Rudakubana the latest high-profile killer to disrupt sentencing proceedings
Sir Keir Starmer has backed giving judges powers to force offenders to attend sentencing hearings.
Axel Rudakubana is the latest high-profile killer to avoid facing his victims’ families while being sentenced.
The Southport killer was removed from his own sentencing twice for repeatedly shouting, in what the judge said was a bid to avoid facing the victims of his crime.
Judges could soon get powers to force criminals to appear in the dock when they are sentenced.
The change to the law is expected to be made in the Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill, which will be laid in Parliament in the next few months.
Its purpose is to make sure victims and bereaved family members can see criminals face the consequences of their actions.
Sir Keir Starmer promised to carry on the pledge, first made by his predecessor Rishi Sunak, when he met with the mother of murdered nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel this week.
Cheryl Korbel and her family have campaigned to change the law so that offenders are compelled to appear in the dock for sentencing.
Thomas Cashman, the gunman who killed Olivia as he chased a drug dealer who had tried to run into her home in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, did not appear in court to hear his life sentence in April 2023.
Sir Keir told Ms Korbel: “We have put this in the first King’s Speech so we will legislate on this at the first chance and we should have it before the summer.”
The details of the legislation are not yet available, but the previous Government planned to create a new power for judges to order an offender to attend their hearing and make clear that custody officers could use “reasonable force” to get them to appear in the dock or via video link.
Under those plans, judges would also have discretion not to order offenders to attend if they were expected to cause disruption that would distress victims and their families.
There have been a spate of high-profile cases in which defendants have sparked public outcry by not appearing at their own sentencing hearings.
Lucy Letby, who murdered seven babies and attempted to kill seven more between June 2015 and June 2016 while she worked as a nurse on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital, was absent from her sentencing.
Jordan McSweeney, who killed 35-year-old law graduate Zara Aleena as she walked home from a night out in Ilford, east London in 2022, also failed to appear to hear his life sentence handed down.
