Debate contribution: Prisoner Release Victim Information Scheme

Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on 4 November 2025.

MLA

Mrs Naomi Long

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

4 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Question for Urgent Oral Answer

Heading

Prisoner Release Victim Information Scheme

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5216733

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am tempted to treat the Member's TikTok preview with the contempt that it deserves, but, given the seriousness of the issue and the fact that I have met the family, I am not going to do so; I am going to give answers. This is not the only place in the UK where somebody who has committed murder would be released on licence after eight years, so that is factually incorrect. There are many parts of these islands where people, after serving their minimum tariff, are released on compassionate grounds for short periods for pre-release testing, both accompanied and unaccompanied, and in different sets of circumstances, so that is a fallacy. The Member then predicates that there has been a failure of leadership in this case. There was an administrative error. I have not, in any shape or form, sought to minimise the catastrophic impact on the Cawdery family. To make out that there was some systemic failure because someone failed to press a button on a computer is an outrageous and unfounded allegation. Any person can make an error, and someone did. As Minister, my job is one of leadership to ensure that all possible steps are taken to ensure that that is not repeated. We have already done that through our quick review of how it happened, by putting additional resource into the PRVIS unit and by looking at each of the other cases in which we are dealing with life-sentence prisoners. We will go ahead and do the rest in slower time, with the resource that is available to us. If I wanted to get up here and play the kind of petty and, frankly, grotesque politics that the Member is playing, I could raise the fact that none of this would have happened had our health service been functioning.

Part of his pre-release testing was about where he was and was not allowed to go. Were he to have been seen by a passing patrol or by probation officers, or were anyone else to have reported his presence in the area, he would automatically have failed his pre-release testing. When people are unaccompanied, the situation is exactly as it says on the tin: they are released and unaccompanied. That does not happen, however, until after they have completed other parts of the pre-release testing process, and that process is there to test their conduct and behaviour, both when unaccompanied and when supervised. At that stage, we are talking about very short periods, during which it would be very difficult for somebody to make the journey that you are suggesting without being identified as having done so.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I can probably make this simple for everybody, although I am happy to take a further question from the Member. I was asked the question, "Was he allowed in the Portadown area?". I answered that question by saying, "No, he was not".

490 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:45 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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