One of the UK’s most notorious serial killers was offered an injection of COVID-19 in front of millions of the elderly and vulnerable in Britain – a move condemned as a “national scandal,” according to a report.
Levi Bellfield – who murdered three people, including 13-year-old Milly Dowler – received a letter offering him a vaccine in the coming weeks, although the program has just been implemented for those over 70, The Sun said.
David Spencer of the Center for Crime Prevention called this “a national scandal”.
“The notion that criminals take precedence over law-abiding citizens tells everything about how our criminal justice system is working at the moment,” he told The Sun.
Former Interior Secretary David Blunkett said he defied the belief “that prisoners, let alone a child killer, should have any opportunity for an early dose of the vaccine.”
“I hope the Secretary of Justice will intervene immediately and find out why the meager doses of vaccine are being distributed in this way – and whose idea it was.”
Bellfield, 52, is serving two life sentences, which means he will have to spend the rest of his life behind bars with the chance of parole.
Most regular Britons remain under strict confinement at home because of the violent pandemic, with some home residents among the millions of vulnerable people still waiting for their vaccines.
The killer received the offer in a letter sent to him at Frankland’s maximum security prison, Co Durham, where he allegedly regretted not having received it earlier because the pandemic “could spread like wildfire”, putting prisoners “in danger, “said The Sun.
It was not clear that other inmates received the same offer in prison, which houses another notorious child killer, Ian Huntley, as well as the terrorist who beheaded soldier Lee Rigby on the street, the UK newspaper said.
The former police officer who caught Bellfield – and whose memories are the basis of the TV show “Manhunt” – called the offer of an early coup “terrible”.
“Prison officials, police, teachers, shopkeepers and delivery drivers – people who are keeping us on the move – should be prioritized,” former Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton told the UK newspaper.
After the indignation, a source from the Ministry of Justice insisted to The Sun that “there is no vaccine priority for prisoners, nor will there be”.
“No minister has seen this letter or thinks that criminals should have better access to vaccines than most law-abiding,” said the source.
A ministry spokesman also insisted: “To suggest that prisoners are being treated differently by the general public is completely absurd.”