Dominic Raab urged to block release of wife killer using new legislation

Former Cabinet ministers Priti Patel and Robert Buckland are urging the Government to block the automatic release of a wife killer by using legislation they pushed through Parliament.

Ms Patel, the former home secretary, and Mr Buckland, the former justice secretary, are calling on ministers to refer the case of Robert Brown to the parole board using provisions in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act of 2022.

Brown bludgeoned his estranged wife Joanna Simpson, 46, to death with a claw hammer as their children cowered inside their home in Ascot, Berkshire in October 2010. Brown buried Simpson’s body in a pre-dug grave in Windsor Great Park.

Brown, a former British Airways pilot, admitted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility and was jailed in May 2011 for 26 years. He is due for release in November having served half his sentence.

On Saturday, Diana Parkes, Simpson’s mother, appealed directly to Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, to keep Brown in prison after learning that he would be classed as a “critical public protection case” – meaning he is deemed to pose a very high risk of serious harm.

Ms Patel, Mr Buckland and Carrie Johnson, wife of Boris Johnson, will be at a reception in Westminster on Wednesday hosted by Ms Parkes to appeal to Dominic Raab to invoke his “power to detain” Brown.

One option would be for Mr Raab to invoke section 132 of the PCSC Act 2022, which gives him the “power to refer high-risk offenders to the Parole Board in place of automatic release”.

Ms Patel said: “If anyone in Government has any doubt, there are rules and laws already in place that could be applied and that’s where the Government needs to be.”

Mr Buckland said: “The new powers within the PCSC Act allow the Justice Secretary to convert automatic rules into scrutineering rules. I would like to see that being considered and potentially used.”

The reception has been organised by the Joanna Simpson Foundation, a charity Parkes helped create to help “transform the care, support and protection of children affected by domestic abuse and homicide”.

The event at Westminster Chapel will come three days after Mr Raab agreed to meet the family. It is understood that Damian Hinds, the prisons minister, will meet Hetti Barkworth-Nanton, the charity’s co-founder, in the next week.

The Ministry of Justice said: “[Mr Raab] will do everything in his power to keep the most dangerous offenders behind bars and has pledged to give this case his closest personal attention.”

Brown’s labelling as posing a serious risk of harm and requiring intense supervision was made in the wake of serious concerns being raised about the probation service.

Last month, ministers and the service were accused of having “blood on their hands” after Jordan McSweeney, a violent misogynist, was freed from prison and went on to murder the law graduate Zara Aleena in Ilford, east London, in June 2022.