THE mother of murdered Scots businesswoman Moira Jones has accused Brexit campaigners of using her “personal tragedy and heartbreak” for their own political ends.
Vote Leave, which has its campaign committee chaired by Justice Secretary Michael Gove, issued a dossier of murders and rapes committed by 50 EU criminals in the UK, including Slovakian killer Marek Harcar, who is serving 25 years for killing Moira in a park near her Glasgow home in May 2008, in a bid to strengthen their argument for getting out of Europe.
However, Moira’s distraught mother Bea Jones described their tactics as “horrific” and insisted they had blatantly used her daughter’s death as a “tool for political gain”.
She said: “I think it is just appalling. I want to say to these people: ‘How dare you involve Moira’s murder in trying to further your own ends?’
“I don’t want the story of Moira’s murder to be hijacked by groups with an anti-immigration agenda. They have taken our personal tragedy and heartbreak for their political ends and that’s absolutely not right.
“How dare they use Moira’s murder as a tool for political gain? They should have considered the effect this would have on other people.”
Bea campaigned for tighter restrictions on foreign offenders coming into the UK after her daughter was murdered by Harcar, who had 13 previous convictions in his home country, including four for violence.
It was down to her tenacity that a report by SOMEC (Serious Offending by Mobile European Criminals) was produced aimed at making it easier for EU countries to track high-risk criminals, which she said did not go far enough.
The document, produced by academics at De Montfort University in Leicester, calls on countries to work together to make sure that the right information is being shared to prevent serious and violent criminals from travelling across Europe to commit further crimes.
Bea added: “Moira was very liberal in her thinking and she believed in the freedom of movement and human rights.
“Clearly, none of us knew there were no checks, so I think now Moira would believe in freedom of movement and human rights with certain rights, and a certain loss of human rights for those who didn’t deserve to have them and wiped out other people’s human rights.
“That is pretty much where I stand as well.”
Bea also objected to the wording of a press release that accompanied the dossier, which quoted Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliott as saying: “We’ve allowed EU judges to hang out a welcome sign to individuals the public would rightly expect never to be allowed into the UK.”
She said: “What I also object to is the style and language of this, and saying that judges are hanging out welcome banners. I think that is just despicable and for those who have lost loves ones this is very upsetting.
“At the time of Moira’s murder I remember something about it being put up online by the BNP and that is one of the reasons we made very few comments about the laws at that time.
“I don’t care what side I am on, whether I am in or out, how dare they use Moira’s murder as a tool to get their way?
“So there will be families throughout Britain today and this has just come down on them without any warning.
“We have to live with what has happened to our loved ones without further agitation and distress caused by these politicians.”
Also listed among the rape and murder cases in the document highlighting the Vote Leave stance for getting out of Europe were those of 14-year-old Alice Gross, who was murdered by the Latvian Arnis Zalkalns; Jolanta Bledaite, 35, whose dismembered remains were found in Arbroath, and whose killer, a Lithuanian man, Vitas Plytnykas, 41, was jailed for life in 2009; and that of Eleanor Whitelaw, 85, who was murdered in her Edinburgh home.
In 2015, Robert Buczek, 24, a Pole with previous convictions in his homeland for violence, was jailed for a minimum of 20 years for the murder.
The National asked Vote Leave campaigners how they could justify using Moira’s case without permission from her family.
Vote Leave spokesman Robert Oxley said: “We think that in order to reduce the number of similar horrific events happening in the future, it is vital that we take back control of who we let in, on what terms, and who we remove.
“This is a central issue in the choice the country faces in the referendum and we must consider how best to protect people in the future so fewer families have to suffer.”
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