Express & Star comment: Our justice system is scandalous
It doesn't get much more serious and tragic that the circumstances surrounding the death of Lisa Skidmore.
Her killer, convicted rapist Leroy Campbell, told the authorities he was about to strike again a few weeks before he attacked the nurse in her Bilston home.
The Minister for Justice Rory Stewart has personally apologised to Ms Skidmore's family, and rightly so.
Meanwhile the Ministry of Justice has commissioned a probe into the National Probation Service’s handling of paranoid schizophrenic Campbell.
However, it is already clear that this whole sorry episode exposes another shocking example of incompetence in our criminal justice system.
The human cost is appalling, and quite frankly, it defies belief that such a set of circumstances could ever come about.
The apology from the minister will do little to change the widely held perception that there is little actual 'justice' in our criminal justice system.
No good is coming from Theresa May's Brexit travails, but the Prime Minister can take a positive from the fact that her struggles over the EU are taking the public's attention away from what under normal circumstances would be a national scandal.
We have a rapidly increasing crime rate, police officer numbers have been slashed, police stations are closing down, and fatal errors are being made in the system.
This would be headline news every day of the week if it was not for Brexit.
Instead, it seems that nobody at the head of government is being held to account for the shambolic state of law and order in Britain.
The time has come for Conservative MPs to start raising the issue above all others with their ministers.
Likewise, Labour MPs from across the region should be banging down the doors in Westminster to find out what is going on.
We are on course to have the bloodiest year in the recent history of the West Midlands.
Our police are stretched. They are doing all they can, but they desperately need support.
Sadly, for the most part our police and crime commissioners seem incapable of providing it.
In the meantime crime creeps up like a rising tide, with nobody able to stem the flow.
This has to stop.
A change of direction is needed, right here, right now.
