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<p>Serious further offences are very rare. Fewer than 0.5% of offenders under statutory
supervision are charged with a serious further offence.</p><p>An offender sentenced
to life imprisonment is eligible for release on life licence only once he has completed
the minimum term (tariff) specified by the Court at the point of sentence. It falls
to the independent Parole Board to determine whether to release a life sentence prisoner
who has completed his minimum term and the Board will direct release only where it
is satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the purposes of public protection
for the prisoner to remain confined.</p><p> </p><p>The Ministry of Justice does not
keep the figures requested in relation to (b) other offences and to obtain them would
incur disproportionate cost. The Ministry of Justice does capture however,</p><p>the
more serious further offences (SFOs) by means of the Probation SFO Review Procedures.
In accordance with those Procedures, the National SFO Team in HM Prison and Probation
Service is notified of an offender subject to statutory probation supervision appearing
in court charged with a qualifying offence under Probation Instruction 2018 06</p><p><a
href="https://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/offenders/psipso/psi-2018/pi-06-2018-sfo-procedures.doc.pdf"
target="_blank">https://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/offenders/psipso/psi-2018/pi-06-2018-sfo-procedures.doc.pdf</a>.</p><p>
</p><p>Accordingly, there are published statistics on convictions for an SFO on the
part of an offender on life licence, arising from notifications to the National SFO
Team between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2018. I have provided the link below. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/serious-further-offences"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/serious-further-offences</a>.</p><p>
</p><p>We will publish SFO conviction data for 2018/19 in October 2020.</p><p> </p><p>The
table below shows these figures broken down by homicide and other serious offences
for 2015- 2018 which is the most recent available data in the last five years.</p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>
</p></td><td colspan="2"><p><strong>Serious Further Offence (SFO) type </strong></p></td><td><p>
</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Year</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Number of offenders
on life sentence who committed homicide</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Number of
offenders on life sentence who committed other serious further offences</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Total</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>2015
- 2016</strong></p></td><td><p>2</p></td><td><p>4</p></td><td><p><strong>6</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>2016
- 2017</strong></p></td><td><p>2</p></td><td><p>4</p></td><td><p><strong>6</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>2017
- 2018</strong></p></td><td><p>5</p></td><td><p>7</p></td><td><p><strong>12</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Total</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>9</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>15</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>24</strong></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
</p><ol><li>Data is taken from published data which captures serious further offending
notified to the national SFO Team, HMPPS up until 31/03/2018.</li><li>Data is derived
from the date of SFO notification to HMPPS. The serious further offence could have
been committed prior to the timeframe of the published data.</li><li>This figure only
includes convictions for serious further offences by life sentence prisoners on supervision
that have been notified to the national SFO Team, HMPPS.</li><li>The data provided
are provisional figures subject to change when any outstanding cases are concluded
at court.</li><li>The data also includes cases where the offender committed suicide
or died prior to the trial, where a Court has subsequently ruled that they were responsible.</li><li>Data
Sources and Quality. We have drawn these figures from administrative IT systems which,
as with some large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data
entry and processing.</li><li>The data for homicide would include manslaughter and
other serious further offences involving death. The figures for homicide in this answer
all relate to convictions for murder.</li></ol><p> </p><p> </p><p>14 offenders have
been sentenced to life in the last five years who had received one or more previous
life sentence on a separate occasion.</p><p> </p><p>Section 21 of Criminal Justice
Act 2003 sets out the starting point for the sentencing Judge to impose a whole life
tariff in cases where an offender has been previously convicted of murder.</p>
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