Danny Shaw

The top mandarin at the Home Office gave the game away. At a somnolent session of the Commons home affairs committee, Sir Matthew Rycroft revealed that Labour had dropped a key pre-election pledge, made just 72 hours before polling day. Instead of moving all asylum seekers out of hotels ‘within 12 months’, as the party had promised, it would take up to five years.  ‘The overarching aim continues to be to exit hotels by the end of the Parliament,’ Sir Matthew told MPs last month. The permanent secretary’s casual use of the term ‘continues’ suggested a process potentially concluding in the summer of 2029 had always been the plan – but it was a well-kept secret if it was: that date had never been publicly mentioned before.

Why did he do it? Over the last few weeks, many of us have asked that question following a series of horrifying acts of violence that have been difficult to comprehend. Why was 15-year-old Harvey Willgoose fatally stabbed at a school in Sheffield? Why did Axel Rudakubana slaughter three girls at a children’s dance class in Southport last summer? And why did the father and stepmother of ten-year-old Sara Sharif abuse, torture and murder her?  Violent deaths are so shocking and alarming it’s natural that we search for explanations. But in the early stages, as details are pieced together and information about suspects isn’t known or publicly available, those answers often can’t be found. It’s not until the case comes to court that the full story can be told.

Picture the scene: the press conference room at New Scotland Yard in March 2023 – just after the publication of a damning report into the Metropolitan Police by Baroness Casey of Blackstock. Casey’s review, announced following the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met officer, had concluded that ‘predatory behaviour’ was ‘allowed to flourish’ in the Met, with ‘too many places for people to hide’, leaving the integrity of the organisation ‘vulnerable to threat’.  The Met were on the defensive – but they had a clear plan to raise standards and restore trust and they wanted journalists to hear it.

I met Andrew Malkinson, the victim of one of Britain’s gravest miscarriages of justice, on just one occasion. But he left quite an impression and I’ve been thinking about his case, especially since the belated resignation of Helen Pitcher, chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).  The organisation, which investigates potential wrongful convictions, failed Malkinson terribly. He served 17 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit; the CCRC should have referred his case to the Court of Appeal after seven years. My encounter with the bearded, bespectacled Malkinson was at an office in central London on a summer’s day 18 months ago, shortly after his conviction had, finally, been quashed.

One morning last week, in the early hours, I received a puzzling text from my bank. 'Did you use your debit card at 01.23 at Tenorshare.com?' it said. I’d never heard of Tenorshare before – it’s a smartphone support service apparently – and had certainly never knowingly made any payments to them. But someone had attempted to, by using my bank card details. When I contacted my bank, I was asked about another payment, to Wetherspoons, at ten to midnight on a Saturday night. Once again: not me, I was asleep in bed.  The crimes that take place away from the streets deserve attention too 'We’re blocking your card and sending you a new one,' said the assistant on the phone. 'Your card details must have got onto the dark web from a data leak.

Just like London buses, you wait ages for a criminal justice review – and then three come along at once. First came the announcement of a sentencing review, led by former Conservative justice secretary David Gauke. Then there was a homicide review, to be conducted by the Law Commission. Now there will be a review of the criminal courts, with Sir Brian Leveson in charge. Billed as a ‘once in a generation’ review, the aim is to come up with ‘bold’ ideas to tackle the bulging backlog of trials in Crown Courts across England and Wales.

What is the point of a short prison sentence? David Gauke will no doubt think carefully about that question now that he’s been confirmed as the chair of the long-awaited Sentencing Review. Launched by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), it aims to provide ideas for a new framework of sentencing across England and Wales that ministers hope will help keep the prison population in check and drive up the use of alternatives to prison.  Replacing short prison terms with community sentences is one idea that Gauke has favoured in the past and it’s gaining currency again. But it’s not straightforward, as I’ll explain. Even a short prison sentence has its benefits What is clear, however, is that the current position in prisons is unsustainable.

There are few moments more serious than when the state takes the life of a citizen, when a police officer kills someone in the line of duty. Such an event demands an independent and rigorous investigation in which the officer accounts for his or her actions. The family and friends of the person who has died deserve nothing less. But the prosecution of Martyn Blake, the firearms officer accused, and now cleared, of murdering Chris Kaba in September 2022 has raised uncomfortable questions about that process. There was something about the trial that didn’t feel right.  Sergeant Blake shot and killed Kaba through the windscreen of the Audi he had been driving in Streatham, South London.

If you started again with a clean slate, a blank sheet of paper, you would never design a system of policing like this.  It’s a system – in England and Wales – where there are 43 ‘territorial’ forces. No matter how big or small, each force has its own leadership structure, specialist units and support functions, such as finance, vetting and human resources. For instance, there’s Warwickshire constabulary with just 1,126 officers, and neighbouring West Midlands Police, with 8,000. They work together at times, but they are led, managed and organised in separate ways.  The most glaring discrepancies are in the capital.

The ‘border tsar’ isn’t the official title for Martin Hewitt. The former police chief has been appointed to the new role of ‘Border Security Commander’, but it won’t be long before he ascends to tsardom, given the hype around the job. The Border Security Command, which Hewitt will lead, was a key part of Labour’s general election manifesto, as part of their plan to ‘smash’ the criminal gangs bringing people across the Channel in small boats. It was one of the first announcements after Labour were elected, with an advert for the post of commander going out within five days. Managing expectations should be top of the list of his priorities, because this is destined to become one of the trickiest assignments in government. Hewitt is 58.

I met Anthony by the gates of Thameside prison in south-east London. A skinny, gaunt-looking man in his 40s, he’d spent much of his adult life in and out of jail for offences linked to his mental health problems and addiction to drugs. His latest spell inside had lasted eight months. He was hugely relieved to be out and vowed, like so many other newly-released prisoners, never to go back. Seventy-five per cent of probation staff are women but 91 per cent of those they supervise are male Over the next few hours I joined Anthony and a support worker from a charity on a car journey across London as they raced against the clock to find him a bed for the night, register with a GP, so he could get the medication he needed, visit a benefits office and attend a probation appointment.

The announcement from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is couched in bureaucratic language, but there is no disguising it. ‘Process activated to manage prisoner movements’, said the headline on the department’s website, making it sound like a few minor procedural rules have been adjusted to help the transfer of inmates. In fact, the ‘process’ is an emergency measure to stop people being sent to prisons which are full.  The system is not working as it should.  The areas worst affected – or as the MoJ puts it those with ‘capacity concerns’ – are men’s jails in the north of England. There, prison cells will, in effect, be rationed.

John O’Malley and William Nelson-Morgan; Adnan Ghaffour and Leanne Hodgson; Sameer Ali and Stacey Vint – some of the dozens of people who were arrested, charged, convicted and sentenced within days of taking part in the riots that swept across parts of the UK.  No delays in the police investigation for them, no waiting for the crown prosecution service (CPS) to make a charging decision and no adjournments in court. All cogs in the criminal justice machine working together, sending out a strong message of punishment and deterrence. Punch a police officer on Monday, hear the clang of the cell door on Friday.

For five days at the beginning of August 2011, it felt like we were on the brink of anarchy. Over the last few days, similar scenes have played out on British streets: shops have been smashed and looted; people attacked; and police officers on the front line have been injured. There is nothing more frightening than losing control of the streets Labour's Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has vowed that 'there will be a reckoning' for those involved in the violence. In order to stop the riots, the authorities will have to adopt a similar approach to that taken 13 years ago. Lessons from that period must be applied now if the situation isn't to escalate.