Notorious killer still a risk Damning verdict on prisoner decades after he raped and strangled teen
AREMORSELESS killer who raped and strangled a Birmingham teenager has been told he still poses a risk to the public almost 40 years after the brutal crime.
Patrick Hassett was denied a move to a more comfortable jail after a court heard he could launch new sex attacks if he were to escape.
The 58-year-old, who has spent 33 years in prison, lured 13-year-old Candice Williams to an Erdington tower block, where he raped and strangled the teenager before dumping her seminaked body on the 12th floor.
He was ordered to serve at least 17 years behind bars after he was convicted of murder, but remains a highcategory prisoner.
The Court of Appeal heard last week that Hassett was still a risk to the public four decades after Candice’s killing in July 1978.
Dismissing Hassett’s case, Lord Justice Sales said two psychology reports suggested the prisoner refused to accept he was a sex offender.
And one of the experts “strongly tended to indicate” the murderer – who continues to deny his guilt – could strike again if he escaped, the judge said.
He said that the decision to keep the man who is now Birmingham’s most dangerous killer in Category A con- ditions was “lawful”. Hassett has been in jail for sexual offences since 1984, but was not convicted of Candice’s murder until 1992 following a DNA breakthrough.
He was linked to the crime when his ex-girlfriend walked into a police station to say she suspected him of being the killer.
He had asked her to provide an alibi for his movements around the time of the murder, she said.
Hassett was said to have told another inmate at Birmingham Prison in 1991 that he had killed Candice, the Appeal Court was told during an earlier hearing in 1999.
Last year, he took his bid to be moved to less secure conditions to the High Court and then to the Court of Appeal.
Lord Justice Sales said the Ministry of Justice’s decision to refuse to demote him to an easier category without an oral hearing was not wrong.
And, after considering the arguments with Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice Moylan, he also refused him permission to fight on in the Supreme Court.
“There was no breach of the common law requirements of fairness in the circumstances of this case,” he said.
The judge said that, despite Hassett’s decades behind bars, experts continued to assess him as a “high risk of sexual reconviction”.
A prison psychologist said Hassett struggled to show what he had learned in prison and continued to deny a preoccupation with sex in his offending.
He also continued to deny the rape and killing of Candice, the judge said.
Another psychologist, Rhys Matthews, had reported on Hassett’s progress and had given a more positive picture of him, the judges were told.
But Lord Justice Sales said that, although the report was more positive, it too expressed concerns about Hassett and his inability to accept that he is a sex offender.
“The question to be answered was whether Mr Hassett would present a risk to the public if he escaped from prison,” he said.
“Mr Matthews’ report did not suggest that he would not, rather, it strongly tended to indicate that he would.
“That was also the view of the prison psychology service.
“On the relevant question, therefore, there was no real or significant dispute between the expert psychologists.”
All three judges agreed and dismissed Hassett’s appeal.
Candice’s family have always believed the right man was in jail for her murder
Her younger sister Wendy, said in 1999: “There has never been any doubt in the family’s mind that he is the murderer.
“I hope he rots in prison for what he did to Candice.” .