Serious further offence inquiry
| Date | 01 June 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550506063583 |
| Published date | 01 June 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Serious further offence inquiry
On 29th November 2004 John Monckton was stabbed and murdered in his home.
His wife was also stabbed and was close to death but recovered, thanks to their
9-year-old daughter who managed to call the police. Their murderers, Damien
Hanson and Elliot White, posed as delivery men, and after their arrest it soon
became clear that they had were both on statutory orders to the Probation Service.
The Home Secretary subsequently ordered an independent review of the cases,
which was conducted by the Chief Inspector of Probation and published in February
2006. The report arrives at four main findings, and makes five recommendations:
●The Probation Service was not ‘doing the job properly’: it failed to identify
and manage risk, and to enforce a court order. The recommendation is
that the Probation Service takes all reasonable steps throughout supervision
to minimize risk of harm and properly enforce statutory orders.
●There was a lack of clarity about the assumption of lead responsibility for
managing the cases. The recommendation is that there is a continuity of
lead responsibility, especially for high-risk offenders.
●The Parole Board’s decision to release Hanson was not revised in the light
of his changed circumstances. The recommendation is that the it specifies
how it wishes to deal with situations where the decision to grant early
release is seen as being dependent on a requirement such as
accommodation or location, and where the situation changes between the
date of the decision and the prisoner’s release date.
●The quality of the Probation Service’s risk of harm work needed to be
better; the report criticises the lack of risk-related targets nationally, and the
organization of staff into specialist teams within the London Probation Area
(LPA). This arrangement offered some advantages, but ultimately made for
a fragmented experience of supervision, and localized the expertise in
managing risk in one discrete area of the organization. The
recommendation is that chief officers should structure their areas in a way
that increases effectiveness of risk of harm work.
●Finally, the report recommends that the Inspectorate be involved in
investigating future ‘exceptional’ Serious Further Offence cases,
acknowledging that such situations will arise from time to time.
167
Probation Journal
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Copyright © 2006 NAPO Vol 53(2): 167–177
DOI: 10.1177/0264550506063583
www.napo.org.uk
http://prb.sagepub.com
Research &
reports
To continue reading
Request your trial