The Lord Chief Justice has a point

Last night on Question Time, Piers Morgan related the tale of going to the House of Lords and having lunch there and boring the arse off a Lord who fell asleep at the table and his face fell into his bowl of soup. Before Lord Phillips became Lord Chief Justice, his reward for dismissing my case at the Court of Appeal when he was Master of the Rolls, I was telling him about the psychiatrist member on my first Parole Board hearing who fell asleep whilst trying to assess whether I was still an unacceptable risk to the public. It was after lunch, so he had probably had too much to drink. I was trying to make the point that I failed to see how his assessment could keep me in custody longer than I should be in prison when someone in his position owed both the public and myself a duty to hear the evidence. The doddery old fool was a geriatric. Lord Phillips' response was "Quite, quite, Mr Hirst, but where does that get us?". An entry in Private Eye, mi'Lord!

The Lord Chief Justice is arguing that sending more and more people to prison for longer and longer sentences is causing overcrowding in the penal system. He was particularly concerned with the increase in geriatric lifers. H.M. Prison Kingston in Portsmouth is an old peoples home, and other old peoples homes are springing up in other parts of the penal estate. Lord Phillips states that the 30 year life tariffs for murder are utterly barbaric. I agree. I think we should go back to the 19th century when lifers who were transported to Australia served between 7-8 years. This is the length of a life sentence in the enlightened Swedish penal system. He states that he is against the mandatory life sentence for murder, and that it should be replaced with determinate sentences to fit the circumstances of each case.

I know that I cost the taxpayer well over a £1M during my life sentence. There are now over 3,000 lifers in prison for murder, manslaughter, rape and arson. And another 2,000 automatic lifers, on 3 strikes and you are out, for stealing bottles of milk from Tesco and such like. There is a need for some to serve natural life, and some to serve more than a tariff of 8 years, however, the vast majority are serving too long and it is costing too much. Whichever party comes to power at the next election, this growing problem needs to be tackled. At present, it would appear that both John Reid and David Davis are asleep together in a double bed.