Ken Clarke seeks to curry favour with law and order crowd by hitting out at prisoners' 'daft' human rights demands

Justice Secretary Ken Clarke today hit out at 'ridiculous claims by ridiculous people' that risk giving human rights and health and safety a bad name.
Officials, consultants and insurers who make the 'daftest possible claims' about what is necessary to comply with health and safety rules or human rights need to be challenged, Mr Clarke said.
The assertion is a swift turnaround from the Green Paper Mr Clarke published last week proposing softer jail terms for murderers.

'Daft': Ken Clarke attacked murderer Colin Gunn's claim that prison guards should call him 'Mr' saying he was glad the gangland boss was in Belmarsh

The proposed changes could mean serial killers and sadistic paedophiles would no longer be guaranteed a ‘whole life’ tariff.

The Justice Secretary now appears to be trying to harden up his image after the apparent softening provoked a backlash from victims of crime.

Asked about murderer Colin Gunn's claim that inmates had the right to be called 'Mr' by prison staff, Mr Clarke said some people were just very good at getting publicity for themselves.

Gunn, from Bestwood, Nottingham, is serving a life sentence for orchestrating the murder of an innocent couple.
Mr Clarke, who is also MP for Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire, said: 'He's a serious local criminal from my part of the world and he seems to be quite good at getting himself publicity. He seems to enjoy that nowadays.
'What he's called doesn't seem to be a matter of huge importance.
'He seems to be so unpopular that if he wanted to be called by his Christian name, which I think is Colin, no doubt the press would have objected to such friendly greetings.
'Mr Gunn and his media advisers seem to regard the matter with huge importance.
'He's not a person I hold in very high regard myself and I'm very glad he's in Belmarsh.'
Giving evidence to the Commons justice select committee, Mr Clarke went on: 'It's true we're in an era of human rights and the area of health and safety where both arouse a great deal of scepticism amongst the public because they get cited in such ridiculous situations.
'Actually I don't know anybody who isn't in favour of promoting health and safety; and I haven't in fact met anybody who will admit to me they are flatly against the application of human rights.
'It's usually, it's not courts - it tends to be officialdom and circulars and advice and consultants and insurers who make the daftest possible claims about what is necessary in the name of health and safety and human rights and then produce such widespread public disapproval.
'So we do have to address these cases and make sure that we do stick to our human rights obligations, but that the words aren't debased by being applied to ridiculous claims by ridiculous people who get themselves publicity.'
Gunn was jailed for at least 35 years in 2006 for conspiracy to murder John and Joan Stirland, who were shot in Lincolnshire to gain 'revenge' on their son.
He won the right to be called 'Mr' by prison staff following a ruling by the Prisons Ombudsman which was made public in a letter in which the crime boss advised other prisoners to demand similar treatment.
In the letter to the Mailbag section of prisoners' newspaper Inside Time earlier this month, Gunn said that he had made a successful complaint about staff at HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman last December.
Under the headline Call Me Mister, Gunn, 43, wrote: 'None of the prison staff like it, but that's tough because they do not have a choice.
'You do not have to be humiliated by rude, ignorant prison staff any longer. Stand up for your rights.'
The Prison Service declined to comment on the claims made by Gunn, but issued a statement confirming that staff are asked to call prisoners by their first name or use the title 'Mr'.


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