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Probation boosted and sentences lengthened in new terror reforms


The number of specialist probation staff dealing with convicted terrorists after their release is set to double under measures published by ministers on Tuesday that will also include a 14-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for some serious terror offences.

Many of the changes form part of a new Counter-Terrorism Bill for England and Wales, due to be introduced within the government’s first 100 days in office.

The measures are partly a response to the attack on November 29 at Fishmongers’ Hall in central London by Usman Khan, who had been released on licence from prison for terror offences.

Khan, who was shot dead by police on London Bridge, had been cleared by staff from the National Probation Service, to travel from his home in Staffordshire, in the West Midlands, to the conference where he carried out his attack.

The initiatives are also in line with the wider policy of Boris Johnson’s government of ending early release for violent offenders and imposing longer prison sentences.

HM Inspectorate of Probation last week reported that 60 per cent of staff at the state-run NPS are overworked and linked officers’ work levels to recent, high-profile failures, including those relating to Khan.

Priti Patel, home secretary, said November’s “senseless attack” had confronted the government with “some hard truths” about dealing with terrorist offenders.

“[That] is why we immediately announced a review into sentencing and licence conditions, to do whatever is necessary to stop these sickening attacks from taking place,” Ms Patel said.

The government was also delivering on its promises by giving police and probation officers the resources they needed to investigate and track offenders, introducing tougher sentences and launching reviews of offenders’ post-release management, Ms Patel added.

Under the plans, the government will add 75 specialist counterterror probation officers in England and Wales — on top of the 60 already in place. The legislation will force offenders facing extended determinate sentences, which impose an extra-long term of monitoring after release, to serve the whole of the sentence before release. Most offenders have previously served half of their sentence.

For a range of offences that carry a maximum sentence of life in prison — including directing a terrorist organisation and preparing acts of terrorism — there will in future be a mandatory minimum sentence of 14 years.

The new legislation would introduce polygraph testing for offenders on licence, the government said. There was speculation that Khan was able to persuade probation officers he was co-operating with rehabilitation programmes and was a reformed character before November’s attack.

Criminal justice experts are mostly sceptical that longer prison sentences provide an effective deterrent to offending.

Diane Abbott, shadow home secretary, said the government’s announcement of an overhaul after 10 years in government was “actually an admission of failure”.



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