Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 12 October 2016 to Question 41032, whether the families of the victims of the 61 prisoners convicted of murder released on Christmas Day 2015 were informed of the offender's temporary release.

Under the statutory victim contact service operated by the National Probation Service, victims of murder and other specified violent or sexual offences, where the offender has been sentenced to 12 months or more imprisonment, must be offered the chance to receive information about key developments in an offender’s sentence. This includes release on temporary licence (ROTL). Victims also have the statutory right to make representations about licence conditions on ROTL, such as an exclusion zone. Victims will be told when a series of ROTLs begin, but are not generally told each time a ROTL takes place.