Parole granted: Wigan double killer set to walk the streets again

Trevor and Sheila Fairhurst this week received the news they were again dreading: that the Parole Board has recommended that Darren Pilkington is fit to leave prison.

There is a horrible feeling of déjà vu for the Hindley couple who, since their 19-year-old daughter Carly was left for dead by her then boyfriend in January 2006, have been in a seemingly endless cycle of legal bids to keep him behind bars.

First Pilkington – now 41 and calling himself Darren Carr – was given a sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) which meant he only had to serve a minimum sentence of little more than three years before he could start repeatedly trying to prove he was fit for release. This meant the Fairhursts having to attend hearings or submit victim impact statements on a yearly basis.

Then when he was finally released, he repeatedly breached his licence, meaning he was re-jailed and the couple would face with yet more hearings aimed at keeping him incarcerated.

Most recently Pilkington - who was jailed for both Carly’s manslaughter 18 years ago and previously for the killing of friend Paul Akister in 2000 – absconded from an open prison and was on the run for several days before being captured in Horwich, close to an exclusion zone he is forbidden from entering which surrounds Wigan borough.

He has now served that sentence for the prison break and last month another parole hearing was held.

In its subsequent report, the panel said it could only direct release if it was satisfied that it was no longer necessary for the protection of the public that Pilkington remained confined in prison.

Against him it was said there were a number of risk factors from his past which included his attitudes towards violence and crime, his choice of a negative peer group, misuse of both alcohol and drugs, communication difficulties and a generally unstable lifestyle. A poor response to supervision had been a persistent problem.

In favour was evidence that since his latest reincarceration his behaviour had been “generally good, that he had a trusted prison job and had obtained a vocational qualification. There had been no evidence of any violent behaviour.”

He had also completed work on alcohol, relapse prevention and managing boredom and stress. He had remained on a specialist unit for those committed to recovering from their addictions and was considered to have developed a good level of insight into the risks associated with his drug use.

And it was decided that he should be released on licence, subject to strict conditions including residing at a designated address, keeping away from the exclusion zone, staying on the right side of the law and submitting to enhanced supervision, including a curfew and electronic tracking.

Mr Fairhurst said: “We have a three-week window to appeal for a reconsideration and so has the Secretary of State, but it probably won’t make any difference.

"We’ve no faith in the parole board anymore. It doesn’t seem to matter what Pilkington does, they keep letting him go again. One wonders at what cost his latest freedom will come. We are disgusted he keeps getting more chances.”

Under the scrapping of IPP, Pilkington must now only need to behave himself for three years rather than 10 before he can no longer be recalled to prison on licence, but the Fairhursts have said that he hasn’t managed to get anywhere near that three-year marker, let alone a decade, before doing something to warrant further jail time.