Prisoner let out under early release system describes chaos amid chronic overcrowding
Chris* had spent more than two years in prison, serving a sentence for grievous bodily harm (GBH.)
To his surprise, he was released just weeks ago – a month early – under a controversial scheme to ease overcrowding in prisons across England and Wales. But he paints a picture of chaos.
Describing it as a “rollercoaster”, he says there was a “mix-up” and “the staff didn’t really know what was going on”.
It started when he was on the phone to his family from inside prison. “They said, ‘we’re going to see you today, you’re getting released’.
“And I said: ‘No I’m not’.”
His family had been given the wrong date. His release wouldn’t happen for another week. And yet the chaos, according to Chris, only continued.
He was selected for early release and told he was a “low risk” to the public, but the early release prisoner scheme comes under continued scrutiny.
The Prison Governors Association today warned the scheme would not have sufficient impact to ease overcrowding, and suggested the prison service could find itself unable to accept prisoners from courts “within weeks” because jails are so full.
Meanwhile, leading domestic abuse charities have shared with Sky News a letter, sent to justice secretary Alex Chalk, raising serious concerns about the scheme.
The end of the custody supervised licence scheme (ECSL) means eligible prisoners can now be released up to 70 days before the end of their sentences.
It allows offenders serving sentences of less than four years to leave prison ahead of time.
The government first launched the measure in October 2023, initially allowing prisoners to be released 18 days early.
Anyone convicted of a sexual, terrorist or serious violent offence is excluded.
But probation staff have consistently raised fears about the extent and pace at which the measure is being expanded, saying the release of prisoners is being sped up without the time for sufficient checks.
A probation worker told Sky News: “Just because they’re not doing a long sentence, that doesn’t mean people are not deemed to be a high risk in the public domain. And we wouldn’t have time to put in place safeguards, or do any checks.”
‘I was very angry and upset’
On the morning Chris was freed, he says there was a knock on his cell door and he was told to head down to reception. Once there, he says he saw other prisoners being released, their discharge grants being handed out.
But when it was his turn, he says he was told his name wasn’t on the list.
“At that point, I was very angry and upset,” he said.
“A week before, they’d told me I was getting released and now they were doing the same thing again.”
Frustrated, he sat in the prison reception for hours, while his family waited outside.
After about three hours, he says a prison worker appeared and apologetically explained that since it was an early release, there was a “mix-up with the systems”.
His case hadn’t been transferred from one computer system to the other.
This is just one man’s story, but it shows the issues with an emergency measure that has been regularly extended with little notice for those handling and processing offenders – finding them accommodation, or providing the necessary support on leaving prison.
The letter sent to the justice secretary from leading women’s charities, including Refuge and Women’s Aid, calls for perpetrators of domestic abuse and stalking to be exempt from the scheme.
“There is a significant disconnect between government rhetoric on VAWG [Violence Against Women And Girls] and announcements such as the expansion of the early release scheme, that will place survivors, and women and girls more broadly, at risk from dangerous offenders of VAWG,” it reads.
“We are prioritising solving a problem about prison overcrowding over the safety of victims,” the domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales, Nicole Jacobs, told Sky News.
Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales, says she has ‘genuine fear for victims’
“I have genuine fears for victims,” she said.
These calls follow the publication of a report into HMP Lewes by the Chief Inspector of Prisons.
An inspection found “safe risk management” being undermined by the early release scheme. It cited one example of a prisoner who had their release date brought forward despite deeming him a “risk to children”, with a “history of stalking, domestic abuse, and being subject to a restraining order”.
Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said the eligibility net for this scheme was “cast fairly wide”.
Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor
“Inevitably, if you have an early release scheme and the parameters are simply that if you serve less than four years, you’re not a sex offender, a terrorist or a life sentence prisoner… there are some people within that net who will be designated as high risk of harm.”
The overcrowding crisis in prisons extends beyond the early release scheme.
In recent weeks, a number of measures have been triggered by the government to help ease capacity.
Operation Early Dawn, invoked earlier this month, will see defendants in police custody remain there, rather than being transferred to magistrates’ courts for bail hearings, in case there is no space in jail cells to accommodate them.
Police are also being told to consider pausing “non-priority” arrests until there is enough capacity in prisons across England and Wales.
Figures published on Friday showed 87,089 people are currently behind bars in England and Wales.
The number of people that can be held in “safe and decent accommodation” in prison, known as the “certified normal accommodation” or “uncrowded capacity”, is considered by the Ministry of Justice to be 79,615.
Read more
Emergency measure triggered to deal with prison overcrowding in England
Prisoners could be freed more than two months early to ease overcrowding
That means the current overall system is at 109% capacity, or overcrowded.
Chris’s story is symptomatic of a prison system that is overpopulated and under pressure.
He believes it is right that offenders are let out early to relieve capacity, but says he appreciates concerns the public might have.
‘Everyone deserves a second chance’
“I learned a lot,” he said.
“At the end of the day, people learn and obviously people change. Everyone deserves a second chance.”
The government has previously said that the ECSL scheme is about protecting the public, designed to ensure there is enough space to keep putting the most ‘serious’ offenders behind bars.
It maintains there are ‘strict eligibility criteria’ for releasing people, and says the Prison Service retains discretion to prevent the release of any offender where early release presents a higher risk than if they were released at their automatic release date.
Ministers have previously said that any released offender remains subject to probation supervision and stringent licence conditions.
*Chris is a pseudonym we are using to protect his identity.
UK
Zhenhao Zou: More than 20 new potential victims come forward after ‘prolific’ rapist jailed for assaulting 10 women
Another 23 female potential victims have reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou – the Chinese PhD student detectives believe may be one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.
The Metropolitan Police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women following a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.
Detectives have not confirmed whether the 23 people who have come forward add to their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide may have been targeted by the University College London student.
Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth said: “We have victims reaching out to us from different parts of the globe.
“At the moment, the primary places where we believe offending may have occurred at this time appears to be both in England, here in London, and over in China.”
Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth
Zou lived in a student flat in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in central London, and later in a flat in the Uncle building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, south London.
Read more: How a student described as ‘smart and charming’ was unmasked as a prolific sexual predator
He had also been a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 until 2019. Police say they have not had any reports from Belfast but added they were “open-minded about that”.
“Given how active and prolific Zou appears to have been with his awful offending, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr Southworth said.
“We wouldn’t want anyone to write off the fact they may have been a victim of his behaviour simply by virtue of the fact that you are from a certain place.
“The bottom line is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know may have been, please don’t hold back. Please make contact with us.”
Pic: Met Police
Zou used hidden or handheld cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s belongings as souvenirs.
He targeted young, Chinese women, inviting them to his flat for drinks or to study, before drugging and assaulting them.
Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
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Moment police arrest rapist student
Mr Southworth said: “Of those 10 victims, several were not identified so as we could be sure exactly where in the world they were, but their cases, nevertheless, were sufficient to see convictions at court.
“There were also, at the time, 50 videos that were identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s awful crimes.
“We are still working to identify all of those women in those videos.
“We have now, thankfully, had 23 victim survivors come forward through the appeal that we’ve conducted, some of whom may be identical with some of the females that we saw in those videos, some of whom may even turn out to be from the original indicted cases.”
Mr Southworth added: “Ultimately, now it’s the investigation team’s job to professionally pick our way through those individual pieces of evidence, those individual victims’ stories, to see if we can identify who may have been a victim, when and where, so then we can bring Zou to justice for the full extent of his crimes.”
Mr Southworth said more resources will be put into the investigation, and that detectives are looking to understand “what may have happened without wishing to revisit the trauma, but in a way that enables [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best possible way.”
The Metropolitan Police is appealing to anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by Zou to contact the force either by emailing survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident public portal on the force’s website.
An 11-year-old girl who went missing after entering the River Thames has been named as Kaliyah Coa.
An “extensive search” has been carried out after the incident in east London at around 1.30pm on Monday.
Police said the child had been playing during a school inset day and entered the water near Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich.
A recovery mission is now said to be under way to find Kaliyah along the Thames, with the Metropolitan Police carrying out an extensive examination of the area.
Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope in North Woolwich leading into the Thames
Chief Superintendent Dan Card thanked members of the public and emergency teams who responded to “carry out a large-scale search during a highly pressurised and distressing time”.
He also confirmed drone technology and boats were being used to “conduct a thorough search over a wide area”.
He added: “Our specialist officers are supporting Kaliyah’s family through this deeply upsetting time and our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.”
“Equally we appreciate this has affected the wider community who have been extremely supportive. You will see extra officers in the area during the coming days.”
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On Monday, Kerry Benadjaoud, a 62-year-old resident from the area, said she heard of the incident from her next-door neighbour, who “was outside doing her garden and there was two little kids running, and they said ‘my friend’s in the water'”.
When she arrived at the scene with a life ring, a man told her he had called the police, “but he said at the time he could see her hands going down”.
Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope that goes directly into the River Thames and is used to transport boats.
Residents pointed out that it appeared to be covered in moss and was slippery.
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