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Introduce Helen’s Law where hiding a body becomes a criminal offence

Submitted on Monday 28th March 2016

Published on Friday 1st April 2016

Current status: Closed

Closed: Saturday 1st October 2016

Signatures: 63

Tagged with

Law ~ UK

Petition Action

Introduce Helen’s Law where hiding a body becomes a criminal offence

Petition Details

To lose a loved one to murder is horrific. To be denied their funeral causes unimaginable suffering. Ian Simms is serving a life sentence for the murder of Helen McCourt, aged 22, on 9 February 1988, in Billinge, Lancs. Simms has always refused to reveal the whereabouts of Helen’s body.

Additional Information

The case made legal history as only the third ever UK murder trial without a body and was one of the first in the UK to use DNA fingerprinting.

As it currently stands, the English legal system does not require a convicted murderer to admit guilt or reveal the location of a victim’s remains before being released.

We hereby ask the government to acknowledge the pain and distress caused to the families of missing murder victims by:
1. Denying parole to murderers for as long as they refuse to disclose the whereabouts of their victim’s remains
2. Passing a full life tariff (denying parole or release) until the murderer discloses the location (and enables the recovery) of their victim’s remains

Denying a funeral is, surely, an infringement of basic human rights.


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