Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Sarah Virginia Brinton (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, Amendments 292K and 292L in my name seek to create a criminal offence of desecration of a corpse and concealment of a corpse. At present, there are only common-law offences of preventing a lawful burial and obstructing a coroner by concealing a body Marie McCourt, the mother of Helen McCourt, still does not know what happened to her daughter who disappeared on 9 February 1988, or where her body was hidden or disposed of. Marie is one of those extraordinary women who absolutely refused to stop looking for her daughter, even though Helen’s murderer, who was convicted on clear DNA evidence, has not only served his term in prison but been released on licence. Despite being pressed repeatedly by the authorities over the years, he has refused to say where Helen’s body was left or what happened to it Marie has been arguing for decades that the desecration and concealment of a corpse is an extra-heavy sentence on the victim’s loved ones. She has supported the families of many other victims who have seen their loved ones murdered but have no remains to bury, or have heard of unspeakable desecration of their bodies. In 2015 Marie started to campaign for a change in the law for these killers, seeking to require them to reveal where their victims’ remains were before being considered for parole. In July 2019, she was successful in getting that law changed—but not in time for her daughter’s killer. Marie was not doing it just for her, her family or Helen’s friends. She does not want anyone else to go through the agony they have faced for over three decades Others have also spoken out: Coral Jones, Tony Cox and Lesley Rees are the parents and family members of April Jones, Lorraine Cox and Michael O’Leary, who were also not just murdered but had their bodies desecrated by their murderers. Some remains were dismembered and some were burned. These families have had the extra distress of not knowing what happened to part or all their loved ones’ bodies. For these families there is no closure. More recently, Sarah Everard’s remains were burned by her murderer—although in her case police were able to find her remains At present, with the common-law offence of preventing a lawful burial, and these days with excellent forensic skills such as those used by police and forensic staff in the Sarah Everard case, it is possible to identify not just remains but also links with the murderer. The common-law offence of obstructing the coroner by concealing a body is rarely used, and there are no consequences for a convicted killer who continues to conceal the whereabouts of a body. Some killers enjoy having this last part of control over their appalling acts. They know that most families will never have a day without reliving the distress of their loved one being murdered. Refusing to disclose what they have done with the body, or where they have concealed a corpse or partial remains, is a form of control I thank Marie McCourt, Fiona Duffy and Claire Waxman, the London victims’ commissioner, and her office, for helping to brief me this. There can be few things worse for a family than hearing that a loved one has been murdered. To then learn that their remains have been further abused or have never been found causes unimaginable distress. The current laws are inadequate and mostly not used by prosecutors. These amendments say that these two offences should become criminal offences where an offender has done an intentional act of disrespect towards the deceased person’s remains. The second amendment makes it a criminal offence for an offender to refuse to co-operate in the recovery of their victim’s remains. These offences will punish an offender who has committed these unspeakable acts beyond murder, and also perhaps begin to bring closure to grieving families. I beg to move.