Hope of finding woman’s remains will be lost if her killer is released, court hears
Glyn Razzell from Somerset was jailed in 2003 for murdering his estranged wife Linda Razzell who disappeared on her way to work in Swindon
All hope of finding the remains of a woman murdered by her husband almost 25 years ago will be lost if her killer is released from prison, her relative has told the High Court.
Glyn Razzell was jailed for a minimum of almost 16 years in 2003 for murdering his estranged wife Linda Razzell, whose body has never been found.
The mother-of-four disappeared on her way to work at Swindon College, Wiltshire, in March 2002, amid divorce proceedings.
The Parole Board ruled three times from 2019 that Razzell should remain behind bars, but in April decided he could be released on licence.
The Ministry of Justice has referred the decision to the High Court, telling a hearing on Monday that it should be reversed as the Parole Board failed to consider Razzell’s risk properly.
Razzell, who is attending the hearing in London and sat in the dock wearing a dark blue suit, is opposing the bid to challenge his release.
In a recording of her victim impact statement played to the court, Julie Westmore, Mrs Razzell’s cousin, said that Razzell was a “master manipulator” who has “always failed to take responsibility for his actions”.
She said: “The major impact on myself and our family would be the complete loss of trust in the justice system of this country if Glyn Razzell was released without revealing where Linda’s remains are.
“It would quite simply be wrong.”
She continued: “We will not feel safe if Glyn Razzell is released. We know him to be a violent man and an accomplished liar.”
The Parole Board’s decision came after consideration of Helen’s Law, named after Helen McCourt, who vanished on her way home from work in 1988.
The law requires the Parole Board to take into consideration a killer’s refusal to disclose where they hid their victim’s body.
Ms Westmore continued that Helen’s Law meant “it has at last been recognised that it does matter when a murderer refuses to reveal where someone’s remains are”.
She continued: “If Glyn Razzell remains in prison, it will be the incentive he needs to eventually do the right thing. It will be the right thing for everyone concerned, himself included.
“If Glyn Razzell is released now, all hope of ever finding Linda’s remains will be lost.”
Razzell, of Crewkerne, Somerset, has always denied being responsible for the killing, and a Parole Board panel found in 2023 that he “does not want to lose his desired status of being a ‘wrongly convicted murderer’”.
In its April decision, a Parole Board panel said that it had “serious doubts” about Razzell’s honesty and that there was a “very significant” risk in the context of relationships, but said this was “not imminent”.
It decided that he would comply with licence conditions as he was “strongly motivated not to return to custody”.
The MoJ can refer a Parole Board’s decision to release a prisoner to the High Court if it believes the release would undermine public confidence in the parole system, and the court must be satisfied that imprisonment is no longer necessary for the protection of the public.
Tristan Jones KC, for the MoJ, said that Razzell had made a “degree of progress”, and that professionals who worked with him supported his release, but that the Parole Board’s report “loses sight of the fact that he has not been honest or transparent”.
He continued: “Mr Razzell is a deeply deceitful individual who carried out a campaign of violence against Linda, some of it witnessed by their children, and then planned and carried out her murder.”
He added: “He is so attached to his narrative of innocence that he is willing to continue inflicting pain on the victims.”
The barrister also said that proposed licence conditions “cannot fully address the risks” Razzell poses.
Matthew Stanbury, for Razzell, told the court in written submissions that the Parole Board’s decision was “detailed and thorough”, and that the MoJ’s case “comes close to treating denial as conclusive to risk”.
He said: “The claimant’s case is predicated on wrong assumptions or assertions that the defendant’s denial of his offending, and attendant non-completion of offending behaviour programmes, are a bar to release.
“Both factors were properly considered and weighed by an experienced Parole Board panel which considered the countervailing factors and matters in the round.
“There is no, or no sufficiently cogent, basis for departing from the panel’s decision.”
The hearing before Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb is due to conclude on Tuesday.