The Sentencing Council is examining whether pregnancy should be a stronger reason not to send a female offender to jail.
It launched a consultation last month which will examine the potential impact of being pregnant and giving birth as a prisoner, and it’s due to publish its decision in November.
Current guidance only suggests that judges “may consider” pregnancy when sentencing.
Campaigners say there is no statutory duty to consider it, and judges often don’t – and that unborn babies are put at risk in prison and shouldn’t be punished for their mother’s crimes.
Others argue pregnancy shouldn’t be used as an excuse to dodge punishment.
Sky News has spoken to three women who’ve experienced pregnancy in jail and described a frightening, isolating and humiliating experience.
One we will call ‘Olivia’ said being sent to jail pregnant was “traumatic beyond words… terrifying, lonely and deeply unsettling”.
She said: “There aren’t the midwives, there’s not the 24/7 support. If someone has a medical emergency, how many sets of keys does it take to unlock all the doors to get through?
“And that’s before you can even get into the prison to get the paramedics or the midwife to the woman.”
‘Laying in a bed of blood’
Another woman, ‘Susie’, said she had no one to turn to when she thought she had miscarried her baby in her cell.
She said: “They didn’t realise that I was still laying in a bed of blood.”
She added she had “a horrifying wait” all weekend to get her situation checked with a scan.
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Image: ‘Susie’ said she had no one to turn to
Susie says prison life is unsuitable for a pregnant woman: “I got a lot hungrier, and they told me that they wouldn’t provide me with more food, and I didn’t have a pregnancy mattress.
“I feel like as you gain more weight, your body’s pressing into the bed and you spend an awful lot of time in your room.”
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A handcuffed birth
A third woman, ‘Anna’, who also wants to remain anonymous, describes her experience as “humiliating” and says she gave birth while handcuffed to a prison officer.
She says the officer “told me to be grateful that she was putting me on long cuffs and not short cuffs”. These are cuffs with a longer chain.
Image: ‘Nobody came’ says ‘Anna’
Anna says that only when she had a second pregnancy outside of prison, did she realise how substandard the care is for women behind bars.
She said while in prison: “I had appointments that had been missed. I had a scan that was coming up. I ended up missing that a couple of times because they never had the staff to take me.
“Eventually I went and was taken through the front of the hospital in handcuffs. That’s very degrading and humiliating.”
She added: “When I went into labour it was early hours in the morning at 5.30am. I pressed my cell bell. An officer told me that somebody would be with me soon. But nobody came.
“I pressed it another three, four times. Nobody came. They only then unlocked me at the same time they unlocked the rest of the landing.”
Anna added: “I didn’t see the nurse till about 9.30 in the morning. I wasn’t sitting in an ambulance to go to the hospital until around 10.30am. I had been told that the ambulance was there, but it was waiting outside of the gates because it had to be security cleared to come into the prison.”
Ministry of Justice figures show that three births took place in prison or in transit to hospital in 2021-22.
The case of Aisha Cleary
In July this year, an inquest found “serious operational and systemic failings” contributed to the chances of survival of baby Aisha Cleary, born to an inmate in HMP Bronzefield in Surrey.
Her 18-year-old mother, Rianna Cleary, gave birth alone in her cell on the night of 26 September 2019.
She called for help, but nobody came.
Aisha was found dead in the cell the following morning.
Image: Rianna Cleary gave birth alone at HMP Bronzefield
An ombudsman report into Aisha’s death published in September 2022, not only criticised the care of Rianna, but made a wider conclusion that “all pregnancies in prison should be treated as high risk by virtue of the fact that the woman is locked behind a door for a significant amount of time”.
Campaigners say it therefore follows that any prison sentence for a pregnant woman is also a sentence for a high-risk pregnancy – and a threat to their baby.
But the women we spoke to say their pregnancy wasn’t taken into consideration during their sentencing.
Image: Protesters have campaigned against pregnant women going to jail
Prison ‘never a safe place’ to be pregnant
Speaking at a vigil which was held outside the Ministry of Justice to remember the anniversary of the birth and death of Aisha, Janey Starling, from the campaign group Level Up, said: “It is so evident that prison will never be a safe place to be pregnant.
“Pregnant women in prison are seven times more likely to suffer a stillbirth, twice as likely to give birth to a premature child that needs special intensive care and ultimately the long-lasting trauma on a mother and a child is devastating.”
Image: Janey Starling: ‘Prison will never be a safe place to be pregnant’
These arguments are supported by the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and will inform the Sentencing Council’s decision on whether pregnancy should be a greater mitigating factor in deciding whether someone goes to jail – set against the need to punish people who commit crimes.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Custody is always the last resort for women and independent judges already consider mitigating factors, like pregnancy, when making sentencing decisions.
“We have made significant improvements to the support available for pregnant women in custody in recent years. This includes employing specialist mother and baby liaison officers in every women’s prison, conducting additional welfare checks and stepping up screening and social services support so that pregnant prisoners get the care they need.”
The consultation is currently open for submissions, and they are due to publish their findings on 30 November this year.
Any new guidance for judges would come into practice next April.
A third person has died in a shooting in Co Fermanagh, police have said.
Two people were killed in the shooting on Wednesday morning, and a third, who was seriously injured, died in the afternoon.
A fourth person was seriously injured in the shooting in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.
All victims were from the same household, Superintendent Robert McGowan, District Commander for Fermanagh and Omagh, said at a news conference.
They have cordoned off the scene in the village of Maguiresbridge, about 75 miles (120km) southwest of Belfast.
“We can advise there is no ongoing risk to the public,” a Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesperson said.
There was no mention of a motive behind the shooting.
Image: The scene in the Drummeer Road area of Maguiresbridge, Co Fermanagh. Pic: Oliver McVeigh /PA Wir
A murder investigation has been launched.
Supt McGowan said at the news conference that police don’t anticipate any arrests to be made at this stage.
Emergency services were called to the shooting in the Drummeer Road area of the village at around 8am on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service said.
They confirmed that two people had been injured.
“Following assessment and initial treatment at scene, one patient has been taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, by air ambulance and another to South West Acute Hospital by ambulance,” the spokesperson added.
Drummeer Road is currently closed, police said, warning that this could lead to delays on alternative roads.
Image: Drummeer Road has been cordoned off. Pic: Oliver McVeigh /PA Wir
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn said: “The news from Maguiresbridge is tragic and deeply distressing.
“My thoughts are with the victims, their relatives and the local community in Fermanagh. I would urge the public not to speculate and to allow the PSNI to continue their investigation.”
Sinn Fein MP Pat Cullen has expressed her deep shock over the shooting, saying: “Firstly, my thoughts are with the victims and their families at this tragic time.”
DUP MLA Deborah Erskine, who represents the area in the Northern Ireland Assembly, said that the community was “stunned” by the shooting in “a rural, quiet area.”
“Everyone is deeply affected by what has happened this morning,” she said.
Two traders jailed for rigging benchmark interest rates have had their convictions overturned by the Supreme Court.
Tom Hayes, 45, was handed a 14-year jail sentence – cut to 11 years on appeal – in 2015, which was one of the toughest ever to be imposed for white-collar crime in UK history.
The former Citigroup and UBS trader, along with Carlo Palombo, 46, who was jailed for four years in 2019 over rigging the Euribor interest rates, took their cases to the country’s highest court after the Court of Appeal dismissed their appeals last year.
The Supreme Court unanimously allowed Mr Hayes’ appeal, overturning his 2015 conviction of eight counts of conspiracy to defraud by manipulating Libor, a now-defunct benchmark interest rate.
Image: Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo celebrate after their convictions were overturned. Pic: Reuters
Ex-vice president of euro rates at Barclays bank Mr Palombo’s conviction for conspiring with others to submit false or misleading Euribor submissions between 2005 and 2009 was also quashed.
Mr Hayes, who served five and a half years in prison before being released on licence in 2021, described the “incredible feeling” after the ruling.
“My faith in the criminal justice system at times was likely destroyed and it has been restored by the justices from the Supreme Court today and I think it’s only right that more criminal appeals should be heard at this level,” he said.
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Image: Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo outside the Supreme Court. Pic: Reuters
Both he and Mr Palombo have been described as “scapegoats” for the 2008 financial crisis, but Mr Hayes said: “We literally had nothing to do with it.”
A spokesperson for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which opposed the appeals, said it would not be seeking a retrial.
In 2012, the SFO began criminal investigations into traders it suspected of manipulating the Libor and Euribor benchmark interest rates.
Image: Former trader Tom Hayes. Pic: PA
Mr Hayes was the first person to be prosecuted by the SFO, which brought prosecutions against 20 people between 2013 and 2019, seven of whom were convicted at trial, two pleaded guilty and 11 were acquitted.
He had also been facing criminal charges in the US but these were dismissed after two other men involved in a similar case had their convictions reversed in 2022.
Mr Hayes, a gifted mathematician who is autistic, was described at his Southwark Crown Court trial as the “ringmaster” at the centre of an enormous fraud to manipulate benchmark interest rates and boost his own six-figure earnings.
He has always maintained that the Libor rates he requested fell within a permissible range and that his conduct was common at the time and condoned by bosses.
Mr Hayes and Mr Palombo argued their convictions depended on a definition of Libor and Euribor which assumes there is an absolute legal bar on a bank’s commercial interests being taken into account when setting rates.
The panel of five Supreme Court justices found there was “ample evidence” for a jury to convict the two men if it had been properly directed.
But in an 82-page judgment, Lord Leggatt said jury direction errors made both convictions unsafe, adding: “That misdirection undermined the fairness of the trial.”
Lawyers representing Mr Hayes and Mr Palombo said the ruling could open the door for the seven others found guilty to have their convictions overturned and that there were grounds for a public inquiry.
As India and Britain look set to sign a free trade agreement (FTA), some industries are disappointed and want a level playing field.
The Indian cabinet has given its consent to the deal as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is headed to the UK to sign it with his British counterpart Sir Keir Starmer.
The pact, formally called a comprehensive economic and trade agreement, will now have to be ratified by the British parliament, which could take several months.
For Britain, this is the biggest and most economically significant bilateral trade deal since it left the European Union. The government says the deal is expected to add £4.8bn to the economy and £2.2bn in wages every year in the long run.
Britain is the sixth-largest investor in India, with cumulative investments of around $36bn. There are at least 1,000 Indian companies operating in the country, employing more than 100,000 people, with a total investment of $2bn.
At a time when countries are trying to navigate the turbulent effects of US President Donald Trump’s tariff upheaval, this pact comes as a great economic boost for both countries.
What’s in the deal
Once made law, the agreement will reduce 90% of tariffs on British exports to India that include whisky, cars, cosmetics, salmon, lamb, medical devices, electrical machinery, soft drinks, chocolate, and biscuits.
India will get a zero-tariff deal on 99% of its tariff lines, covering nearly 100% of trade value. These include clothes, footwear and food products, including frozen prawns. With a zero tariff on textiles and apparel, Indian exports will get the same advantage as countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam.
India has got concessions on easy mobility for its professionals, including contractual suppliers and intra-corporate transferees with dependents.
The Double Contribution Convention (DCC) that ensures employees temporarily working in the UK for up to 3 years will continue paying social security contributions in their home country.
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Explained: The significance of the UK-India trade deal
India will reduce duties from 100% to 10% for a limited number of imports of cars, while Britain will give access to its markets for electric and hybrid vehicles.
Both countries have agreed to provide national treatment (same treatment as domestic companies) in select services, including telecom, construction and environment.
Areas of concern
But it’s Scotch whisky that has been a bone of contention in the negotiations. The UK has bargained hard, and tariffs have been slashed from 150% to 75% while retaining the issue of maturation of Scotch.
Whisky to be classified as Scotch needs to mature for at least three years. During this process, a small amount – dubbed the “angel’s share” – evaporates due to climate and casks.
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Anant S Iyer, director general of the Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC), representing Indian manufacturers, told Sky News: “India has a tropical climate – the process of maturation is much faster. While in Scotland, the evaporation losses are around 2% a year, here it’s about 10-15% yearly, depending on where you’re distillery is based.
“So, a one-year-old mature Indian whisky could be equal to about a three-year-old Scotch whisky. This non-tariff barrier is something that’s causing us a huge setback.”
Indian manufacturers lose a third of volume over a three-year maturation period, which makes it unviable for them. Mr Iyer says, “while the FTA does bring cost savings for our blended whiskies, it will also open the floodgates for cheaper products from a plethora of Scotch brands in the UK”.
India is the largest whisky market in the world by volume, and Scotch has just 3% of that.
According to the Scotch Whisky Association, which represents over 90 companies, India is its largest export market by volume, with more than 192 million bottles exported in 2024.
Despite the deal, there is still little clarity on issues of “rules of origin”, a provision to help contain the dumping of goods; UK carbon tax, a concern for India as it could restrict the export of metal products; and the issue of international arbitration.