§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if she will list the reasons for the revocation of licences for each of the 18 former life sentence prisoners for whom this is applicable. [37181]
§ Mr. Ingram[holding answer 6 April 1998]Statute provides that the licence of an indeterminate sentence prisoner can be revoked at any time by the Secretary of State. In each case, the overriding reason for licence revocation was for the protection of the public.
§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if she will list the members of the Life Sentence Review Board, indicating their profession, qualifications and perceived religious/community background and the declarations of interest each has registered. [37175]
§ Mr. Ingram[holding answer 6 April 1998]The Life Sentence Review Board is not a statutory body and there is no formal registration requirement on its members.
The Life Sentence Review Board is chaired by the Permanent Under Secretary of the Northern Ireland Office, Mr. Joe Pilling, and includes among its members senior Northern Ireland Office officials, a psychologist and a medical officer of the Department of Health and Social Services. The Chief Probation Officer and a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist attend the Board in a professional advisory capacity. The Governors of HMP Maze and HMP Maghaberry also attend.
The identities of the members of the Board, with the exception of the Permanent Under Secretary, are not made public for security reasons. The members of the Board are all full-time civil servants drawn from both the Home Civil Service and the Northern Ireland Civil Service. Their membership is by virtue of the posts they hold within the Northern Ireland Office, including the Northern Ireland Prison Service.
It would be inappropriate to disclose the perceived community background of the individual members of the Review Board. The confidentiality of monitoring information is protected under the Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Act 1989.
As already indicated, among the members of the Board, are a professionally qualified Psychologist and medical practitioner.
§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on what dates the two life-sentence prisoners released on licence were subsequently reconvicted for scheduled offences; and what their present position is as regards sentence. [37180]
§ Mr. Ingram[holding answer 6 April 1998]Of the two prisoners re-convicted for serious terrorist offences, one was sentenced on 17 December 1993 and the other on 18 May 1995. Following licence revocation each has resumed the status of an indeterminate sentence prisoner. The stage at which each case will be reviewed by the Life Sentence Review Board will be determined by means of periodical review in accordance with normal life sentence review procedures.
183W
§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many times, and on what dates, the Life Sentence Review Board has met in the last three years; and how many cases it has considered on each occasion. [37174]
§ Mr. Ingram[holding answer 6 April 1998]The Life Sentence Review Board meets five times per year. The other information requested is set out in the table.
Date of meeting Number of cases 7 February 1995 5 4 April 1995 10 6 June 1995 9 17 October 1995 9 12 December 1995 8 20 February 1996 7 23 April 1996 5 11 June 1996 12 22 October 1996 13 10 December 1996 10 18 February 1997 7 29 April 1997 6 9 June 19971 8 14 and 15 October 19971 19 9 December 1997 12 1 One individual case was considered at two successive meetings during 1997 as the Board requested additional information. Note:
Some cases will, of course, have been considered more than once during this 3 year time span where the Board deferred them for periods of one or two years.