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Ex-probation chief attacks Jack Straw over student murders
Martin Bentham, Home Affairs Editor10 Jun 2009
The former head of London Probation has accused Jack Straw of trying to dodge the blame for the murders of French students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez and claimed that a lack of government funding led to the killings.
David Scott, who resigned after being told he would be suspended over his role in the case, suggested his staff had been overwhelmed by the number of dangerous offenders being released from prison.
He claimed the increased workload had not been addressed by a sufficient rise in resources and accused Mr Straw of distracting attention from the resulting problems by blaming individual failings instead.
Mr Scott's claims follow the controversy last week over the errors which allowed killer Dano Sonnex, a violent offender who should have been in jail, to remain on the streets and carry out the brutal double murder of Mr Bonomo and Mr Ferez at their New Cross bedsit.
The men were stabbed 244 times after Sonnex and fellow killer Nigel Farmer broke into their home in June last year.
After the killers' conviction last week, Mr Straw said a misuse of resources by London Probation had contributed to the failings which had allowed Sonnex to remain free.
He pointed out that the service had underspent its £154million budget by £3.5million last year and had received increases in funding over recent years.
Mr Scott insisted today, however, that underfunding had been to blame and suggested that Mr Straw was buck-passing and seeking "to mask a very real lack of resources with charges of ineptitude".
He also claimed "ministerial policy has been to keep quiet wherever possible and to resort to damage limitation when things go wrong".
He said: "For Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, to dismiss lack of resources as a factor in the Sonnex case and to deny that there is any such lack in the service as a whole is quite simply wrong."
Mr Scott said London Probation's underspend had been a result of an instruction from the Government's National Offender Management Service to hold back cash to cope with unexpected future expenses.
He added: "If there is crisis of numbers in the prison system, 10 Downing Street will be involved directly. People know when a prison is full.
"The contrast with probation has been stark. There is no way of determining when capacity has been reached.
"Instead, the workload simply increases."
Reports revealed that the junior probation officer supervising Sonnex had 127 offenders on her books despite being qualified for less than a year.
