A notorious rapist who is on the brink of being released will be banned from large areas of two countries when he is set free. Andrew Barlow, formerly, Andrew Longmire, terrorised women across five counties during the 1980s.
This week victims and their families urged the government to take High Court action to prevent his release. It was revealed by the Manchester Evening News that the Parole Board had stuck by its decision to free Barlow, despite an application by the Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, to keep him in custody.
Mr Raab said Longmire had blighted communities with his "despicable" crimes and the decision of the Parole Board bolstered the need for reforms of the system.
READ: Fury over decision to free serial rapist with THIRTEEN life sentences
Barlow, 66, was given 13 life sentences after two campaigns of rape in the 1980s across Greater Manchester and other northern towns. The decision in December to release him was met with disbelief by victims and their relatives, and described by Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley and Broughton as a "perversion of justice".
Between 1981 and 1988, Barlow went on two separate campaigns of terror, raping women in five different counties. The first was between 1981 and 1984 and the second between August 1987 and his arrest in January 1988, when he opened fire with a shotgun as two police officers detained him.
He was dubbed 'The Coronation Street rapist' as most of the victims were attacked in their own terraced homes in the north of England - the majority living in Greater Manchester. Two of the attacks took place in the street.
Originally from Bolton, and later living in Swinton, he would spend days carrying out reconnaissance on his victims' homes to work out domestic routines, so he knew at what time husbands and partners would leave for work so he could attack women alone. He preyed upon teenagers and young mothers.
In its summary of the decision to release Barlow the Parole Board says he will be subject to licence conditions., which must be strictly adhered to.
He will have to comply with requirements to reside at a designated address, to be of good behaviour, to disclose developing relationships, and to report as required for supervision or other appointments.
In addition, he must submit to an enhanced form of supervision or monitoring including drug testing, signing-in times, GPS trail monitoring, polygraph testing and a specified curfew.
Barlow would have to comply with other identified limitations concerning contacts, activities, residency and an exclusion zone to avoid contact with victims. He would also have to meet specified restrictions relating to the use of electronic technology and continue to work on addressing defined areas of risk in the community.
The Manchester Evening News can reveal that, so far, Barlow would be banned from all of Greater Manchester and most of North Wales. Maps of these exclusion zones were provided to a relative of one of his victims by the Probation Service.
The relative said: "He will be banned from Greater Manchester and most of North Wales as members of our family live there - plus of course, there are victims and their families right across Greater Manchester. I questioned why he was not barred from other areas as he committed crimes all over the north but I was told it was down to the victims to request a ban in other areas. "
The relative was a young boy and having breakfast with his little sister when Barlow, masked, barged into the family home in Greater Manchester, one day in 1987, after waiting for the children's father to leave for work. His mother had the presence of mind to tell her children to go out and play. Barlow then took her upstairs and raped her.
The victim has since passed away. In his written application to the Parole Board for the decision to release Barlow to be reconsidered the victim's relative says: "My mother doesn’t have a voice anymore but I do, we are just one family to be rocked to the core by this man. We put this behind us as a family and had moved on, until reading for the first time last week, on Barlow's upcoming release, can you imagine the shock and all those painful memories, returning once again.
"Put yourselves in my family’s shoes, I’m a man who has been reduced to tears and heartbreak again. I have read the Parole Board's decision...he has only spent little over a year in open conditions, (after) 34 years in prison and after a year he’s suitable for release...is it a case of bed space needed?"
The man, who fears Barlow is still a danger to the public, added: "You cannot release this man...out of God damn respect to the victims, and the life of pain he has caused them."
The attack on his mother was the first in two waves of offending conducted by Barlow over seven years. He raped women in Rochdale, Oldham, Bolton, Hindley, Hyde, Warrington, Prestwich, Blackburn, Sheffield, and Stoke. The first series of attacks was from 1981-84. In 1985 he was in prison for other offences, but then began a second series of rapes from August 1987 until his arrest in January 1988.
But so far there are no plans to ban Barlow from Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, and South Yorkshire, where he also struck as well as Greater Manchester.
Unless the government decides to take further legal action and seek a judicial review of the Parole Board's decision to stick to its original decision it is expected that Barlow could be free by next month. He has already spent days out of custody under escort.
The ruling to reject the application by Mr Raab regarding Barlow, which was published this week and made by Sir John Saunders, a retired High Court judge and member of the Parole Board, says: "I do not consider that the decision contained any error of law or was irrational and accordingly, the application for reconsideration is refused."
He said in the ruling: "My job, as the reconsideration assessment panel, is to review the decision made by the panel to see whether any mistake of law or irrationality as it is defined in judicial review has been identified.
"It is not for me to decide the issue of whether the respondent [Barlow] should have been released nor to have any regard to any public, press or political reaction to the decision. If I decide that there has been an error of law in reaching the decision, or that the decision is irrational, I will direct that the matter be re-considered. If not then the decision will stand."
He ruled there was no 'misdirection of law' as the original Parole Board panel did consider all the evidence in reaching its decision. "I do not consider that the decision of the panel was irrational and there was also no error in law," added the ruling.
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