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Joseph Chin |
KILLING TOOK PLACE ‘UNDER SUPERVISION’
Court order against Martin’s murderer still in force at time of stabbing
CALLS for an urgent inquiry have followed revelations that Martin Dinnegan’s killer was supposed to be under Islington Council’s strict supervision at the time of the murder.
Joseph Chin, convicted of the murder at the Old Bailey last week, had a criminal history and was serving a 12-month supervision order when he stabbed Martin, 14, to death in June 2007.
Chin, 16, was meeting face-to-face with Islington’s Youth Offenders Team on a daily basis, 25 hours a week.
But the council admitted that in the build-up to the killing, Chin’s monitoring had been “lowered” to just one day a week.
His curfew restrictions were cancelled and his electronic tag removed.
Labour councillor Phil Kelly, who sat on the council’s investigation into the death in November 2007, said: “This is a terrible failure from the Youth Offenders Service. We need a root-and-branch inquiry starting right away. If Martin was killed during a lowered period of monitoring then that needs to be looked into. Perhaps young offenders should have to prove themselves before their supervision is changed. This should not be treated as a one-off.” He added: “We need an independent inspector to come in and assess the service as quickly as possible.”
His Labour colleague Councillor Janet Burgess said: “It is certainly worth looking in to. It may be that the council has followed government advice, but that might not also be the case.”
In an Old Bailey trial Judge Brian Barker, QC, said Chin – sentenced on Friday to serve at least 12 years of a life sentence – was known to police for a series of violent crimes dating back to 2004.
Like dozens of other young offenders in Islington, Chin was not put on probation because of his age. The supervision order, imposed in September 2006 after he knocked a shopkeeper unconscious, was still in force at the time of the murder.
Islington’s Youth Offending Service, based in Dingley Place, Clerkenwell, was set up in 1998 to prevent crime by closely monitoring those at risk of re-offending.
A team – including three police officers and representatives from Islington’s schools and health organisations – supervises youth offenders or those thought “likely to offend” between ages 10 to 18. The team is supposed to provide “intensive supervision and surveillance” of all youth offenders.
The service was ranked 65th out of 155 of local authority youth offending teams in a Home Office inspection in 2005 which found staff working with offenders were not properly trained. “Work with children at risk of offending could be improved by raising the awareness of unqualified staff,” the inspection report recommended.
It added: “A significant proportion of parents and carers were not assessed by the team because staff had little training.”
A spokesman for Her Majesty’s Inspectorate said only one inspection would be carried out unless “major failings” came to light.
Cllr Kelly said he would see if the Inspectorate would perform another probe following the trial’s findings.
An Islington Council spokeswoman said: “Islington’s supervision of Joseph Chin was in accordance with the decisions made by the court. In September 2006, the Islington Youth Court issued Joseph with a Supervision Order to last for a year. This included an Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme to run for 90 days – which is the maximum period that the programme can last. ”
She added: “Once this intensive programme ended, by law, the supervision level had to be lowered and there were no circumstances at the time to suggest that this would have a negative impact on Joseph’s progress. He went on to have another three months of extra supervision and in the final three months of the order, Joseph still had weekly meetings with the youth offending team.” |
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