In an underfunded system, a killing a week is committed by former prisoners
Six years ago, five-year-old Alex Malcolm was brutally beaten by his mother’s boyfriend in a park in Catford, south-east London. He died two days later of his injuries. His murderer, Marvyn Iheanacho, had been released from prison on licence just six months earlier, after serving a sentence for assaulting a woman.
Alex’s murder was preventable. Iheanacho was under the supervision of the probation service and should have been earmarked as high risk. Yet Alex’s mother, Liliya Breha, was unaware of his past convictions, his licence conditions and the fact that he posed a serious risk to women and children. An inquest jury later found that probation service failings contributed to Alex’s killing. His mother said at the time: “I would really like to say that Alex didn’t have to die for system failures to be identified… I now hope changes will be made.”
