Grieving Merseyside families to march on Downing Street

Grieving Merseyside families to march on Downing Street

Sep 24 2010 by Jamie Bowman, Liverpool Echo

HUNDREDS of people whose family members were violently killed will march through London this weekend calling for tougher sentences for murder and manslaughter.

The protest will be led by Families Fighting For Justice, a group founded by Jean Taylor of Greasby, in Wirral, whose daughter Chantel was murdered in 2004.

She said: “We believe that life should mean life for first degree murder and that there should also be tougher sentences for manslaughter.

“At the moment someone charged with manslaughter can end up serving as little as a year which is an insult to the families involved.”

The campaigners will travel down to London, meeting up at the Victoria Embankment entrance of Temple tube station at 1pm from where they intend to march past the Houses of Parliament.

Mrs Taylor, who also lost her son and sister to violent crime, said: “I will walk up to 10 Downing Street where I will hand in a letter from Families Fighting For Justice telling David Cameron that we will march on London every six months unless they bring in tougher sentences for murder and manslaughter.

“Successive governments have whittled down sentences for these crimes and they should hang their heads in shame.”

The group are also concerned about calls from the European Human Rights Court to give prisoners in the UK the right to vote, a freedom which has been denied since 1870.

Mrs Taylor said: “My son and daughter can never vote now so what gives murderers that right?

“It is yet another case of people being on the side of the criminals rather than the victims.”

Speakers at the rally will include MPs Mark Jones and Stephen Lloyd.