A nurse who was strangled, raped and murdered by a convicted sex offender was failed by police and probation services, an inquest has concluded.
Lisa Skidmore’s killer was under the supervision of the National Probation Service at the time of the attack at her home in Wolverhampton in November 2016.
A jury at Black Country coroner’s court found that failures by police and probation staff made “more than a minimal contribution” to her death.
Leroy Campbell, 57, had previously targeted lone women and broken into their houses. He was released on licence four months before he attacked 37-year-old Skidmore.
Six weeks prior to the attack, Leroy told probation services and West Midlands police separately that he had been noticing open windows – a trigger for his previous offending – but this information was not shared and no attempt was made to recall him to prison.
Leroy climbed into Skidmore’s home using ladders, where he attacked her and her 80-year-old mother before setting fire to the property in an attempt to destroy evidence.
Returning a narrative verdict, jurors said there were failures to document information and carry out basic checks, and insufficient consideration was given to the option of recalling Campbell to prison.
A probation worker has been sacked for gross misconduct in relation to the case.
During the two-week inquest, Sonia Crozier, the director of the National Probation Service, said significant changes to probation services introduced under Chris Grayling as justice secretary had resulted in a deficiency of qualified probation officers and increased workloads.
The former prisons and probation minister Rory Stewart met Skidmore’s family twice to personally apologise for the failings and assured them that changes would be made to the training, assessment and management of probation staff.
A review into the death by HM Inspectorate of Probation found that authorities failed in their duty to minimise risks to the public and did not “do their job properly”.
West Midlands police said in a statement: “The murder of Lisa Skidmore and the assault on her mother is one of the most horrific and appalling crimes in recent years and our thoughts remain with Lisa’s family who are, quite rightly, seeking answers for how this happened.
“We are committed to reducing reoffending and protecting the public from harm, and to do this we have a dedicated offender management team who work with partner agencies and offenders to assist rehabilitation and also identify risk.
“In the last six years we have invested millions of pounds and tripled the number of officers managing those released from prison. However in this case we recognise that those interventions did not prevent an innocent woman from losing her life.”
