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Mrs. Gorman: Is my hon. Friend aware that Kensington and Chelsea is giving cash benefits at the moment, which allows it to save about £30 a head? The hon. Member for Stockport (Ms Coffey) seems to agree with me that that is illegal.
Mr. Burns: Our legal advice is that it is illegal, but even--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. We must now move on to the next debate.
Mr. Wayne Hood
12.30 pm
Mr. David Hinchliffe (Wakefield): I am most grateful for this opportunity to raise the circumstances of my constituent, Mr. Wayne Hood, who was convicted on 14 November 1996 of the attempted murder of his former foster parent, Terence Jarvis, and sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Jarvis was himself sentenced to seven years' imprisonment on the following day, after being convicted of the indecent assault of several children and young persons in his care over a period of 15 years.
Mr. Hood is a 27-year-old man who spent most of his childhood in care, latterly--from November 1977 until he was able to go into independent living--with Jarvis and his wife in an approved local authority foster home in the Kettlethorpe area of Wakefield. At the time of the offence, Mr. Hood was living in Kettlethorpe with his wife, Tina, and his young daughter.
On the evening of 17 March 1996, after a day's heavy drinking and a domestic dispute about his drinking, Mr. Hood visited the Jarvises' home and stabbed Terence Jarvis. I do not in any way condone Mr. Hood's actions that day, which he deeply regrets, but I believe that they should be considered against the background of his suffering in care over a long period.
The subsequent police investigation of the incident led to Terence Jarvis being charged on 15 April 1996 with four counts of assault and two of buggery between 1972 and 1989, when the four individuals concerned, including Mr. Hood, were aged between six and 16 and in his care. Jarvis pleaded guilty to the four specimen charges of indecent assault, with the two charges of attempted buggery to lie on file.
Terence and Althea Jarvis had been approved as foster carers for the local authority from 1975, and since then had fostered 15 boys, the placements varying in duration from a few days to many years. Althea Jarvis had been employed as a residential worker in a local authority children's home for 18 years, and her husband, who was a self-employed music teacher, had over time become the principal carer. Since 1976, the Jarvises had also fostered a young man with learning disabilities, and in March 1994 Terence Jarvis was approved as a fit person under the small homes regulations, and the young man remained in their care as an adult placement.
It was entirely as a result of the events of 17 March 1996--the attack by Wayne Hood on Terence Jarvis--that a series of disclosures of sexual abuse came about. As a result, an immediate local authority management investigation was launched, the social services inspectorate was informed, and the Jarvises were suspended as foster parents. Subsequently, they were formally de-registered as foster carers, and Terence Jarvis was de-registered as a fit person under the small homes regulations.
An independent counselling service has been established for those people who were directly affected, and the Wakefield area child protection committee has commissioned an independent case review. I am satisfied that the local authority is following the appropriate procedures in investigating the matter, and my sole concern today is to highlight what I believe to be the totally inappropriate four-year prison sentence being served by Mr. Hood.
The Minister will be aware of the public outcry over Mr. Hood's treatment, in view of the appalling catalogue of abuse that came to light during the court case. A campaign to free Mr. Hood has generated a petition signed by many thousands of Wakefield people, but his plight has been a matter of concern far beyond my constituency. I have had letters, including some from people in the Minister's constituency, expressing amazement that Mr. Hood should be behind bars.
Among those showing serious concern about the matter are a number who have had personal involvement with Mr. Hood's care. I have spoken to two people who nursed him in hospital as a baby. They outlined to me the serious difficulties that he had to face from the earliest part of his life.
When I met the Prime Minister recently to discuss the case--I am genuinely grateful for the personal interest that he has shown--I gave him a copy of a letter that I received in December from a couple who fostered Mr. Hood for nearly a year when he was aged seven. The Minister will also have seen the letter, which outlines serious concerns about Mr. Hood's experiences in care long before his placement with the Jarvises.
I am prevented from setting out my detailed knowledge of his experiences before that placement by the fact that Mr. Hood himself is not yet fully aware of the details of the record of his life from an early age. He is exercising his right to access his personal care file, but is at present not familiar with much of the information that it contains. He has, however, consented to my reading his file and quoting from its contents today. I am grateful for the help that I have received from Wakefield district council's director of social services and his staff in accessing relevant information.
I set out my detailed concerns about Mr. Hood's background, as described in the case file, in my letter to the Prime Minister of 26 February, following our personal discussions on the case a fortnight earlier. The Minister has seen a copy of that letter, and will understand its relevance to my concerns. I am especially perturbed about the fact that, at the time of sentencing, the court was aware of Mr. Hood's experiences with Jarvis, but apparently had no knowledge of the problems he had faced during the previous eight years.
Without going into the details given in the letter I have mentioned, it is apparent that Mr. Hood suffered a great deal as a child. The extent of that suffering is evidenced by the amount of time that he spent in hospital during the first 18 months of his life. Having been born on 17 October 1969, he spent from 22 October 1969 to 5 January 1970 in hospital. For the rest of 1970, he was in hospital again from 4 February to 6 March; from 9 July to 12 August; and from 10 October to Christmas. He was admitted again on 11 March 1971 and remained for more than a month, until he was transferred to a local authority children's home shortly after being made the subject of a care order. Most of those hospital admissions were prompted, I believe, by the consequences of serious neglect.
The Minister is aware of the serious concerns expressed about Mr. Hood's subsequent experiences by the foster parents who cared for him before his placement with the Jarvises. That placement broke down, and by the time he reached Terence and Althea Jarvis, in addition to several
short periods with his natural mother, his life had consisted of five periods in hospital, two separate foster placements and five years in a children's home.
In my letter to the Prime Minister, I drew particular attention to the entry on Mr. Hood's case record at the time when he was moved to the Jarvises. The social worker concerned wrote:
I would have thought that such information about Mr. Hood's background was directly relevant to his state of mind at the time of the offence, but I understand that, for various reasons, it was not made available to the court, either before his conviction or before sentencing. I am not a lawyer, but I understand from Mr. Hood's solicitor, Mr. Michael Barber--who has been most helpful in working with me on the case--that various legal technicalities and anomalies meant that the circumstances that I have outlined--particularly the abuse of the young man by his foster parents--could not be accepted as any defence to attempted murder.
Mr. Barber has advised me that the abuse and psychological damage, which clearly amounted to provocation, could have provided a defence if the victim had died. I understand that the lack of discretion to treat such circumstances as a general defence is peculiar to our legal system, but the effect in Mr. Hood's circumstances is very obvious and extremely worrying.
The second aspect of what happened in court has also caused considerable disquiet. In view of the circumstances of the offence, I was astonished to discover--only recently--that the court did not have a pre-sentence report on Mr. Hood's background at the time when he received a four-year prison sentence.
I understand that the Criminal Justice Act 1991 would have required a mandatory pre-sentence report before the imposition of a custodial sentence, unless such a report was dispensed with owing to the exceptional nature of the case. That, however, was amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which removed the mandatory requirement for a report, while still containing a statutory presumption in favour of obtaining and considering such a report before sentencing. I am not arguing that Mr. Hood did not receive a fair trial, but I feel that those two factors must be taken into account in consideration of the appropriateness of his prison sentence.
I have a letter from the West Yorkshire probation service to Mr. Hood's solicitor, Mr. Barber. It was sent at the time when attempts were being made to have the case referred to the Court of Appeal. The letter--written by an experienced and respected probation officer--queries the possibility of a probation officer's report being made available to such an appeal hearing, and states:
The Minister is aware that, because of concerns about Mr. Hood's imprisonment, a hearing took place on 11 December before the trial judge, Mr. Justice Walker,
who declined to reduce the sentence. An application to a single judge of the divisional court of the Court of Appeal for leave to pursue the appeal further was refused on 16 January. Mr. Hood has been advised by his solicitor that, as far as legal procedures are concerned, there is nothing to be gained from pursuing the matter further.
I know that the Home Secretary has powers to order the review of such sentences. He has the power to recommend the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy in cases in which the sentencing court was unaware of matters that might have affected the sentence, and in which no avenue of appeal exists. I believe, for the reasons I have given, that Mr. Hood's case clearly meets those criteria, and I hope that the Minister will consider exercising those powers in view of the circumstances.
I believe that Mr. Hood has already received more than enough punishment for an action that he deeply regrets. I see little sense in someone who has already been damaged by his experience of the care system as a child being even more damaged by his experience of the prison system as an adult. Mr. Hood is an intelligent, pleasant, presentable young man, who has, in my view, a great deal to offer. His wife and child are standing by him.
"Having just experienced the trauma of a failure of a foster home, Wayne would particularly be seeking the reassurance of being loved and accepted".
Instead, he suffered seven years of the most degrading sexual abuse.
"I would in any such Report be arguing very strongly for Wayne to be re-sentenced to a Probation Order with a condition he continues to see his counsellor".
I would be very surprised if any court in possession of a detailed pre-sentence report on Mr. Hood's background deemed it appropriate for him to receive a custodial sentence.
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