David Shipley

What is Labour doing to fix the grooming gangs scandal?

9 April 2025 8:30 pm

Thank God for Katie Lam. Yesterday the government tried to conduct a grubby betrayal of thousands of young girls groomed…

What the Southport Inquiry needs to do

8 April 2025 4:57 am

The Southport killings were horrific, but should they have happened at all? We already know that the government’s counter-extremism programme,…

Are Islamist gangs in control of Britain’s most secure prison?

5 April 2025 12:00 am

HMP Frankland, in Durham, is supposed to be one of the most secure jails in the country. The category A…

Unlocked was changing inmates’ lives. So why has Labour binned it?

4 April 2025 4:50 pm

Unlocked Graduates, a charity that recruited hundreds of high-calibre graduates into the prison service, was one of the few glimmers…

The Sentencing Council has been humiliated

1 April 2025 6:04 pm

The members of the Sentencing Council have been pushed into a humiliating climbdown – but it may well be too late…

Why are ethnic minorities being prioritised for bail?

1 April 2025 1:04 am

When the Ministry of Justice announced that the government would introduce emergency legislation this week to stop ‘two tier’ Sentencing…

How Paddington took over the justice system

26 March 2025 5:24 am

Two RAF engineers were spared jail today, after pleading guilty to vandalising a statue of Paddington Bear in the Berkshire…

Prison bureaucracy is making inmates’ lives needlessly hard

25 March 2025 4:41 pm

Everyone knows that Britain’s jails are filthy, failing and dangerous. But there’s another less obvious problem with our prisons: those…

Tommy Robinson doesn’t know how lucky he is

22 March 2025 3:32 am

Tommy Robinson has lost his attempt to force the prison service to move him out of segregation. Robinson’s lawyers said…

The Sentencing Council’s tone-deaf response to ‘two-tier justice’ criticism

11 March 2025 10:53 pm

The Sentencing Council – the organisation that advises judges on how long convicted criminals should be locked up for –…

Could ethnic minority criminals soon find it easier to avoid jail?

6 March 2025 5:40 pm

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has accused his Labour counterpart Shabana Mahmood of not believing in ‘equality under the…

Labour has until Easter to stop prisons running out of space

20 February 2025 1:10 am

There are just over a thousand men’s prison places left in the UK out of a total of 88,618 total.…

The truth about Britain’s overcrowded prisons

18 February 2025 6:20 pm

Former justice secretary David Gauke’s Independent Sentencing Review (ISR), running since October, was not due to report until the spring.…

How Prevent failed David Amess

14 February 2025 12:09 am

In October 2021, Ali Harbi Ali assassinated David Amess, the MP for Southend West. The aftermath of this killing was…

Why wasn’t the Southport killer stopped?

7 February 2025 3:05 am

Now that the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been sentenced for his horrific crimes, we can try to understand how…

Why was this convicted murderer released to kill again?

31 January 2025 11:06 pm

The details of the terrible murder of Sarah Mayhew are almost too appalling to bear, but one question stands out…

Are we missing the point about the ‘Amazon killer’ Axel Rudakubana?

22 January 2025 10:59 pm

‘The Amazon Killer’, screams the Sun front page today. ‘Total disgrace he was able to buy knife on Amazon,’ says…

Open prisons are the answer to our jail crisis

28 December 2024 2:13 am

Britain should move thousands of inmates into low-security open prisons, according to David Gauke, the former Tory justice secretary, who…

How can we stop football academy rejects ending up in prison?

27 December 2024 4:30 pm

‘The first team at Wormwood Scrubs is said to be better than QPR’s’. That line from Toby Young’s article from…

Why are the police allowing trans officers to strip-search women?

26 November 2024 6:38 pm

What is the British Transport Police playing at? Biologically male officers identifying as female will be allowed to intimately search women so long…

How corrupt are Britain’s prisons?

16 November 2024 3:36 am

Two recently-released prisoners have lifted the lid on corruption and sexual harassment in Britain’s prisons. Beatrice Auty, who was imprisoned…

It’s obvious why crime is up in Britain

25 October 2024 7:27 pm

Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its annual report on crime in England and Wales. This combines data on crimes…

More early releases won’t solve the prison crisis

23 October 2024 2:37 am

September’s tranche of early releases did not go as smoothly as the government might have hoped. Footage of delighted prisoners…

Too many people are being recalled to prison

22 October 2024 1:18 am

One of the new government’s first decisions was to announce that most prisoners would be released 40 per cent of…

Why are high-risk offenders set to be released early?

10 October 2024 1:00 am

High-risk offenders could reportedly be released early from secure government-approved hostels. Shortly before before the election in July, the Ministry…