PM’s wife attacks judges over prison population

CHERIE Booth re-entered the political arena last night, criticising judges for sending too many offenders to prison.

Following a tour of Britain’s more overcrowded jails, the Prime Minister’s wife said in a speech that many inmates should not be in prison at all.

Her comments came two weeks after she was criticised for sympathising with Palestinian suicide bombers hours after one of them detonated a bomb in a Jerusalem bus.

Speaking in London in her role as Cherie Booth QC - one of the country’s top human rights lawyers - she said it was alarming that England imprisons a greater percentage of its population than any other country in Europe. "The huge increase in numbers and the prevalence of short-term sentences is crippling to any attempt at a constructive approach to prison," she said.

"It is particularly worrying that more than one in six of the current prison population is on remand - in other words they have yet to be tried or sentenced. In fact, the majority of this group doesn’t ultimately go on to receive a prison sentence."

In her speech, entitled, The Law, the Victims and the Vulnerable, she expressed particular concern about the impact of prison on women.

"A significant number of these families are permanently broke as a result of the mother's imprisonment and as many as four out of ten lose their homes," she said.

Although speaking in her capacity as a lawyer, her speech was taken as a message that she has no intention of stepping back from political life after being lambasted for her comments about Palestine.

Her Palestine comments came as she launched a charity for victims of the Intifada - hours after a suicide bomber killed 19 Israelis on a Jerusalem bus: "As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress"

Although at the time she did not offer any sympathy for those killed, she later condemned the bombing and apologised if she had given offence by her remarks.