Downing Street Says » Frances Lawrence

» Friday, November 26, 2010

Frances Lawrence

Asked if the Prime Minister would like to apologise to Frances Lawrence for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) ignoring her letters and not giving her details of where the man who murdered her husband lived, the PMS said that there had been correspondence between MoJ and Frances Lawrence, which set out the position on the issue of where Mr Chindamo lived. Providing more information on where Mr Chindamo lived would be unlawful, so it was not a question of giving more rights to criminals than to victims, it was an issue about compliance with the law. Clearly this was a very distressing case, which the Prime Minister had spoken about it the past, and he was very concerned about the ongoing distress that Mrs Lawrence and her family were suffering.

Asked about the ignored letters that Mrs Lawrence sent to MoJ, the PMS said it was best to speak to the department as he was not aware of all the specific details regarding the correspondence.

Put that Mrs Lawrence had only wanted to know if Mr Chindamo was living in north or south London which didn’t seem a lot to ask, the PMS said that it was completely understandable why people thought that, but the department had set out that providing further information would have been unlawful.

Put that the Government could change the law so that victims of violent crime had the right to find out more detail about where the offender lived, the PMS said that we were concerned about the rights of victims, but there was a long-standing position and departments did not break the law.

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