Licence to kill

The jury in the Mary-Ann Leneghan case has returned guilty verdicts on five of the men charged with her kidnap and murder. A sixth man had already pleaded guilty. It emerges that four of those men were on probation at the time they committed the crime.

This is the third time in as many months that we have heard such a thing. The man who killed John Monckton was out on probation at the time of the murder. So also was the man who murdered Roger Symons after burgling his home. In that case, we were told that the burglar had been released on licence after a quick chat on the telephone with a probation officer to assess his fitness for release.

What exactly is happening to our criminal justice system?