Waite: free police killer

Former hostage Terry Waite today condemned Home Secretary David Blunkett for refusing to free a notorious police killer.

Mr Waite, backed by Labour peer Helena Kennedy and solicitor Benedict Birnberg, charged Mr Blunkett with a "gross abuse of justice" for refusing Roberts parole without explaining why.

He said: "The principles of fairness and justice should be applied equally in a democratic society, however heinous the crime or the criminal.

"History has taught us of the terrible miscarriages of justice that occur when these principles are ignored. We are concerned about the potential for such a miscarriage to occur once again in the case of Harry Roberts."

But Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Glen Smyth said: "At least Harry Roberts has got a life. He took three lives away and destroyed the lives of their loved ones, who are deeply affected even to this day. It was a heinous crime and life was supposed to mean life."

Roberts and two accomplices, John Duddy and Jack Witney, were planning a robbery when they were stopped by police near Wormwood Scrubs in August

1966. Roberts opened fire with a Luger revolver, killing Detective Constable David Wombwell and Detective Sergeant Christopher Head. Duddy shot dead Pc Geoffrey Fox.

Roberts went on the run for three months in Epping Forest before he was captured. Sentencing him, the trial judge said the

life sentence "may well be treated as meaning exactly what it says".

When recommended for parole in 2001, Mr Blunkett used a rare legal move to keep Roberts behind bars. He cited secret evidence that could not be shown to Roberts or his lawyers. It has been seen only by a "special advocate" in a procedure only before used in terrorist cases. An Appeal Court ruling is due soon.

The widow of one of the policemen, Gillian Wombwell, wants Roberts to remain behind bars. In a letter to the Home Office before the last parole decision, she wrote: "By committing cold-blooded murder, Harry Roberts has forgone the right to freedom forever.

"I would not want any other family to undergo the trauma we have lived through - the years of gentle nurturing and guidance necessary to raise two children who lost their father suddenly and publicly." If the crime

had been a year earlier, all three convicts would have hanged. Duddy and Witney are now dead.

Roberts has tried 22 times to escape without success. He was allowed out of open prison on home leave in 2001, but he was returned to a closed prison after making unauthorised journeys. Once he was seen celebrating his birthday with Kate Kray, widow of gangster Ronnie Kray.