Another example of the lack of integrity in those we are expected to trust...
Jeremy's Sentence Attrib: http://www.jeremy-bamber.co.uk/jeremy-s-sentence
Updates 02.03.13
British Government Maintains ‘Reviews in Whole Life Orders’ are Giving Prisoners False hope. On the 28th of November 2012 the European Grand Chamber heard the case for appeal against the whole life tariff’s of three prisoners from the UK, Vinter, Bamber and Moore. Back in January 2012 the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, voted that whole life sentences do not contravene Article 3 of Human Rights Law, even in cases where a sentence was imposed on the prisoner retrospectively and in secret. The case is for prisoners to have a have a ‘review’ inserted into their whole life sentences. The prisoners assert that in contrary to article 3 of the Human Rights Act, to have a whole life sentence imposed without a mechanism for review is inhuman and degrading on the following grounds. Whole life sentencing means permanent exclusion from society in a similar way that its predecessor did -sentence to death was also permanent exclusion from society.[1]The appellants argued that to be imprisoned for whole life, means withdrawing not only the possibility of atonement, but also hope, it is then argued that to live without hope amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment. Law in England and Wales currently has conflicting ideologies where the objective of imprisonment is concerned. Our presentt alignment with European law makes us part of the reintergationist view of imprisonment, where prisoners rehabilitate as part of their punishment and become integrated back into our communities. Contrasting with this is whole life sentencing, without any reviews, which follows the exclusionary doctrine of hanging, and is at odds with the European reintergrationist ideology. As the British Government detail in their defence to the Grand Chamber, whole life orders are for the ‘purposes of punishment and deterrence,’ with not a single reference to redemption, atonement or re-integration or the possibility of a miscarriage of justice.[2] The public dissatisfaction which preceded the abolition of the death penalty in the UK, was brought about because of high profile cases where innocent people had been hanged.[3]Those who are wrongly convicted, and posthumously cleared can never have their lives back, and this is a very strong argument considering the high volume of miscarriages of justice which according to Dr Michael Naughton, of Bristol University Innocence Project, are a ‘mundane part of the justice system’ and which now total 18 cases per day.[4] One of the appellants who has always maintained innocence and makes serious representations to support his claims, is Jeremy Bamber, who was convicted by a 10:2 majority verdict in 1986. Under the old system he would not have been sentenced to death because hanging was only an option for those convicted by a unanimous verdict. Bamber would likely have had a sentence fixed at 25 years, and is therefore one of the few whole life sentence prisoners who would be better off under the archaic system abolished in 1965. The trial judge, Mr Justice Drake, sentenced Bamber to serve ‘life’ and both he and the Lord Chief Justice recommended that Bamber should serve a minimum of 25 years before a review. However, in 1988 the Secretary of State, Mr Douglas Hurd, imposed a whole life tariff without informing Bamber.[5] After prisoners won a Judicial Review of the Secretary of State’s reserved right not to tell prisoners the length of their sentence, on the 15th of December 1994, the Home Office Prison services, then formally advised Jeremy Bamber of this decision.[6]Until this point, Jeremy Bamber had been unaware that his sentence had been upgraded by the Government retrospectively. The fact that whole life sentences were introduced in 1983, and the first one was not set until 1988, is surprisingly not in breach of Article 7 (1) of the Human Rights Convention. The Home Office Prison Services also formally was advised Jeremy that he would serve the whole life sentence with a review which was already set for 2002 by the Secretary of State.[7] But this review was withdrawn when the House of Lords held that the Secretary of State was not an ‘independent and impartial tribunal,’ and that political sentencing of this type was incompatible with the convention right to a fair trial.[8] The Criminal Justice Act (CJA) 2003, reformed the law in England and Wales, and removed all reviews from mandatory life sentences upgraded to discretionary whole life orders, thus withdrawing the powers previously held by the Secretary of State to apply sentence reviews or set tariffs.[9] Transitional provisions of the CJA of 2003, allowed Bamber to apply to the High Court for a review of the whole life term because it had been set by a politician and not a judge.[10]In accordance with this provision, Bamber challenged his new sentence which had been imposed by the Secretary of State, it was heard, and astonishingly still upheld by the High Court on the 16th of May 2008 despite the CJA aiming to ‘judicialise’ sentencing. In 2012 Bamber took his case to the European Court of Human Rights with this background, and made appeals that the British Government were in breach of Articles, 3, 5 and 7 of European Human Rights Law. Submissions by his lawyers included;
“the sentence which the trial judge would have passed, if he had had the power to do so, namely a minimum term of 25 years, was reviewed by the High Court nearly 22 years afterwards applying a sentencing regime created 17 years afterwards, which is more severe than the one which prevailed at the time the offences were committed. That can neither be fair nor compatible with the requirements of Article 7 (1).”
Bamber’s legal team added;
“It cannot be acceptable for the Government to have promised a whole life prisoner a series of reviews at the stages identified in this letter and then to renege on that promise and withdraw that right to review, and consequently the possibility of release.” [11]
On 17th of January 2012 the European Court ruled that there had been no breach of Article 3. This was a narrow majority ruling, with three out of the seven judges dissenting. Clearly exclusionary forms of sentencing are still favourable in contrary to European integrationist penal trends. The dissenting judges stated that the appellants were denied the Human Right to ‘hope’ which did amount to inhuman and degrading treatment. On the 28th of November 2012 Bamber, Vinter and Moore returned to Europe, this time in the Grand Chamber to see if they could have some ‘hope’ put into their sentences. On the 24th of September 2012, a non Governmental Organization known as the ‘Hungarian Helsinki Committee’ sought leave to submit a third party intervention on behalf of Vinter, Bamber and Moore under rule 44 (3) of the court. The Committee‘monitors the enforcement of human rights’ and ‘has for years been advocating for abolishing lifelong imprisonment without the possibility of parole.’ The application made by the Committee was refused by the court as was their intervention into the case of a Hungarian man jailed for whole life without a mechanism for release.[12] It seems even Strasbourg reject the insertion of release mechanisms, so the possibility of the appellants winning their case is slim. Our concern is that not only has England and Wales has been unethical in setting sentences, and is still in the mode of political meddling, but this country brings itself into conflict with Europe and Scotland as a result. Michael Mansfield QC has suggested the following where miscarriages of justice are concerned.
“Despite the CCRC there are cases where strong evidence of innocence or serious doubts of the conviction, exist, which do not meet the stringent criteria of the CCRC and the appeal courts. The INUK and this book, then, present an imperative attempt to resurrect alternatives for such cases where the CCRC can offer no hope to, such as petitioning the Secretary of State for a pardon under the prerogative of mercy”[13]
Most concerning of all is that Jeremy Bamber is not eligible for a prerogative pardon under his whole life order - there is no mechanism for review.The Bamber case highlights the most unusual set of circumstances in which the government ‘secretly’ interfered with the imposition of sentences. We should be even more concerned that there is no provision for the possibility that the judiciary is setting what is effectively a ‘death sentence’ to individuals who maintain innocence with no mechanism for review, and this has echoes of the death sentence imposed on Troy Davies in the USA, despite his maintaining innocence with supporting evidence. More attention must be paid to the absurdity of political sentencing ethics which are supported by the UK judiciary (when it suits) and how these conflict with European Human rights laws if we are ever to find a system that works satisfactorily.
[1]“reintergrationist” versus “exclusionary” types of imprisonment, Dolovich. pg 13 & 122; Life Without Parole, Ed Ogletree and Sarat, NYU Press, 2012.
[2]Observations on Behalf of the Government of the United Kingdom, 18thSeptember, 2012.
[3]Derek Bentley, Timothy Evans
[4]Daily average in Crown Court, CACD (including referrals from the CCRC) and House of Lords, Naughton, M. Rethinking Miscarriages of Justice: Hope for the Innocent, 2012 edition, Palgrave, Basingstoke.
[5]Observations on Behalf of the Government of the United Kingdom, 18thSeptember, 2012.
[6]R (Doody) v Secretary of State for the Home department http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Secretary_of_State_for_the_Home_Department_Ex_p_Doody
[7]Home Office, Prison Service letter to Mr Bamber, 15th December 1994
[8] R (on the application of Anderson) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2002]
[9] Schedule 21, CJA 2003
[10] Schedule 22, CJA 2003
[11] Bamber v United Kingdom, 2012
[12]Letters Grand Chamber and Hungarian Helsinki Committee, 27th January 2012
[13] Mansfield, foreward xxii. Naughton, M. The Criminal Cases Review Commission: Hope for the Innocent, 2012 edition, Palgrave, Basingstoke.
Whole life Tariff Reviews: “hope for the future, however tenuous that hope may be.”
On the 28th of November 2012, the European Grand Chamber will hear the appeal against my whole life tariff along with two other cases, Vinter and Moore.
It is my position that the UK Government is in breach of Article 3 and article 5 (4) of the European Convention on Human Rights by imposing a whole life sentence without review, this amounts to ‘inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’ But what does this actually mean? In light of the January ruling that whole life tariff's are not in breach of human rights law, the only appropriate submission my legal team could make to the Grand Chamber is that there is no problem with a government applying a mandatory whole life sentence, but the breach of Human Rights Law lies within there being no mechanism for review of the prisoner’s whole life sentence. It is then asserted, (and it is also my particular view) that a whole life order then becomes parallel with a death sentence. To order someone to die is to permanently exclude them from society and it then follows that to sentence a person to whole life imprisonment is also permanent social exclusion. Social death is a dimension of the slavery which replaced death in Classical society, and was and still is intrinsically linked to loss of liberty. [1] As I have stated many times, I have been sentenced to death by old age. This leads us to the psychological state of those incarcerated for whole life without reviews. It has been clarified by psychologists including those assessing me that I am at continued risk of having depression brought about the prolonged environment of prison.[2] I am in total agreement about life without hope, after all hope is what keeps the human spirit alive and without hope there is nothing. For me, even with the insertion of a review there is still very little hope of release. If the Grand Chamber rule to allow me to have reviews there is no knowing at what point a review could be placed, it might be at 30 or 40 years into a sentence. As I have maintained innocence, there lies the other difficulty of reviewing my prison term in light of this. Because I have maintained innocence I have not taken part in any rehabilitation programmes and neither can I be viewed as a prisoner who has gained atonement. The judiciary and review boards see me as being in denial of guilt. So when the European Court of Human Rights ruled against my appeal at Strasbourg in Janurary 2012, the three dissenting judges emphasised that Article 3 was being infringed and their words rang true for me, “equally importantly depriving him of any hope for the future, however tenuous that hope may be.” Tenuous, really is how I feel about this ruling even if we win in the Grand Chamber. After this digression, nevertheless the argument my lawyers have put forward is that this treatment, taking into account psychological effects does amount to inhuman and degrading treatment. To this I have to agree wholeheartedly, respect for ‘hope’ an essential dimension of human dignity does underpin the protection of human rights. [3] In the USA and China the death penalty still exists in contrast to Canada where there is no death penalty and no whole life sentencing. The USA, similarly to England and Wales currently has the sentence of ‘Life Without Parole’ (LWOP) and in Florida the US Supreme Court commented broadly on the destructive impact of this sentence “It deprives the convict of the most basic liberties without giving hope of restoration.[4] If you have always felt that England and Wales are soft on sentencing then think again because the statistics show otherwise. The position is that all majority state parties of Europe rule that life sentences must have reviews.[5] Only England and Wales and Hungary have an authentically irreducible whole life sentence, England and Wales with almost 21 times more life sentenced prisoners than any other single European country and We currently have more whole life sentence prisoners than all of Europe put together. [6] The first whole life tariff in the UK was set in 1988, and in 2003 reviews at executive discretion for these prisoners was abolished (under a Labour government).[7] Although Scotland’s sentencing is generally similar to England and Wales their human rights laws were brought into line with Europe at the time of the devolution of powers.[8] Whole life tariff prisoners cannot be subject to a prerogative pardon. The only mechanism for release of a prisoner (other than to overturn their conviction) on a whole life sentence in England and Wales is granted in exceptional circumstances, where the prisoner is medically incapacitated with death to occur within 3 months and no life sentence prisoner has ever been released under this or any other power in England and Wales. This exception compounds the view that a whole life sentence is literally a death sentence.[9] As I am not guilty of the crimes I have been convicted of carrying out, where do I fit in all of this? Currently the only avenue to appeal is through the politically controlled quango of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. When this avenue is exhausted because the commission has usurped the role of the appeal courts and is in violation of the Criminal Appeals act 1995, and non disclosure of evidential materials still prevails, surely this is a violation of both Article 3 and 5(4) of European Human Rights Law, and should be taken into consideration when assessing whole life sentences. As crime is intrinsically tied to sentencing it is axiomatic that the problem of Miscarriage of Justice cases could be expanded within this framework simply because a Miscarriage of Justice in UK law does not allow for innocence but only a “miscarriage of due process.”[10] If we are to believe the statistics quoted by Dr Michael Naughton as opposed to the Government’s ‘massaged figures’ we face a very worrying situation indeed. Naughton reveals that there are no less than 18 convictions a day over turned in the UK which is an astonishing figure warranting a full review of the causes of wrongful convictions.[11] Indeed Naughton himself states: “miscarriages of justice as understood from the perspective of the legal system are not the exception to the rule, rather they are a routine and even mundane feature of the criminal justice process.”[12] It is of course, with my own conviction and these statistics in mind when I consider what a whole life sentence means to the individuals living a ‘social death’ as I do each day. But whatever happens on the 28th of November this year it will make little difference to my current life, release for me with my conviction intact means no life at all. There is only one freedom and one hope for me and that is that the truth of my innocence will be heard in a court of Law allowing me the liberty I have been fighting for.
Jeremy
[1] Patterson, O. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982
[2] Dr Anderson Report, 2006
[3]“reintergrationist” versus “exclusionary” types of imprisonment, Dolovich, pg 13 & 122; Life Without Parole, Ed Ogletree and Sarat, NYU Press, 2012. Absence of a “dignity tradition” comparative study USA, Europe, pg 19 & 282-310, op cit.
[4]Graham v Florida 130, S.Ct. 2011, 2021 (2010) at 2027 & Naovarath v State, 105 Nev. 525, 526, 779 P.2d 944 (1989), at pg 4 &40
[5] http://treaties.un.org & UN report on Life Imprisonment (1994)
[6]Stats prisoners serving life or IPP http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/statistics/prison-probation/omsq/omsq-q1-2012.pdf, The Howard, Newsletter of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Summer 2009, http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/prisons/& Hansard, Baroness Stern at Col 448 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/
[7]Provisions of CJA 2003
[8]Convention rights (Compliance) (Scotland) Act 2001 c.7
[9]PSO, 4700, para, 12.2.1
[10]Naughton, M. Rethinking Miscarriages of Justice, 2012 edition, Palgrave, Basingstoke, pp 21-24
[11]Daily average in Crown Court, CACD (including referrals from the CCRC) and House of Lords, 18.21, op cit.
"At my trial Judge Drake gave a minimum tariff, and providing that during your jail you do nothing wrong that is how long you do. I was given 25 years. This was then sent to the Lord Chief Justice to be rubber stamped. Lord Lane said he agreed with the 25 year tariff.
So as far as I was concerned I had to serve 25 years and I’d be let out on parole to serve my life license outside. Very few lifers are kept in forever. When I got my life sentence most lifers then were serving between 8 and 12 years, so 25 years was massive.  Eight years into my sentence I was called up to the psychology office in Long Lartin, about 8 different people were there and it was very odd. The number one Governor said ‘I don’t know how to break this to you but Doulglass Hurd, (who was Secretary for State at the time) has ruled that you must die in jail.’ I appealed this ruling last year and I knew that the appeal court would not act on this as it was too political so they kicked it up the line to The European Court who have now agreed to prioritise my case. This ruling will just confirm how cruel the authorities are telling a man he is to die in jail as hope is what keeps the human spirit alive – without hope there is nothing. It is only because I am strong that I can and could see beyond the action of Michael Howard (Home Secretary at the time who wrote to notify me) in telling me my last breath would be staring at a prison door".
See the blog by Jeremy on the ruling that his original sentence no longer stands and that the whole life tariff imposed after his sentence was set has not been overturned by the European Court of Human Rights. Jeremy intends to take the appeal to the Grand Chamber of the European Court.
Written and edited by Jeremy Bamber between 2010 and 2012.
Convicted murderer Jeremy Bamber has been stabbed in the neck in prison by a fellow inmate. Bamber was taken to hospital after the attack, at HM Prison Full Sutton near York. He had been on the telephone at the time of the assault. He needed stitches to the back of his neck, but has now returned to the jail and is recovering in the hospital wing. Bamber yesterday said that he did not know the prisoner who attacked him, and he had no idea what the reason was.
The attack happened at 3.20pm on Saturday. A spokesman for the Home Office said: 'I can confirm a prisoner was taken for treatment to an outside hospital and police have been informed. It did follow an assault.'
Published Monday May 31, 2004
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“The enormity of the universe can make us feel so small but there is nothing greater than our own capacity to endure.” Jeremy Bamber September, 2012
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