A question answered.

In this post, I asked whether our parole rules had been changed, since Jonathan King had been released while claiming not to have done anything wrong. Well, the ever-helpful and argumentative Mr John Band has emailed me the answer.

According to this report, Susan May has just become the first person ever to be released while still protesting their innocence. The report is, of course, wrong: Jonathan King beat her to that honour. Mr Band says that The Metro (which isn't online) reported that she is the first lifer to be released while still protesting their innocence, which makes a lot more sense.

A spokesman for the parole board has said:

"It is unlawful for the board to refuse parole simply on the grounds of denial of the crime."

Hmm. So it's never been done before, in the entire history of parole, but the parole board expect us to believe that that's because they've been keeping people locked up illegally all these years. That seems a tad unlikely. If it were unlawful to keep these people locked up, someone would have challenged it before now.

So, in summary, it looks like I reached the correct conclusion from the wrong evidence: the parole laws have been changed, but Jonathan King's release has nothing to do with it.

He still shouldn't have been released, mind. Rarely has a parolee made it clearer that he's likely to reoffend.