Taxpayers don't want to pay the cost of keeping baby killers secure

People who kill children are often released in this country and given new identities and security that cost the tax payer millions of pounds a year. The estimated cost of keeping Tracey Connelly (the mother of Baby P), Steven Barker and Jason Owen safe is £1,000,000 pa after their release.

In the case of Baby P: It is right that they should be named. We cannot have secret justice. But it comes at a price. Such is the notoriety of the three people involved in the abuse of Baby Peter than when they are released from prison new identities will have to be found and they will need protection costing millions of pounds.

There are, understandably, protests at this. Not only has the taxpayer funded the feckless and grotesque lifestyle of Connelly through welfare benefits worth £450 a week and the cost of the social workers who visited her regularly yet failed to spot the abuse of her child; we will all now have to pay for her security and, possibly, her upkeep for the rest of her days.

The same may well apply to the two men in the case. They will almost certainly be granted anonymity orders. The courts have made clear both in the case of the killers of Jamie Bulger and that of Maxine Carr, the former girlfriend of the Soham Murderer Ian Huntley, that a ‘real possibility of serious physical harm’ can result in orders banning the publication of any details revealing their new identities or whereabouts.

It is unlikely that their notoriety wil have diminished by the time of their release (which could be within three years in Connelly’s case) for the vigilante threat to have lifted.