😱 Their Son Was Stabbed To Death By A Released Prisoner… Now They Demand The PM Keep His Promise Or Risk Another Tragedy 😱
A father’s desperate plea for justice has returned to the national stage as the family of a murdered young man demands that the new Prime Minister keep a promise he made to them. Michael Hoolickin was only 27 when he was stabbed to death by a man who should never have been free. Ten years later his parents are still fighting the same broken system that allowed a violent offender back onto the streets, and they are calling on Andy Burnham to deliver the reform he once pledged.
Michael had gone out for a night in Manchester in 2016. Outside a pub he saw a man attacking his own sister. True to the kind of person friends and family describe, Michael stepped in. He told the attacker he should not hit a woman. The response was savage. Timothy Deakin, who was on probation after serving time for biting a man’s ear off, pulled a knife and stabbed Michael five times in the chest and stomach. Michael collapsed and died. He left behind a young son named Ellis and a family whose lives were shattered in a matter of minutes.
Deakin’s presence on the streets that night was the result of failures that still haunt the Hoolickin family. He had been released under supervision after a previous violent offence. The probation system that was supposed to manage the risk he posed did not prevent him from killing again. Michael’s father Garry has never stopped describing that system as shameful. In the years since the murder he has watched other families endure similar pain and has seen little meaningful change. The same gaps in supervision, the same reluctance to confront risk, the same sense that victims are an afterthought.
Alongside other bereaved relatives, the Hoolickins helped form an organisation called VOICE. The group campaigns for an independent inquiry into the probation service and for lasting reform of how dangerous offenders are managed in the community. Andy Burnham, then a senior political figure and later the Mayor of Greater Manchester, met the family and publicly backed their cause. He spoke of being shocked by the failures that led to Michael’s death and by the lack of openness and accountability that followed. He promised to support their fight for truth and change.
That promise now carries new weight. Burnham has become Prime Minister at a moment when the justice system is under intense pressure. Prisons are overcrowded. A controversial early-release scheme was due to free thousands of inmates from September under changes introduced to ease the crisis. The plan triggered fury when it emerged that serious offenders, including some involved in the killing of PC Andrew Harper, could benefit. Burnham responded by pausing the entire scheme pending an urgent review, stating that no prisoners would be released under the policy until every possible step had been taken to minimise risk to the public.
For the Hoolickin family the pause is welcome but incomplete. They want more than a temporary freeze. They want the systemic failures that allowed Deakin to kill their son to be confronted head-on. Garry has made clear that nothing fundamental has improved in the decade since Michael’s death. Offenders who should be closely supervised still slip through. Families still receive incomplete answers. The public remains exposed to people with proven records of extreme violence.
The story of Michael’s final moments is simple and devastating. He was not looking for trouble. He saw a woman being assaulted and acted on an instinct most people would recognise as decent. The man he challenged had already demonstrated a capacity for serious harm. That man was free because the system decided the risk was manageable. The result was five stab wounds and a young father dead on a Manchester street.
Ellis has grown up without his dad. The Hoolickins have spent ten years navigating grief, campaigns, meetings with officials, and the slow grind of trying to force institutional change. They have stood with other families who lost loved ones to offenders who were supposed to be under supervision. Together they have argued that the probation service needs radical overhaul, greater transparency, and a culture that prioritises public safety over administrative convenience.
Burnham’s earlier words to the family are now being tested in the highest office. When he launched support for VOICE he spoke of the need for openness and accountability. He acknowledged the shock of learning how Michael’s death had been allowed to happen. Those statements created an expectation. The family is now asking whether that expectation will be met with concrete action or allowed to fade under the pressure of governing.
The wider context is a justice system strained by overcrowding, delayed cases, and difficult choices about who can safely be released. Early-release schemes are presented as pragmatic responses to capacity problems. Victims’ families experience them as fresh wounds. Each time a serious offender walks free earlier than expected, the message received by those who have already suffered is that their loss carries less weight than the need to free up cells. Burnham’s decision to pause the latest scheme shows he has heard at least part of that message. The Hoolickins want him to hear the rest.
An independent inquiry into the probation failures that preceded Michael’s murder would force uncomfortable truths into the open. It would examine how risk was assessed, how supervision was carried out, and why a man with a recent history of extreme violence was free to stab a stranger to death. Such an inquiry would also give other families a platform. The pattern of preventable deaths linked to supervised offenders is not limited to one case in Manchester.
Garry Hoolickin has never softened his language. He calls the system that failed his son shameful. He points out that the same problems persist. He reminds anyone who will listen that Andy Burnham once stood with the family and promised to back their campaign. The question now is whether that promise survives the transition from opposition and local leadership to the demands of national government.
Michael Hoolickin should have returned home to his son after a night out. Instead he was murdered by a man the state had decided was safe enough to release. Ten years on, his parents are still waiting for the system that failed him to be fixed. They are asking the Prime Minister to remember the commitment he made and to turn sympathy into lasting change. The alternative is another decade of the same failures, more families destroyed, and more young lives cut short by people who should never have been free.
