The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill would stop convicted terrorists and sex offenders being freed half-way through their jail terms, and also allow sentences up to ten years in jail for those who vandalise war memorials and other public monuments.
The British government’s sweeping new crime bill has passed its second Commons vote by a majority of 96 — despite a last-minute Labour U-turn to oppose it.
Meanwhile, protesters gathered outside Parliament for the third consecutive evening to demand better protection for women in public, following the murder of Sarah Everard. Police officer Wayne Couzens has been charged with the crime.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer made a U-turn at the weekend from his previous position of abstaining on the bill, whipping his MPs to oppose it after the Metropolitan Police forcefully broke up a vigil for Everard on London’s Clapham Common where she disappeared.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives seized the opportunity to condemn the opposition for trying to block the bill it says it largely supports.
The bill would change parole rules for prisoners, stopping convicted terrorists and sex offenders from being freed half-way through their sentences.
And the bill creates a new offence of “intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance” aimed at groups like Extinction Rebellion, which has disrupted public transport with its protests.
It would also double the maximum sentence for assaulting an emergency worker to two years. And pre-mediated murder of a child would carry a mandatory whole-life sentence under the law.
Sport coaches and religious leaders who abuse their positions of trust to sleep with with 16- and 17-year-olds in their care would also be criminalised, as teachers who do so currently are.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
