Mercy Muroki: Child rapists and murderers should never get the chance to roam the streets again

It’s been reported this morning that double child murderer Colin Pitchfork is set to be let out from prison this week after the Parole Board rejected an appeal against his release.

Pitchfork, who is now sixty one, raped and strangled to death two 15-year-old girls - Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth in the 1980s. He was given a life sentence by the courts, with a minimum term of 30 years in 1988 after pleading guilty to both murders.

Now, Colin Pitchfork, is an exceptional case for many reasons, not least because of the sheer inhumanity of his crimes. What's also extraordinary in this case is that after leading Leicestershire Police on their biggest ever manhunt at the time, Pitchfork then went on to be the first murderer in Britain to be convicted using DNA evidence.

The world has changed a lot in those thirty years – when Colin began his sentence, the World Wide Web hadn’t even been invented, The Berlin Wall still stood and the Parole Board says Colin Pitchfork has changed too - but I struggle to buy that. What I do know is that the gravity of his crime has not changed. The fact he raped and murdered somebody’s children has not changed.

Lets not forget the type of human this man was: he was so troubled, so ashamed and remorseful about his first murder of 15-year old Lynda Mann, that three years later, he did the same thing to Dawn Ashworth. You can't tell me those are the crimes of a man with a conscience.

Is that a man worthy of breathing the same air as good, law-abiding people in this country? Now, the Parole Board says it is satisfied that Pitchfork is safe to release to the public, that he is no longer a danger. The Ministry of Justice has said that if he breaches any of his 36 licence conditions, which they say are some of the strictest ever, then he will be right back in prison.

Some of the restrictions he faces include wearing an electronic tag, being placed on the sex offenders register, being banned from going near relatives of his victims, and – apparently – restrictions on using the internet. But I’m not sure this is good enough.

I don’t want to live in a society where child rapists and murderers ever get the chance to roam the streets again. If Colin Pitchfork lives to life expectancy age, he could very well have two decades of life left. That’s two decades of a man who was willing to rape and murder children walking and living amongst people and their families.

Look, I think we’re one of the most compassionate countries on the planet – and long may it continue. But when it comes to people who hurt children, sometimes I wish the people in charge of our justice system wouldn’t show so much compassion for child rapists and murderers.