Queen's Speech December 2019 - Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill

Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill

“Legislation will be brought forward to support victims of crime and their families.”

The purpose of the Bill is to:

● Ensure that where an offender who has been convicted of murder, manslaughter or taking indecent photographs of children refuses to disclose certain details about their offences, that is considered by the Parole Board as part of their assessment as to whether that offender should be released.

The main benefits of the Bill would be:

• ●  Putting in statute, and therefore beyond doubt, the Parole Board’s established practice of considering a failure by an offender to disclose specific information in these cases.

• ●  Making this established Parole Board practice a legal obligation so families and victims will know that such issues must be taken into account as part of the Parole Board release process.

  The main elements of the Bill are:

• ●  Amending the life sentence and the extended determinate sentence release test to direct the Parole Board to take into account circumstances where an offender, who has been convicted of murder or manslaughter, has not disclosed the location of a victim’s remains.

• ●  Amending the extended determinate sentence release test to direct the Parole Board to take into account circumstances where an offender, who has been convicted of taking or making indecent photographs of children, has not disclosed the identities of the child or children in the image(s).

  Territorial extent and application

● The Bill's provisions would extend and apply to England and Wales. Prisons and sentencing (including release provisions) are devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Key facts

● The first measure of this Bill is a version of ‘Helen’s Law’, which has been the subject of a campaign by Marie McCourt. Her daughter, Helen, was murdered by Ian Simms in 1988 and her body has never been found.

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● The Parole Board already has internal guidance which advises panel members to consider any failure or refusal by an offender to disclose the whereabouts of a victim’s remains information when assessing release. The Bill makes this a statutory requirement.