Take children from criminal families at birth, says top judge

Judge Alan Goldsack QC, Recorder of Sheffield, revealed he is now dealing with the grandchildren of criminals he prosecuted or defended 40 years ago.

The judge, who is retiring after 43 years in the legal profession, said action was needed to stop families producing “the next generation of criminals”.

He said: “Some people become criminals because they enjoy crime and think it’s a good way of life and if they don’t get caught they think they can have a good lifestyle.

“But a frightening thing is the number of people I see who are the grandchildren of the people I have prosecuted and defended 40 years ago, because crime runs in families in the same way that being a doctor, teacher or lawyer does.

“We have to get in on the ground and remove young babies from the families that are going to produce the next generation of criminals, and that is why I did family law right up until the end because I think it is very important work.

“I have read so many pre-sentence reports where I said to myself ‘why was this person not adopted at birth? All the signs were there’.”

Judge Goldsack said it was not uncommon for £250,000 of tax-payers’ money to be spent on problem families, but that children were being removed from dysfunctional homes too late.

He said children removed from home at 11 or 12 usually end up in a children’s home and that a large proportion of criminals were “products of a failing care system, where children are removed from dysfunctional homes too late”.

The remarks are not the first time Judge Goldsack has made an outspoken attack on the criminal justice system.

In 2007 he hit out at his “limited powers” to imprison a prolific offender he was sentencing for kicking a man unconscious.

The man had refused to make a statement after the attack and there was only enough evidence to charge him with affray, though he could have been jailed indefinitely for public protection had he been charged with GBH.