Mums’ online bid for stiffer jail sentences (From Echo)

Mums’ online bid for stiffer jail sentences

7:00am Friday 3rd September 2010 in

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TWO fed-up mums have launched an online crusade demanding tougher sentences for crooks after reading about high-profile cases in the press.

Joanne Webber, 35, from Westcliff, and her friend Sally Goodwin, 35, have set up a petition to lobby the Government about prison sentences following the recent Jon Venables case.

He was jailed for two years in July for having child abuse images on his computer and the sentence provoked outrage. Venables was ten when he and Robert Thompson murdered toddler James Bulger in Merseyside, in 1993.

He was released in 2001 and was living in Cheshire under a new identity when the images were found on his computer by a probation officer.

Miss Goodwin, from Wickford, said: “Jon Venables murdered a boy. He comes out and then he gets found with indecent images.

“He goes into prison and he is getting luxury food. It is annoying. Where is the punishment? It is more like a holiday camp in prison than a punishment.”

The mums also want prisoners given life sentences to spend the rest of their life behind bars with no opportunity for parole and luxuries to stop for inmates who commit serious crimes.

Miss Goodwin added: “We are hoping the campaign will go well and we will get as many signatures as we can. Hopefully, we will make a difference.

“A life sentence is meant to be a life sentence. They come out and they just go and do it again.

“I read the newspapers and it just annoys me they are given a light sentence.”

The petition urges the Government to spend money on support for victims instead of offenders and those who abuse children to be given life in prison.

Miss Webber, who is studying for a psychology degree through the Open University, said: “We have both got children and we just wanted to try to change things a bit.”