Overview
- Dunlop attended his fourth Parole Board review in London on Wednesday seeking a direction for full release after roughly 28 years in custody for the 1989 murder of Julie Hogg.
- A prison psychologist and an independent psychologist told the panel they assess Dunlop as low risk in custody and rising to moderate risk in the community and recommended release with controls.
- The Parole Board heard a detailed release plan that would include a lie-detector test, 12 months in a specialist hostel, electronic tagging and a curfew if he is freed.
- Dunlop told the panel he believes he would have killed or committed serious violence again before imprisonment but now says he feels remorse and is ‘not interested in hurting anybody’; Julie Hogg’s son and mother gave strong victim-impact testimony opposing release.
- The case carries wider significance because Dunlop was the first person retried after the post-2003 change to the double jeopardy rule and past Parole Board recommendations to move him to an open prison were blocked by a Justice Secretary, making any final decision politically sensitive.