MP Linda lobbies for change in law

Halifax MP Linda Riordan will lobby the Government for a change in the law after a BNP activist who sent racist hate-mail escaped punishment.

The Labour MP will write to Gerry Sutcliffe, Under-Secretary for Justice, to ask him to amend the time limit within which someone must be charged for sending malicious communication. Mrs Riordan decided on the action after she met the West Yorkshire Crown Prosecution Service to discuss the blunder that allowed Brian Wainwright's case to be dismissed.

In January Mr Wainwright, 38, of Lee Mount Road, Halifax, admitted sending threatening and offensive posters to Calderdale's first Asian councillor Mohammed Najib, anti-fascist campaigner Paul Sutcliffe and a Halifax mosque. But last month he walked free from Calderdale Magistrates' Court because he was not charged within the six-month time limit for summary offences.

Fingerprints and DNA did not link Mr Wainwright to the crime until seven months after he sent the last letter.

CPS head Neil Franklin admitted the mistake, which was not spotted until the eleventh hour when magistrates were considering sentence, but blamed "a gap in the law", which he said the Government should move to plug. Mrs Riordan will ask for the clock to start running after evidence linking a suspect to the crime comes to light, instead of from when the offence is reported. This is the case with some summary offences such as taking a vehicle without consent.

She said: "Justice has not been done. Mr Wainwright admitted sending the letters. It is scandalous he was not prosecuted," Mrs Riordan said.

Mr Wainwright, who stood for election for Calderdale Council and Parliament, sent the posters between February and April 2005. They featured skulls, crossbones, swastikas and threats to spill Muslim blood and incite a race war.

Halifax Evening Courier