Catherine Bennett’s article in respect of the Parole Board’s decision to release Colin Pitchfork misses the key fact he had been in an open prison for four years before the decision to release (“Can women rely on the Parole Board getting it right if frees men like Colin Pitchfork?”, Comment).
In order to get to an open prison, the secretary of state for justice had to accept the recommendation and did so. The Parole Board had a dossier of more than 1,200 pages and all witnesses agreed the release test was met. The rate of serious reoffending for those released by the Parole Board is just 0.5%, which is comparable to international systems. While the majority of the public may have concern about the decision, it is one that was entirely foreseeable given Pitchfork had been in and out of the community over the last four years.
The Parole Board will shortly have the ability to conduct parole hearings in public. This will help improve transparency and public understanding of the process.
Dean Kingham, committee member for Association of Prison Lawyers and Parole Board lead
Leavenheath, Suffolk
Thank you, Catherine Bennett, for a sensible article on the proposed release of Colin Pitchfork, a man who raped and murdered two children. Paedophiles are highly skilled at deception. It pleases social workers’ vanity to think they have reformed people and he will have played up to that. Some well-intentioned people don’t understand the simple truth that nasty people have to appear nice to get the chance to be nasty. Let him have books, education courses, nice food, a digital television – any luxury he likes – but keep him where he is. Murdered women and children don’t get “a second chance”.
Angela Singer
Cambridge
Our trains, electric?
As a resident of the West Country, I was surprised to read about the “recently electrified” train service that Boris Johnson could have used to reach Cornwall instead of his private plane (Bay watch: a Cornish notebook, News). Rail electrification has yet to reach Devon and Cornwall and I am unaware of any concrete plans to rectify this sorry state of affairs.
Had the PM travelled to St Ives by train, he would have seen what an antiquated and very long journey it is. Sadly, this government prefers to spend on roads rather than provide a greener rail network.
Jill Owen
Exeter
The horror of Alzheimer’s
I read Mark Kermode’s review of The Father (“Far too much to say before I go”, the New Review) with an interest arising out of a long professional and personal concern as a social worker with people suffering from dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s. In my experience, the sadness and despair provoked by Alzheimer’s is often accompanied by expressions of terror and horror, twin modes of the Gothic genre. However, such undertones are often ignored or denied by those supporting people with dementia. To lose one’s agency is to become a representation of a kind of living death.
At the end of my working life, I returned to university to research in literature and elsewhere the representation of Alzheimer’s disease which is, often unwittingly, referenced in the language of the Gothic. The contribution of art to portray both the reality and the humanity surrounding this appalling condition cannot be gainsaid, alongside the need to intensify medical research.
Dr AG Austin
Penylan, Cardiff
The unsung heroes of Bath
Oliver Dowden’s statement that “we should not be drawn into rewriting history” shows a disappointing grasp of how history is recorded (“Everything you wanted to know about the culture wars but were afraid to ask”, the New Review). Written history may be fixed in our minds, but history experienced by those without the means to write and publicise is missing.
In Bath, we have a beautiful built record of 18th- and 19th-century wealth. Much of this wealth came from slavery. The city should take pride in revealing and acknowledging this history, where the labour of unknown and unrecorded slaves extracted from another continent contributed to a unique legacy in stone.
Cate Le Grice-Mack
Bath
Demise of UK shipbuilding
Your powerful piece on the catastrophic decline of fishing and Hull mentions the last major UK fishing vessel delivered in 2018 (“All at sea”, the New Review, last week). It doesn’t mention that it was built jointly in Poland (EU) and Norway (non-EU). Like fishing under successive governments, the UK shipbuilding industry – except for warship building, which is taxpayer funded – has dwindled to a negligible remnant.
Hull (at Hessle) used to be home to the major UK tugboat builders, Dunston. After the Navy’s civilian manned tugboat work was privatised to Serco in a contract worth more than £1bn, Serco promptly ordered new vessels to be built in the Netherlands and Romania. The Dutch builders have been “global players” ever since. And Serco carries on regardless.
Robert Straughton
Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria
A sharp observation
I barely dare to criticise anything by William Keegan, but the idea that “our prime minister knew there would be problems at the NI/GB border” (“Now the G7 is having its energy sapped by Brexit”, Business & Cash) may fall foul of Hanlon’s razor: never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Neil Mathur
Cambridge
Something rotten?
Twenty-five years ago, at the first rehearsal of an amateur production of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever, I was handed a slice of birthday cake. “It’s Frank’s 60th.” “Who is he playing?” “Your daughter’s boyfriend.” We were not clever enough to claim it was an “age-blind” production. Colour-blind and gender-blind casting can lead to interesting and imaginative productions. They widen opportunities for actors to take on great roles that they would not otherwise be cast in.
However, with theatres closed for over a year, actors are having a terrible time. Casting Ian McKellen, an 82-year-old millionaire, as Hamlet, seems as inappropriate as having the Red Arrows at a climate control conference (“What does old mean? Quite honestly, I feel about 12”, the Observer Magazine).
Edward Blincoe
Fowey, Cornwall
