Prisoners mistakenly freed under Labour emergency release scheme

More than 30 prisoners, including domestic abusers, were mistakenly released early from jail despite being convicted of breaching restraining orders.

The 37 prisoners, who were all jailed for breaching restraining orders, were wrongly let out early after their offences were logged under outdated legislation.

All but five of them have since been returned to custody following their release in the past two weeks since the scheme was launched on Sept 10 to tackle the prison overcrowding crisis.

All offenders who had been jailed for breaching restraining orders – which includes domestic abusers as well as other criminals – were excluded from the early release scheme, along with sex offenders, terrorists and violent criminals serving sentences of more than four years.

However, the 37 had been charged under an outdated piece of legislation, the Protection for Harassment Act 1997, rather than the Sentencing Act of 2020.

This meant that when officials sifted through conviction records, they were not included in the list of the offences excluded from eligibility for the scheme.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) confirmed all further scheduled releases of offenders affected by the error had been stopped, and guidance had been issued to staff to ensure future releases were correct. The department is not aware of any other offences where there were similar problems.

The early release scheme means that prisoners are freed 40 per cent of the way through their sentences rather than halfway. It was introduced after the MoJ almost ran out of prison places, dropping to a low of just 83 left in men’s jails on the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, said she was forced to trigger the emergency measure “to avert a disaster” as she hit out at the Tory government for failing to get a grip on overcrowding in prisons across England and Wales.

A spokesman for the MoJ said: “Public safety is our first priority. That is why we took decisive action to fix the broken prison system we inherited and keep the most dangerous offenders locked up. This included blocking the early release of domestic abuse offences such as stalking and controlling behaviour.

“We are working with the police to urgently return a very small number of offenders – who were charged incorrectly and sentenced under repealed legislation – to custody.

“The convictions remain valid with offenders monitored since their release and will soon be back behind bars.”

The Prime Minister’s spokesman, said during a visit to New York: “Clearly public safety is always the Government’s first priority. When the Government came into office we were facing a paralysis of the criminal justice system and the Government had to take action.

“There were exemptions and safeguards put in place in relation to blocking the earlier release of offenders. We’re working with the police urgently to return the people that you refer to who were sentenced using outdated legislation.

“They’ve all been monitored since their release so they will be brought back into prison.”

On Wednesday night, Priti Patel, the former home secretary, wrote to Ms Mahmood demanding to know what protections had been put in place for victims, whether they had been tagged and details of their offending histories.

She also asked to know the level of risk posed by the five still remaining at large, and what measures had been put in place to avoid a repeat.

Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, said she was “deeply concerned” at the mistaken release of the prisoners.

“Anyone who breaches a restraining order is likely to be a high risk individual who may be fixated on their victim, undeterred by legal restrictions that have been put in place,” she said.

“This kind of error is why I have called on the Government to exclude all perpetrators of domestic abuse from the SDS40 scheme, regardless of their conviction.

“I expect Probation to make every effort to contact all victims that may be at risk, and I renew my call on Government to exempt all perpetrators with a known history of domestic abuse from the SDS40 scheme.”