Harry Roberts

Britain's longest serving prisoner is shortly to be released after forty eight years in prison.   Back in 1966 Roberts was an armed robber and well known to the police. While about to commit an armed robbery he was sat in a van in Shepherds Bush with other gang members when he was approached by two unarmed coppers who he promptly shot dead. Another copper was also shot and killed by one of his accomplices.
At the time of the offence Roberts was thirty years old. He was charged with murder and throughout his trial he showed no remorse. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation from the Judge that he should remain behind bars for the rest of his natural life with a proviso that he serve a minimum term of thirty years imprisonment before he could be considered for parole.
Over the years Roberts has applied for parole on several occasions but his appeals were always rejected by successive Home Secretaries.
Our current incumbent Teresa May ( tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime ) has decided that at 78, Roberts no longer poses a threat to society. The Police Federation have stated that the decision to release him is a kick in the teeth for the families and relatives of the three dead coppers.
Is it right that some crimes are deemed so serious that there can be no possibility of parole or has Roberts done his time and should he be released?
Personally I think he should rot in prison until he croaks. He may be 78 but he could still live a pleasant life for a number of years. Unlike the coppers who he cut down in their prime.

Agree entirely.

Some crimes are so monstrous that the offenders should never be set free. This is one of them.

No longer a threat to society?


Britain's most notorious police killer faces spending the rest of his life behind bars following revelations in The Mail on Sunday about how he terrorised a woman who he worked with on day release.
Harry Roberts, 72 - jailed for life for murdering three unarmed policemen in 1966 - was told by the Parole Board last week that he will remain in the Category 'C' closed prison at Littlehey, Cambridgeshire, as he is still a risk to the public.
Experts said that Roberts has little or no chance of ever being allowed back into the community.
And sources close to Justice Secretary Jack Straw indicated that although the Parole Board is responsible for any decisions about Roberts's release, murderers are normally kept in jail if considered a 'significant' risk to the public.
In April, The Mail on Sunday exclusively revealed how from his cell Roberts orchestrated a five-year campaign of intimidation against Joan Cartwright, 65, and her son, including horrific attacks on her animals.
Mrs Cartwright works at an animal sanctuary in the Midlands, where Roberts worked on day release from Sudbury open prison.
When she secretly complained about his behaviour, he was moved from an open prison to a closed one.
But he then initiated his hate campaign in a bid to stop Mrs Cartwright and her son giving evidence against him at a parole hearing.
The triple murderer rang Mrs Cartwright up to five times a week for nearly four years from Channings Wood prison in Devon.
The calls included terrifying veiled threats that coincided with the attacks on her animals.
In the worst incident, a horse's head was hacked at with an axe the night before Mrs Cartwright and her son were due to give evidence.
Another of Mrs Cartwright's horses had to be put down days after her husband Peter had resisted giving Roberts a character reference.
Other assaults between 2002 and 2006 led to a horse losing an eye; a donkey dying after its pelvis was shattered, probably with a baseball bat; the family's pet cat being electrocuted, and a peacock being strangled.
Roberts also coerced Mrs Cartwright to visit him in jail, so he could repeat his threats to her face.
After several parole hearings Roberts was refused release in December 2006 because of Mrs Cartwright's evidence. But he had another chance to apply this year, which was turned down last week.
Mrs Cartwright was only able to speak about her ordeal after The Mail on Sunday persuaded a judge to lift a court order shielding her identity.
Roberts has denied all the allegations.
Yet far from being relieved about last week's decision to keep Roberts behind bars, Mrs Cartwright and her son believe they are now at even greater risk with the police killer remaining in jail.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1202193/Triple-police-killer-Harry-Roberts-stay-jail-revelations-The-Mail-Sunday.html#ixzz3GxXXbetr

If you take a life you should give your own IMO. If we had the death penalty shit like this wouldn't be happening would it because he'd be dead. My partners sister got stabbed 82 times by her ex after she left him. He got 18 & a half years minimum. Not even close to being enough but One day he'll be out and she lives in fear as he's threatened her as well. Death penalty for these evil bastards would mean people could sleep that little easier knowing their life is not under threat

Bwfc1958 wrote:If you take a life you should give your own IMO. If we had the death penalty shit like this wouldn't be happening would it because he'd be dead. My partners sister got stabbed 82 times by her ex after she left him. He got 18 & a half years minimum. Not even close to being enough but One day he'll be out and she lives in fear as he's threatened her as well. Death penalty for these evil bastards would mean people could sleep that little easier knowing their life is not under threat

Sorry, can't agree.

The death penalty doesn't deter people from committing violent crime - if it did, nobody would ever be murdered in those US states that still have it on their statute books but they're still dying in their thousands.

I have a strong moral objection to the death penalty in principle, as it all seems a bit "Old Testament" to me and I don't think any society can call itself civilised if it uses it.

And the logic has always seemed flawed to me:

You kill someone - Bad thing obviously.

You're tried in a court of law - Fine so far.

You're found guilty - Ok.

You're sentenced to death - Er.....hang on.

Isn't that why you're on trial in the first place?

You know, killing someone......?

Doesn't stack up for me.

I certainly think there is a decent argument for bringing back the death penalty in certain circumstances. Child murderers and the like for sure. I agree the death penalty will not stop people committing murder but by disposing of the scumbags permanently it means they are no longer a threat to society anymore and surely that has got to be a good thing?

Maybe I would agree with you breadman if this terrible thing had never happened to us but as Iv said my mrs lives in fear of the future. Why should she? Her sisters life has been taken in a horrific way. Her life has been threatened by this monster and cannot rest easy because it might happen to her. Then there is our kids we need to worry about as well. I could go on. Why waste tax payers money keeping this scumbag in prison? If the law could guarantee he would be in there till the day he dies I would possibly agree but it can't guarantee it. Even then, as proven in the above story, you cannot assure victims safety. So remove the threat. Simple.

I get what you're saying, 58 and I can't even start to imagine how terrible it must be for your wife and her sister and they have my utmost sympathy.

I honestly don't know what I'd do in your shoes if it was my wife at risk.

Life should mean life in certain circumstances and if this guy was deemed to still pose a threat to your wife if he were to be released, he'd be a strong candidate for never seeing daylight again in my book.

I just don't think that the state killing people is the answer.

And going back to RT's point, without a confession, there's always the chance that the perpetrator has been wrongly convicted but with a custodial sentence, at least he can try and appeal.

If you've already executed him but it subsequently comes to light that he was innocent, what then....?

If you disagree with the death penalty, but recognise that putting someone up full board in a hotel for life is a financial penalty that society shouldn't have to pay, what are the alternatives?

There are no jobs for prisoners so how can they be productive now that mailbags and broken rocks are less in demand?

Surely we could get prisoners to pay for themselves and for new prisons by reinstating the "hard labour" sentence? If prisoners had to do even a basic 40 hour working week we could tap into the huge labour potential and focus on products that the UK can export.

Give the prisoners a skill/trade at the same time to help them reintegrate into society if they are ever released.

Productivity could become a parole criterion.

In this way prisoners could genuinely "repay their debt to society" and at least some benefit would come out of this appalling situation.

Moreover, taxpayers will be better off as the money saved could be used for schools, hospitals, services etc to improve our lives.

Breadman wrote:I get what you're saying, 58 and I can't even start to imagine how terrible it must be for your wife and her sister and they have my utmost sympathy.

I honestly don't know what I'd do in your shoes if it was my wife at risk.

Life should mean life in certain circumstances and if this guy was deemed to still pose a threat to your wife if he were to be released, he'd be a strong candidate for never seeing daylight again in my book.

I just don't think that the state killing people is the answer.

And going back to RT's point, without a confession, there's always the chance that the perpetrator has been wrongly convicted but with a custodial sentence, at least he can try and appeal.

If you've already executed him but it subsequently comes to light that he was innocent, what then....?

I take on board what you say Breaders but the days of beating a confession out of a suspect has long gone. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act completely reformed the way the Police were able to operate. Modern advances in science like the discovery of DNA etc have made it much easier for juries to make an informed opinion.
I am happy for life to mean life and I am sure most of the general public feel the same. If there was a referendum on bringing back the death penalty then I think the majority of us would vote for it. Of course there would have to be stringent checks and balances in place to ensure justice prevails.

Not convinced, RT.

Sorry to bang on about this again, but given the caliber of some of the clowns I did jury service with last year, I wouldn't want my life in their hands.

We had one 18 year old empty-headed bint arguing that it was perfectly reasonable to accept the defence counsel's assertion that a profoundly deaf 8 year old Pakistani girl who couldn't speak and who was living in abject poverty in a small village in the hills would have actively sought out a 30 year old man in a neighbouring house and propositioned him for sex.

Yes - 8 yrs old, disabled, can't speak and yet sexually promiscuous......

It took us two days to finally convince her that it was utter bollocks and she kept saying "It could have happened and why would the defence barrister lie?"

Honestly, they should bring in an IQ test for jurors and interview people before letting 'em loose......

On this point I have to agree breaders. My sister in law did jury duty earlier this year. Now, she herself is no bright spark if I'm being honest. Then there was an 18 year old drug dealer on the jury. He was heard saying how he was going to "sort someone out" for not paying him on time because he had given drugs out on tick. They were jurors on the case of a school teacher accused of sexual abuse. Very important for the victims and defendant respectively. The least they could do is appoint jurors that have at least a couple of brain cells between them but apparently it is totally random picking jurors. Amazing really

Critical reasoning/verbal comprehension are widely tested in the management job market so it would be easy to introduce testing.

I just don't think that there is a will to ensure that juror's understand the nuances of the evidence and have the capacity to process it objectively.

Perhaps this is because jury service would then fall upon a very small proportion of society which would be unworkable as well as potentially unethical.

As demonstrated in the UK, stupid people are allowed to vote so why not let them decide people's fate as well?

The judge said to us something along the lines of "Base your decisions and conclusions on the evidence presented but remember to draw on your own personal life experience to add colour to the picture because context and circumstance are both relevant when forming a bigger picture."

What "life experience" have you got at 18?

We had one "expert" witness from the Home Office who personally guaranteed that every single person passing through Heathrow for the last twenty years has had their passport thoroughly scrutinized and there was absolutely no chance that anyone could have entered the country on a false passport.

A couple of us in the box received stern looks from the judge for our stifled laughter.

And yet one kid, (a different one this time) said "It must be true otherwise he wouldn't have sworn on the bible....."

Honestly, that whole experience has shaken my faith in the jury system.

I'm old enough to remember the killing of the three policemen - the whole country was in shock at the time.

I believe fwiw that not everything should be equal.  What I mean is that if someone is killed that the killer should be treated the same no matter who he had killed - I don't think that is right (although in does seeem to be a resonable view).

I think crimes against people trying to uphold law and order (and probably against children too) -  let's face it would be anarchy without them - should be dealt with more strongly than other crimes.

It's no coincidence that terrorist groups in many countrys target the police and armed forces specifically in an attempt to break down society and scare people from standing up against them - look at how the Syrian army ran away allowing Mosel to fall for example.

When I was younger I too didn't believe in the death penalty, it probably isn't a deterent but as I got older and more cynical I changed my views to something amounting to what is the point in keeping someone like Roberts locked up for 48 years - what value is it to society, would the cost of keeping him and others like Brady, Huntley, the bloke who chopped the soldiers head off in London recently, Sutcliffe, etc, be better off spent elsewhere like a new hospital or school perhaps?

I'm sure the fathers of the murdered policemen, or the mothers of the killed children, etc, would happily push the button or flick the switch in order to send these monsters to their graves.

I'm probably in a minority but I simple don't believe that inherently evil people change no matter how many years they spend locked away from society - so what's the point of giving them free food and shelter for the next 30, 40, 50 years or so?

May as well accept the inevitable and draw a line under that persons existence sooner rather than later.

Sluffy wrote:

I'm probably in a minority but I simple don't believe that inherently evil people change no matter how many years they spend locked away from society - so what's the point of giving them free food and shelter for the next 30, 40, 50 years or so?

I don't think you are in the minority. I think most people probably share your viewpoint.

Does anyone remember the sick chant  about this episode from football fans up and down the country?

Copper Dragon wrote:Does anyone remember the sick chant  about this episode from football fans up and down the country?

Did it start 'Harry Roberts is our friend.......'?

Yes it did Bonce.