a remote Essex farmhouse.
In 2009, Bamber lost a Court of Appeal challenge against the order that he must die behind bars. He has twice lost appeals against conviction.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission reached a provisional decision not to refer his case back to the Court of Appeal last February despite claims by his legal team that they had new evidence that could overturn his conviction.
Vinter was released from prison after serving nine years for the 1995 murder of work colleague Carl Edon, 22. Three years later he stabbed wife Anne White four times and strangled her, before being given a whole-life order.
Really, he is a perfect poster boy for why we do should not release these violent offenders.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The Government strongly welcomes this decision.
“We argued vigorously that there are certain prisoners whose crimes are so appalling that they should never become eligible for parole.
“We are pleased that the European court has upheld the whole life tariff as a legitimate sentence in British courts.”
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