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
Mohamed al Fayed: Former royal security head says he warned Royal Family before Diana went on holiday with businessman
The former head of royal protection says he warned the Royal Family about Mohamed al Fayed’s reputation before Princess Diana took her sons on holiday with him.
The former Harrods owner, who died last year at the age of 94, was described as a “monster” earlier this week by lawyers representing 37 alleged sexual abuse victims.
The women say he raped and sexually assaulted them while they worked at the luxury department store, prowling the shop floor and “cherry-picking” women to be brought to his executive suite.
Now, Mr Davies says people were aware of the Egyptian businessman’s reputation as far back as the 1990s, and that he raised concerns about him to the Royal Family.
Princess Diana on the quay of the residence of Mohamed al Fayed in Saint Tropez on 20 July 1997. File pic: AP
“This was a man who I would be concerned [about] if a relative of mine was going on holiday with him, let alone the future king and his brother and their mother, Princess Diana,” Dai Davies told Sky News.
Mohamed al Fayed during a match at Craven Cottage stadium in 2013: File pic: PA
In July 1997, a month before she died, Princess Diana went on holiday with Fayed and his wife to their residence in St Tropez.
She took the two young princes with her – a holiday Prince Harry described as “heaven” in his 2023 memoir Spare.
“I was horrified because I was aware of some of the allegations even then that were going around,” said Mr Davies.
“I was aware that he had tried very hard to ingratiate himself with the Royal Family and obviously knowing, as I did, the reputation he was alleged [to have] then, I was concerned, and I took the opportunity to inform the Royal Family.”
Princess Diana, Prince William (right) and Prince Harry (left) in Saint Tropez on 14 July 1997. File pic: AP
Mr Davies says he was told: “Her Majesty is aware.”
“The rest is history,” he said.
Buckingham Palace told Sky News it had no comment on the allegations.
Fulham ‘deeply disturbed’ by allegations
Fulham FC, a football club that was owned by Fayed between 1997 and 2013, has said it is “deeply troubled” by the dozens of “disturbing” sexual abuse allegations against the businessman.
The Premier League club also said it is “in the process of establishing whether anyone at the club is or has been affected” by this alleged behaviour.
Mohamed al Fayed waves a Fulham scarf in front of supporters in 2012. Pic: Reuters
However, Gaute Haugenes, who managed the club’s women’s team between 2001 and 2003, told the BBC extra precautions were taken to protect female players from Fayed.
“We were aware he liked young, blonde girls. So we just made sure that situations couldn’t occur. We protected the players.”
Read more from Sky News:
Body found in search for missing TV chaplain
Four arrested after ‘concerns’ about prison staff conduct
Woman, 70, admits causing death of baby girl
‘The door was locked behind me’
A former Harrods employee told Sky News she was summoned to Fayed’s apartment when she began working for the department store at 19 years old.
She was told the meeting was a “job review” before “the door was locked behind me”.
“I saw his bedroom door partially open – there were sex toys on view,” she said.
“I felt petrified. I perched myself at the very end of the sofa and then… my boss, the person I worked for, pushed himself onto me.”
Read more: ‘One of the worst cases of corporate sexual exploitation’
Harrods said in a statement on Thursday it was “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse and apologised to Fayed’s alleged victims.
The department store has also set up a page on its website inviting former employees to come forward if they have allegations.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The legal team involved in a civil claim against Harrods for allegedly failing to provide a safe system of work for its employees said they aimed to seek justice for the victims of a “vast web of abuse”.
Lily Allen says she had her children “for all the wrong reasons,” at a “high pressure” point in her career when she felt “overwhelmed”.
The singer and actress had her two daughters, Marnie, 12 and Ethel, 11, with her ex-husband Sam Cooper when she was in her mid-20s.
By the time she became a mum, she’d already had hit singles including Smile and The Fear, released two studio albums and received a Brit Award for best British female solo artist.
Speaking about motherhood on the BBC podcast Miss Me?, which Allen hosts with her long-time friend Miquita Oliver, she said: “I think I had children for all the wrong reasons, really.
“Because I was yearning for unconditional love, which I haven’t felt in my life since I was a child.”
The now 39-year-old star added: “And also, my career was at such high speed, high pressure, and I felt like very overwhelmed by what was happening. I just didn’t get much respite you know?
“And I felt like the only way to stop people hassling me was to say, ‘It’s not about me, actually this is about this other person that’s inside me’.
When asked by Oliver if it worked, Allen says: “Yeah, they did leave me alone. I don’t think I really understood what was happening, what I got myself into.”
The daughter of actor Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen, she went on to discuss her own childhood.
“My mum, bless her, had children really early as well, and she really struggled. But she doesn’t really talk about the struggle. And so… She inadvertently gaslit me into thinking it was, you know, easy.
“You just sort of throw the kid over your shoulder and you get on with it.
“Her job was very static, and in one place and went to an office and mine wasn’t like that at all. It wasn’t easy. It just wasn’t easy.”
Allen is married to Stranger Things star David Harbour
The ‘nasty scars’ caused by absent parents
Allen previously told the Radio Times podcast that while she loves her children, having them “ruined her career”.
She said her decision to prioritise them over her pop career was a decision she made so as not to inflict the “nasty scars” of being an “absent” parent onto them.
She also said the myth of having it all “really annoyed” as it simply was not true.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Allen, whose younger brother is Game Of Thrones actor Alfie Allen, married Stranger Things star David Harbour in 2020.
Away from her music career, Allen has branched out into acting over the last few years, starring in two plays in London’s West End, and winning a role in Sky drama Dreamland last year.
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