David Cameron called for the Human Rights Act to be scrapped today after the widow of murdered headteacher Philip Lawrence declared the law "bypasses humanity". Immigration judges ruled yesterday that Italian-born Learco Chindamo, 26, should not be deported because to do so would infringe his "right to family life". Mr Lawrence was stabbed to death in an attack outside St George's Roman Catholic School in Maida Vale in December 1995, while trying to protect a 13-year-old pupil. Frances Lawrence was scathing today about the offers of sympathy from the killer's solicitor Nigel Leskin. "I was incensed by Chindamo's lawyer. I don't want his sympathy, which I found hypocritical, or his condescension," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "And his ridiculous notion that it's a big world - I am unlikely to bump into Chindamo - misses the point spectacularly, implying that I care only about my own feelings. "It's this wider picture that made me feel really distraught. In Article 2 of the Human Rights Act my husband had the right to life. Yet [the Act] allows someone who destroyed a life to pick and choose how he wants to live his.2 In an emotional interview, Mrs Lawrence said that she had always forgiven Chindamo and hoped that he "makes something of his life". But she was adamant that the current human rights legislation failed to take into account the experience of "ordinary people". Chindamo came to England when he was six. His father is an Italian gangster and his mother is from the Philippines. He was 15 in 1995 when he stabbed Mr Lawrence. Mr Lawrence would have been 60 today Chindamo was said to be "pleased" with the tribunal's ruling because his "family and life were in the UK". Mr Cameron today accused the Government of being "blindî about the Act's failings, adding that it would be common sense to scrap it altogether. Speaking on BBC West Midlands, the Tory leader said: "The fact that the Human Rights Act means [Chindamo] cannot be deported flies in the face of common sense. It is a shining example of what is going wrong in our country. "He is someone who has been found guilty of murder and should be deported back to his country. What about the rights of Mrs Lawrence or the victim?" Justice Secretary Jack Straw offered to meet Mrs Lawrence later today and vowed that the Government would try to overturn the judges' verdict on appeal. Asked about Mrs Lawrence's comments that she had been under the impression Chindamo would be deported, Mr Straw said: "She is entirely right to say that was her expectation - it was mine too." But Mr Straw insisted that it was not the human rights laws that were to blame. "I have not yet been able to see the judgment. I will study it with care. What I have been able to glean is that it is very probable that most of this issue arises not from the Human Rights Act but from European Union law. We are very vigorously appealing this." Mr Straw said the "moving interviewî brought out Mrs Lawrence's "astonishing dignity and compassion," and added: "I want to assure her of the Government's full backing." 21 Aug 2007 *********************************** The widow of headteacher Philip Lawrence has attacked the Human Rights Act for allowing his killer to "pick and choose" how to live his life. Frances Lawrence said the Act was supposed to have granted Mr Lawrence the right to life but instead worked in the "best interest" of her husband's killer, Learco Chindamo. But she also indicated that she had "probably" forgiven Chindamo, although her faith had been "sorely tested". She was speaking following the decision on Monday by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal that Chindamo should be allowed to stay in Britain. Mr Lawrence was stabbed to death in an attack outside St George's Roman Catholic School in Maida Vale, west London, in December 1995. The father of four had been protecting a 13-year-old pupil. The 48-year-old was attacked when a gang of 12 youths led by Chindamo went to attack a boy who had quarrelled with a pupil of Filipino origin. Chindamo punched and stabbed the headmaster, who died the same evening. In October 1996, Chindamo - who was 15 at the time of the killing - was ordered to be detained indefinitely for the killing, and given a 12-year minimum tariff. On Monday the Home Office confirmed it would be appealing "robustly" against the decision. ******************************************* For the devastated widow of murdered headmaster Philip Lawrence, it is too much. "I feel I can't survive this," she says. "I'm unutterably depressed that the Human Rights Act has failed to encompass the rights of my family to lead a safe, secure and happy life". There cannot be a decent human being who does not share her pain and disgust at what Britain has become: a land where the 'rights' of a killer are exalted, where crime victims matter not a jot and where a remote tribunal tramples over every sense of morality and self-respect. The case of Learco Chindamo insults us all. A violent, truanting 15-year-old, he stabbed Mr Lawrence just for trying to stop the bullying of a younger boy. Now that this squalid undesirable is ending his 12-year sentence, he should in the public interest be automatically deported to his father's homeland, Italy. But not in the view of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal. These worthies decreed that it would be a breach of his human rights to be sent to that free, sunny, civilised EU nation because, among other things, he can't speak Italian. We have of course seen many lunacies perpetrated in the name of human rights: compensation for IRA terrorist families, prisoners allowed porn, preachers of hatred freed to continue abusing our hospitality. But this ruling stands in a grotesque league of its own. Unless the Home Office wins its appeal, Britain will be obliged to give shelter - and no doubt benefits - to a murderer who offers nothing and may prove a threat. And the state will knowingly inflict more suffering on a family that has endured too much. This profoundly stupid and amoral ruling can only deepen the anger felt by millions who believe their own country is being stolen from them. It will encourage contempt for the law and drag politics deeper into disrepute. For the shame of this affair isn't confined to one tribunal. It is shared by those Labour politicians who so crassly foisted the Human Rights Act on us, without a thought for the consequences. We are all paying for that folly now. And nobody more so than the anguished and disbelieving Frances Lawrence. *********************************21 Aug 2007