Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn have been asked about the London Bridge Terror Attack in interviews on Sunday morning.
The Prime Minister told the BBC that about 74 people who were convicted terrorists have been released early from prison. It is understood an urgent review has been launched into the monitoring and licence conditions of these individuals following Friday’s attack in London.
Mr Khan, the attacker shot dead by police on Friday, was jailed back in 2012 over a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange. Mr Khan was given a sentence of indeterminate detention for “public protection” with a minimum jail term of eight years – however, this sentence was replaced by the Court of Appeal in 2013 with a 16-year-fixed term, including 8 years in prison. Mr Khan was released on licence in December 2018.
Boris Johnson has claimed that scrapping early release would have stopped Mr Khan from launching the attack. However, Labour is blaming budget cuts and has emphasized the need for investment into a range of public services.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told Sky News on Sunday that convicted terrorists should ‘not necessarily’ automatically serve their full prison sentences and discussed the need to assess individual circumstances. Mr Corbyn has called for a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the attack and has also said there needs to be ‘an examination of how our prison services work and crucially what happens to them on release from prison.’
Boris Johnson has claimed that the ‘broken hung parliament was preoccupied with blocking Brexit’ and has made his government unable to make changes to legislation on sentences for terrorists and violent offenders.
According to CambridgeshireLive, the father of Jack Merritt, one of the victims in Friday’s attack said “My son, Jack, who was killed in this attack, would not wish his death to be used as the pretext for more draconian sentences or for detaining people unnecessarily.”
Hundreds have attended a service at Southwark Cathedral on Sunday for two people stabbed and killed in the London Bridge attack.
