Alberto Costa, MP for South Leicestershire has welcomed the decision by the Parole Board to hold double child-rapist and murderer Colin Pitchfork’s latest parole hearing in public after the MP’s request to the Parole Board.
In a rare move, the Parole Board has agreed to Alberto's request for Colin Pitchfork to face his latest parole hearing in public. The double child-rapist and murderer successfully appealed the December 2023 decision to keep him behind bars triggering a fresh parole hearing this summer.
This decision comes after Alberto wrote to Parole Board chair Caroline Corby calling for the fresh hearing to be held in public due to his concerns about how the Parole Board has handled Pitchfork’s case. In a confusing twist of events, Pitchfork has been given permission to effectively appeal against an appealed decision. This has resulted in a lack of trust in the Parole Board Rules.
Colin Pitchfork was found guilty of raping and brutally murdering two teenage girls in the 1980s and was the first person in the world to be convicted using DNA evidence. The families of Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth, the two Leicestershire schoolgirls raped and murdered by Pitchfork, have been notified of the Parole Board's decision.
Mr Costa has campaigned against the release of Mr Pitchfork since he became the MP for South Leicestershire in 2015, but more recently his concern has turned to Parole Board Rules after a series of contradictory decisions.
Timeline for the current unexpected chapter in the Colin Pitchfork case:
- June 2023: The Parole Board issued a decision directing for Pitchfork’s re-release from prison. Following Mr Costa’s intervention, the Justice Secretary applied for reconsideration on the grounds that the decision was irrational, and the Parole Board granted the application.
- 7th December 2023: Following a fresh oral hearing the Parole Board reversed its decision and ruled that Pitchfork should remain behind bars.
- 12th February 2024: Pitchfork uniquely applied for reconsideration of a reconsidered decision, and the Parole Board confirmed that it had granted his application on the grounds that the provisional decision of 7th December 2023 was irrational.
- 16 May 2024: The Parole Board agree to Mr Costa’s request to hold the hearing in public with the date to be confirmed.
Mr Costa expressed his gratitude towards the Parole Board’s chair Caroline Corby for acknowledging the importance of transparency and public understanding of how the Board assesses risk. He said “There is understandably a high bar for holding in public, parole hearings, and I am grateful to the Parole Board for recognising that this case has now crossed that threshold.”
Since 2022, following a rule change, the Parole Board can, in exceptional circumstances, hold hearings in public. The Parole Board chair Caroline Corby has only granted public hearings for a handful of cases which reach the “high bar”.
Alberto said “I called for this public hearing because my constituents were confused, indeed I was confused, about how we reached the situation where the Parole Board ruled that it would be irrational to release Pitchfork and then a couple of months later, following his appeal, decided it would be irrational not to release him. A public hearing should allow us to make sense of what has happened here.”
Alberto continued “My constituents still bear the trauma of Pitchfork’s crimes. They, along with many people across the country, will be understandably interested in the outcome of this public hearing”.
Alberto said: “We should never forget that Colin Pitchfork was the first person ever to be convicted of this type of brutal crime using DNA evidence and he went to remarkable lengths to avoid detection.
Alberto added: “I am of course hopeful that the fresh panel will decide that Colin Pitchfork should remain behind bars given the risk he still poses as a man in his early 60s, a man capable of committing such heinous crimes.”
