Serious child sexual offences and grooming will no longer be eligible for the UK government's new early release scheme, according to Sky News. The change followed a backlash against plans, set out by Keir Starmer, that would have allowed some of the most serious offenders to be freed. Prime Minister Andy Burnham responded to that anger by carving those crimes out of the scheme, though the wider release policy is still going ahead. The exclusion means offenders convicted of grooming and serious child sexual offences will not now benefit from the earlier release that others will.
The scheme itself is being implemented from October and follows an independent review of sentencing policy. Under the changes, more serious and dangerous criminals can be released starting from October at the halfway point of their sentence rather than at the two-thirds point. Other, less serious offenders can be released after serving a third of their sentence rather than at 40 percent. The measures are described as coming off the back of that sentencing review, and they set new, earlier release points for large parts of the prison population.
Even with the new exclusions, many serious offenders remain within the scope of the scheme. Killers, including two of the three men convicted of PC Andrew Harper's manslaughter, are still eligible for early release. It was their case that had prompted the review in the first place. PC Harper's widow, Lissy, said she was appalled that two of her husband's killers could be freed, a reaction that captured the anger among victims' families that the changes have not gone further.
Burnham did not shy away from the difficulty of the decision. He said he would express how angry he was too at being in a situation where significant changes were having to be made that have real impacts on people's lives, in order to keep a functioning prison system. He warned that if those changes were not made, the consequences would be severe, saying the system would run out of prison places in October or November. In his framing, the releases were a response to necessity rather than choice.
The pressure on the prison estate was set out in stark terms. The male prison estate is operating at around 98 percent capacity, with some 1,800 spaces left, and officials warned it could reach capacity by November if no changes were to come into place. That is a change from two summers ago, when just 100 prison spaces were left in male prisons in England and Wales. The government has promised to build some 14,000 new prison spaces by 2031, but the situation was described as fluid and fast-moving.
For some victims, the exclusions brought relief. A victim of grooming named Sarah said many survivors up and down the country had been wondering whether they would need to move towns or rearrange their whole lives, describing the men convicted as having been sentenced for some of the most heinous crimes in the country. She said survivors joining together had stopped those offenders from being released earlier, and that without the exemption there would have been far more uproar and uncertainty in communities.
The changes drew sharp criticism from the opposition. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called it a partial climb-down and said victims deserved better, arguing the government had to be forced into the move by her and many others bringing victims forward. She pointed out that killers such as those in the Andrew Harper case are still going to be released, and that domestic abusers are not included in the exclusions. With the exemptions now factored in, the probation service is left with only around six weeks to recalculate sentences before the releases begin.