TERMINALLY-ill prisoner Brett Duxbury has been denied compassionate leave from jail for a second time.
The revelation comes just one week after a man convicted of killing 270 people was greeted to a hero’s reception in Libya – after being allowed home to die by Scottish authorities.
Mr Duxbury, a father-of-three, is currently serving five years at Lancaster Castle prison for burglary.
The 36-year-old has in-operable lung cancer but was told by the Ministry of Justice that he won’t return to his mum’s Oswaldtwistle home to die before his sentence is up in January 2010.
Andrew Neilson, assistant director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "By keeping a terminally ill man in prison, we are draining already over stretched resources by sending prison officers to stand at his hospital bedside.
"By doing this we are punishing his family at the expense of the tax-payer.
"He has terminal lung cancer and is of no threat to the public; it is right that he be released."
Duxbury’s mum Alison Whewell said her only son being deemed not ill enough to return home beggared belief.
She said: "It’s one rule for one and one for another. I thought he was coming home with me. I think it’s because he’s not a mass murderer and is just another prisoner trying to get out. We are gutted," she added.
Mr Duxbury had previously been refused permission to leave prison in May by Justice Secretary Jack Straw, after he was considered a medium risk to the public after absconding from an open prison last year.
Next week he starts radiotherapy everyday for two weeks but will remain at Lancaster Castle Jail.
Alison said both Brett and his 17-year-old daughter now plan to write to Jack Straw in a bid to secure his early release.
Independent Councillor David Mason, said: "It’s a hard one because the family or person he burgled might not be too happy if he's released, but balanced against a chap who killed 200 and odd people it seems right to let him go. Each has to be taken on its own merit. To me burglary is the worst of the worse crimes but then again if the lad is seriously ill it seems perverse to make him wait."
A Prison Service spokesperson said: "We do not discuss the cases of individual prisoners but the criteria for compassionate release in medical cases are where the prisoner is suffering from a terminal illness and death is likely to occur soon (a life expectancy of three months is considered an appropriate period), or where the prisoner is bedridden or severely incapacitated."
