GOVERNMENT PROPOSES BENEFIT BAN FOR SOME OFFENDERS IN HOSPITAL

The government plans to stop paying benefits to killers and serious sex offenders detained in psychiatric hospitals. Regulations due to be laid in Parliament on Tuesday would prevent some offenders from receiving up to £800 a month in universal credit while the NHS funds their bed and board. The government calls the payments “double provision” and estimates that ending them would save tens of millions of pounds a year. The change requires parliamentary approval and is expected to take effect early next year.

The parents of Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley Kumar welcomed the proposal after campaigning for the payments to stop. Valdo Calocane stabbed Barnaby, Grace and caretaker Ian Coates to death in Nottingham on 13 June 2023. Calocane, who received a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia in 2020, was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and detained in a high-security hospital. Barnaby’s mother, Emma Webber, said: “This is long overdue, and simply the right thing to do.”

Linda Westcarr also campaigned to end benefits for offenders detained in psychiatric hospitals. Her daughter, Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche, was killed by her partner, Gogoa Lois Tape, in Hackney, east London, in April 2024. Tape pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and received a hospital order detaining him indefinitely. Grace’s father, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, said his family’s campaign had focused on “accountability and fairness” and questioned why taxpayers should fund benefits during detention.