MAMAA launched a petition for ‘Time to Fit the Crime’ calling for life sentence to mean ‘real life’. At the moment a life sentence is commuted to a ‘tariff’ set by the judge. Someone being sentenced to a ‘life sentence’ can, and often does, end up with a tariff of 8 years. The average time sent in prison for a life sentence is 12 years. The tariff is the time that the offender has to serve before being given leave to appeal for parole. However, before this time the offender can also appeal his sentence, not just once but on subsequent occasions too. The family of the victim are then forced to have to re-live the whole incident again and in some cases there may be a re-trial. The offender is entitled to legal aid and expert legal help to ensure he/she has the best possible chance of winning. For more information about sentencing please see link to the Home Office website.

Within a few days of the petition being launched our phones started ringing, families, friends, police family liaison officers and members of the public contacted us.

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