Goggins: 50% remission will end

Eamon Foley leaving a previous court hearing

Security Minister Paul Goggins says the government will fulfill its pledge to end 50% remission for the most serious offenders.

He was speaking after it emerged that a man who raped a 91-year-old woman in 1999 is due for release after serving less than half his 16-year sentence.

Eamon Foley from Castlederg was found guilty of raping Mary Anne McLoughlin.

Mr Goggins said he intended "to bring forward legislation in the next few weeks to end automatic 50% remission".

Mary Anne McLoughlin died a month after being raped by Foley.

Her niece, Jean McCafferty, said the justice won for her aunt in court has been undermined.

"My aunt had been brutally raped and had died within four weeks of being brutally raped, but we felt justice had been done that he had got the maximum sentence of 16 years," she said.

"Now we read in the papers and get phone calls from the media to say that he is getting out - that's not justice for my aunt, that's not justice for us as a family."

While in jail, the 47-year-old has refused to take any sex offenders courses and an assessment panel termed him a high risk offender who presents a danger to any female - child or adult.

At his trial in 2001, a forensic expert said the odds against the DNA belonging to anyone else were a billion to one Sentence remission to end

Police have been granted an interim order which means that when he is released he can only live at an approved address, can only use public transport and can have no access to children or vulnerable adults.

The order is to be renewed in December.

The husband of murdered County Tyrone woman Attracta Harron told the BBC's Nolan Show said that Foley should not have been released.

She was killed by Trevor Hamilton from Sion Mills in 2003, less than four months after he had completed a sentence for rape.

Michael Harron said that moves to end 50% remission and introduce indeterminate life sentences should be speeded up.

He added that the tagging of such offenders should also be introduced.