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.
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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.
Image: 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”.
Image: 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.
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.
Moments before stabbing Ms Maximen, Thibou carried out an “equally horrifying attack” on a man who was backing away from him, the Old Bailey has heard.
He was also convicted of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm to 20-year-old Adjei Isaac with intent, and having an offensive weapon.
At the opening of the trial in February, prosecutor Ed Brown KC told the court Ms Maximen and the group she was with had got caught up in the middle of a “horrifying outbreak of violence”.
At the time, Ms Maximen had been crouched chatting to her friends as they sat on the ground with their children.
She suffered a 12cm deep knife wound, which caused severe internal bleeding in her groin.
‘Pure anger’ in accused face
As jurors were shown police bodycam footage of the incident during a previous hearing at the Old Bailey, Mr Brown KC told them: “You will see pure anger in the face of Shakeil Thibou. This was right in front of her [Ms Maximen’s] three-year-old daughter.”
The “truly shocking” incident happened in just eight seconds.
How did it happen?
The Old Bailey previously heard how a crowd of hundreds splintered on Golborne Road in west London as Thibou and his two brothers, who were on trial alongside him facing separate charges, had an altercation with at least two other males.
Image: Cher Maximen
Thibou produced a “huge” knife, described by one witness as a zombie knife, and lunged repeatedly at Mr Isaac in a “determined, thrusting movement”, the Old Bailey heard.
Mr Isaac recoiled and during the altercation the pair bumped into Ms Maximen who had been crouched chatting to her friends as they sat on the ground with their children.
The knife, the prosecutor said, missed Mr Isaac by “centimetres”.
Mr Brown KC told the court Ms Maximen struggled to regain her footing after being knocked to the ground.
He said: “Cher Maximen in those moments grabbed hold of Shakeil Thibou’s coat, pulled it and managed to get partially to her feet.
“She appeared to attempt to strike out with her hand at Shakeil who of course was still holding that knife in his hand. Cher Maximen took a step towards Shakeil Thibou and at the same time attempted to raise her right leg out towards him.
“It was at this moment, Shakeil Thibou raised the knife directly towards Cher Maximen and deliberately thrust it towards her, stabbing her in the groin.”
Sheldon Thibou was found guilty of violent disorder and guilty of assault on an emergency worker, PC Oliver Mort.
Shaeim Thibou was cleared of violent disorder but found guilty of assault on an emergency worker, PC Mort.
The family of a mother who was fatally stabbed as she attended Notting Hill Carnival with her three-year-old daughter has said “the feeling of loss is overwhelming, but so is the feeling of rage”.
Cher Maximen, 32, was stabbed at the west London carnival’s “Family Day” on 25 August last year.
Shakeil Thibou, 20, has now been found guilty of her murder, by a majority jury verdict of 10-2, after a trial at the Old Bailey.
“I’ve lost my parents. I’ve lost my brother. Nothing has felt like this ever,” Ms Maximen’s cousin Lawrence Hoo told Sky News.
“It is the cruellest thing, it truly is.”
Image: Lawrence Hoo
Ms Maximen died at a carnival she had been to so many times – she barely missed one.
On the day, Ms Maximen and her three-year-old daughter arrived at Europe’s biggest street party with a group of friends and their children. They’d been sitting and chatting when she was knocked over by some men who had started fighting.
News of her stabbing came almost immediately. Mr Hoo remembers receiving the call. “When I first heard that she’d been stabbed, I know it sounds silly, but I thought Cher will be alright. Cher’s strong, she’ll get through this.”
Ms Maximen was taken to hospital and underwent a number of emergency procedures before being put on life support.
Mr Hoo immediately headed to London to be at her bedside.
“I can remember being in the hospital being sat there with her, with other family members and that’s the last time I saw her. It still doesn’t feel real. There’s still disbelief,” he said.
“It’s the most senseless act to someone who had so much life and so much to give.”
Ms Maximen died from her injuries six days after the incident.
She was a vivacious young woman who grew up in Bristol and then London, finding her feet working with people in music and entertainment.
Ms Maximen was described as a “people person”, which for Mr Hoo manifested in her being “a bright light” in the lives of her loved ones.
He said: “It’s just this energy she had, she lit up the room. If you walked into a space, you’d know that Cher was there. Her energy itself would fill the room. She was a very bright light.”
Her life changed three years before her death when she became a mother in her late 20s.
Her daughter became her life’s work, she poured her love and energy into creating a person her family describe as her mini-me, “she’s Cher 2.0” Mr Hoo said.
Image: Cher Maximen pictured as a child with her uncle Ty
Ms Maximen was stabbed just metres from her daughter on that day.
Mr Hoo said the idea of the toddler witnessing her mother on the ground punctuates the sadness the family feel with anger.
“The feeling of loss is overwhelming, but so is the feeling of rage,” he said. “She [Ms Maximen’s daughter] is aware that on that day, something happened to her mother.
“She saw her mother drop to the floor, and then she saw her mother bleed. That’s the daughter’s last living memory of her mother. And to live with that, knowing that that’s happened, that somebody did that. That’s why it’s so hard and that’s where the rage comes from.”
The family is now rallying around the little girl who is growing up without her mother.
Mr Hoo said the attack “will be a memory that will recur” for Ms Maximen’s daughter, adding “that is why it is so painful and hard to try to live with”.
“I think the trauma is going to be there, and trauma will raise its head when it chooses to come up. But we’ll be there for her,” he said.
The family held Ms Maximen’s funeral in October, and dozens came to remember a woman who loved to spread joy.
Mr Hoo said their focus is now Cher’s daughter: “It’s difficult to say how do we celebrate this life that was taken so prematurely. But I think it goes into her daughter, and it’s to give her daughter the best life and love, and tell her who her mother was.
A domestic abuser who murdered her “frail” husband and buried him in the garden has been jailed for at least 22 years.
Maureen Rickards caused her husband “unimaginable pain and suffering”, said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
She was found guilty at Canterbury Crown Court last month and today got a life sentence with a minimum of 22 years.
Jeremy Rickards, 65, was found wrapped in bin bags inside a hold-all at the couple’s property inSt Martin’s Road, Canterbury, on 11 July last year.
He had five stab wounds to his chest – two of which pierced his heart.
There were also non-fatal injuries sustained about 10 days before his death, as well as other wounds thought to have been weeks old.
Grass cuttings were put over the body in an attempt to hide it, but the judge said police were alerted by an “overpowering odour” that “made them feel ill”.
Kent Police believe he was killed a month earlier and his corpse stored in an attic room cupboard before being moved.
Rickards, 50, told their daughter he had gone to Saudi Arabia for work, but police had no record of him leaving the UK.
The daughter became concerned by the style of messages she received and asked her mother if she’d taken over his phone.
She eventually reported him missing.
Image: Jeremy Rickards: Pic: LinkedIn
The last record of Mr Rickards being alive was when he topped up his phone on 8 June.
CCTV showed his wife of 27 years using his bank card a few weeks later, with the judge saying the cleaning products she bought were probably to clean up the killing.
Rickards was initially arrested for fraud – but officers searched the property and found the body.
The murder weapon has never been found.
Police said the victim was also seen with bruising on his face a few weeks before his death, telling a pub staff member he had been in a car accident.
But video found on his wife’s phone showed her shouting at him and the sounds of her beating him.
Mr Rickards briefly moved out of home in early June and was seen with numerous injuries at the property he stayed in.
His wife did not attend sentencing, but judge Mr Justice Kerr directed his comments towards her, saying: “Your videos also clearly show you threatening Jeremy, abusing him, using violence on him, and expressing an intention to kill him.
“He was in frail health and largely defenceless against you.”
Detectives said Rickards has never expressed remorse for the killing and tried to blame others.
“This was a horrific murder of a man who we believe had been a supportive husband to his wife, despite her violence towards him,” said Detective Inspector Colin McKeen.