Robert buckland

Colin Pitchfork, 61, was jailed for life for raping and murdering 15-year-olds Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth in Leicestershire in the 1980s. Now the Parole Board has said Pitchfork should be released. The backlash from politicians has been swift. Local MP Alberto Costa said he was ‘appalled’ by the decision. ‘It would be immoral, wrong and frankly dangerous to release this disgraceful murderer of two children,’ he added. Justice Secretary Robert Buckland, who is said to be exploring the use of the ‘reconsideration mechanism’ to reverse the decision, appears to agree with his Tory colleague. But the reality is that Buckland – and Costa – have little power to stop

It ought to be a good day at the office (at last!) for Robert Buckland, the Secretary of State who has outraged the legal profession. He spent most of last weekend on the media rack defending the government’s position that it might break international law to defy an agreement with the EU that it had negotiated.  Today is much more straightforward. His ‘get tough’ sentencing white paper contains a myriad of proposals that will resonate with ordinary people baffled by a justice system ever more remote from the idea of public protection and punishment, lost in abstractions, passing sentences that bear little relationship to the gravity of the crime. So while

Robert Buckland – ‘I will resign’ if government breaks law in ‘unacceptable’ way The Justice Secretary Robert Buckland was put on the spot this morning over the government’s proposed Internal Market Bill, which is due to be introduced to the House of Commons tomorrow. The bill intends to override aspects of the Northern Ireland Protocol – a part of the official Withdrawal Agreement – to give ministers the right to modify rules on customs, if there is no final trade deal agreed by December. Andrew Marr quizzed Buckland about whether using these powers would breach international law: AM: Is that the moment that [you] resign from the government – if