Category Archives: Probation

Zara Aleena probation failings not political says Tory boy Bowie – but they are

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak was under pressure over the murder of Zara Aleena in Ilford – so one of his mouthpieces rushed in to claim there was no political element to the case.

Ms Aleena was murdered by Jordan McSweeney, who had been wrongly assessed as a “medium risk” offender, when in fact the violent, woman-hating racist should have been classed “high risk” and recalled to prison after missing probation appointments.

A Ministry of Justice review has found that probation officers were under mounting pressure at the time of McSweeney’s assessment, with staffing shortages and an increasingly-heavy workload.

These are both symptoms of government funding cuts – and, indeed, during PMQs, Keir Starmer raised a “botched, then reversed” attempt to privatise the service, and a decade of underinvestment.

And Ms Aleena’s family’s spokeswoman, her aunt Faraz Naz, made it perfectly clear that “Government bears responsibility too, it is not just the probation service. They have blood on their hands.”

But Tory MP Andrew Bowie, discussing the case on the BBC’s Politics Live, falsely claimed this had not been said – after trying to say that the failings of the Probation Service were not political:

Of course they were.

They were the result of political decisions to starve the service of staff and resources.

A Conservative MP was responsible. But once again, it seems, we are not likely to see anybody take responsibility.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Gagging clauses: Chris Grayling silenced justice charities to stop them revealing what a fool he is

Grayling: What does a fool do to prevent his stupidity becoming public knowledge? He gags everybody in the know.

The Times‘ investigation into the Tory government’s use of non-disclosure agreements (gagging clauses) to prevent outside organisations from saying anything that would damage their reputation continues.

Today the focus is on current Transport Secretary Chris ‘Failing’ Grayling and the disastrous changes to the probation service that he demanded when he was in charge of Justice.

We all know that his ideas were stupid, short-sighted and dangerous because we have seen their result – but it seems we could have found this out much earlier, if he had not silenced every organisation that could have told us at the time.

Here‘s the report:

Chris Grayling’s changes to the probation service were deemed to be a failure, but charities dealing with the fallout were prevented from saying anything that would damage his reputation

After Chris Grayling oversaw a £3 billion overhaul of the probation system in 2015, his reforms were condemned as a failure.

Prison inspectors found that changes introduced when he was justice secretary resulted in criminals being released without anywhere to live and without staff assessing “significant risks” to their partners and children.

Dame Glenys Stacey, chief inspector of probation, said the overhaul meant there was “no real prospect” of preventing prisoners from returning to crime.

The findings prompted criticism from campaigners, politicians and probation staff. Some of the key charities working with former prisoners, however, have appeared to be unconcerned.

The rest is hidden by the paywall but you get the idea.

Labour’s Richard Burgon commented on Twitter…

That’s putting it mildly!

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