4 FINAL^ Sunday 11 August 2019 The Sunday Telegraph
Politics
Those who do
the crime serve
less and less time
Less than or equal to 6 monthsGreater than 6 months to less than 12 months12 months to less than 4 years12 months to less than 2 years2 years to less than 4 years4 years or more (excl. indeterminate sentences)4 years to less than 5 years5 years to less than 7 years7 years to less than 10 years10 years to less than 14 years14 years or more (excl. indeterminate sentences)Extended determinate sentence50.5%49.3%47%43.1%46%56.1%53%53.7%49.9%54.5%53.3%85.5%Percentage of time served compared
to sentence length (including remand)54%
Average time served including remand1 2 months to less than 2 years2 years to less than 4 years4 years or more(excl. indeterminate sentences)4 years to less than 5 years5 years to less than 7 years7 years to less than 10 years1 0 years to less than 14 years1 4 years or more(excl. indeterminate sentences)Extended determinate sentence43.1%46 %56.1%5 3%53. 7 %49. 9 %54 .5%53. 3 %85.5%Thousands of extra
criminals released
early from jail on tags
By Charles Hymas and Ashley Kirk
INCREASING numbers of prisoners
are being released early from jail on
tags, with some freed after serving as
little as a fifth of their sentence, The
Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures
show a 59 per cent rise in just a year in
the number of prisoners released into
the community on tags, up from 9,
in 2017 to 14,769 in 2018.
At the same time, there was also a
surge in the number of released crimi-
nals reoffending or breaching their li-
cence conditions and being recalled to
jail in the first three months of this year.
Numbers were up 45 per cent to 6,
compared with the same period in 2015.
MoJ rules allow for those serving
sentences of between three months
and four years to be released on tags up
to 135 days – or four months – before
they become eligible for their normal
automatic release at the halfway point
through their sentence. Prisoners
should serve at least a quarter of their
sentence in jail before they can be re-
leased on tags and required to stay in
their home between 7pm and 7am.
However, The Telegraph can reveal
one case where a violent domestic
abuser who broke his wife’s neck was
granted early release six months into
his three-year-four-month sentence
because he had spent 20 months on a
tag while awaiting trial. The MoJ said it
could not provide figures detailing at
what point in their sentences the 14,
prisoners were released on tags or a
breakdown of the number of prisoners
released a quarter of the way through
their sentences.
The dramatic increase in the use of
tagging was sanctioned by David
Gauke, the former justice secretary,
who streamlined the process with the
aim, say prison experts, of tackling
chronic overcrowding in jails.
The Sunday Telegraph investigationwill, however, reinforce demands for
Boris Johnson to crack down on “soft
justice” after pledging during his lead-
ership campaign to change the rules to
ensure serious sex and violent offend-
ers were no longer released early.
Data obtained by this newspaper
show that the majority of criminals
jailed for between six months and four
years are being released less than half-
way through their sentences.
The MoJ data – accounting for more
than 32,000 criminals in jail last year –
show they served on average only be-
tween 43 per cent and 49 per cent of
their sentences. It also reveals that thelargest percentage drop in the time
served is among serious criminals serv-
ing 14-plus years.
It has dropped by more than a tenth
from 2015 to 2018, down from 59.6 per
cent to 53.3 per cent.
However, David Green, chief execu-
tive of Civitas, the think tank, said: “It is
time to consider a return to the system
that prevailed for over 60 years until
the late Sixties, namely that the only
way of getting out early was to earn
time off for good behaviour. Prisoners
could have their sentence reduced by
up to one third.”
Harry Fletcher, director of the Vic-
tim Rights Campaign, said: “We need
to move to a system where a prisoner
sentenced to a determinate period in
custody should serve a minimum 50
per cent and maximum 100 per cent
with time off for demonstrable re-
morse, participating in offender reduc-
tion programmes, their attitude to
victims and behaviour.”
The MoJ said: “We understand the
distress caused to victims when their
attacker is released from prison and the
Prime Minister has been clear the most
violent offenders should serve sen-
tences that truly reflect the severity of
their crime. Under the terms of a Home
Detention Curfew everyone is elec-
tronically tagged and subject to strict
licence conditions, including an over-
night curfew. If these are breached
they face a return to prison.”‘It is time to consider a
return to the system wherethe only way of getting out
early was to earn time off ’Policeman ‘run over by suspect
who jumped into his patrol car’
By Greg WilfordA SUSPECTED car thief tried to murder
a traffic officer yesterday by battering
him to the ground and running him
over with his own patrol car, police
said.
The victim was attempting to arrest
a man on suspicion of stealing a Range
Rover Sport when he was attacked in
Moseley, Birmingham, at 4.45pm.
After knocking the officer over, the
suspect “jumped behind the wheel” of
his patrol car and rammed into him in
Moorcroft Road, West Midlands Police
said. The officer was left seriously in-
jured and was being treated for head
and pelvic injuries last night.
Armed police cornered the suspect
after he sped away from the scene in
the patrol car and abandoned it a mile
away in Ladypool Road, Sparkbrook.
A 29-year-old man, from Hall Green,
was detained on suspicion of attempted
murder after trying to steal another
car, police said. A 24-year-old man was
also arrested on suspicion of car theft.
Witness Sohail Razaque, 48, said: “I
saw a man in a white shirt and red trou-
sers, and he was trying to get into what
looked like a white Nissan car.“He half got in it, then got back out
again and then he tried to get through
some metal shutters that looked like it
was a shop at the roadside.
“By then, the police were already fol-
lowing him trying to get him to stop,
shouting at him to get down.
“There were about 40 police, a lot of
them armed – some had Tasers, some
had guns. He was sort of almost walk-
ing through the crowds, with the offic-
ers following – and that’s where they
Tasered him and took him down.”
Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Boy-cott said: “This is a shocking attack in
which a member of our police family
has been seriously hurt while trying to
detain a crime suspect.
“Attacks on our officers and staff
won’t be tolerated, and we will always
seek the toughest possible criminal jus-
tice outcome for offenders.”
The incident comes days after PC
Stuart Outten, 29, suffered severe
wounds to his head and hands when he
was set upon by a man armed with a
machete in Leyton, east London.
PC Outten had stopped a van thought
being driven without insurance when
he was attacked shortly after midnight
on Thursday.
He was seen bleeding from his head
in the street after he used a Taser to in-
capacitate the knifeman, who was said
to have launched a “sudden and brutal
attack”.
Muhammad Rodwan, 56, was ar-
rested and charged with possession of
an offensive weapon and the attempted
murder of the officer following the in-
cident.
The officer, from Grays in Essex, was
left in a serious condition after the at-
tack but was discharged from hospital
last night.Police examine the stolen Range Rover at
the scene of the incident in BirminghamANITA MARIC / SWNSJohnson and Varadkar bid to break impasse
By Christopher Hope and
James CrispBORIS JOHNSON has accepted an
offer from Irish premier Leo Varadkar
to meet to try to break the Brexit dead-
lock as the EU president insisted the
UK would be the loser in a no-deal exit.
Government sources told The Sun-
day Telegraph that dates for a bilateral
meeting were being discussed, raising
hopes of a breakthrough allowing the
UK to leave with a deal on Oct 31.
Mr Johnson has insisted that he
wants the 27 EU countries includingIreland to drop the Northern Irish
backstop from the Withdrawal Agree-
ment because it would keep the UK
closely tied to the EU after Brexit.
The Government source said: “The
UK has accepted Varadkar’s offer to
meet and dates are being discussed.”
The hope is that a meeting can happen
before the G7 summit in France in a
fortnight’s time.
David Frost, Mr Johnson’s EU ad-
viser, is understood to have met or spo-
ken with nearly all his EU
counterparts, The Sunday Telegraph
has learnt. EU leaders have been made“100 per cent clear that there could be
no final deal without abolition of the
backstop. It is the EU who at the mo-
ment will not contemplate that”, the
UK Government source said. “Unless
they change that position it will be dif-
ficult to have a productive negotiation.”
Meanwhile, Jean-Claude Juncker,
the outgoing European Commission
president, said Britons would be the
“big losers” if there was a no-deal
Brexit. “If it comes to a hard Brexit, this
is in no one’s interest, but the British
would be the big losers. They pretend
it’s not like that, but it will be,” he said.Queen said to be disappointed by
politicians’ ‘inability to govern’
By Greg Wilford
THE Queen has privately expressed
disappointment in the current political
class and its “inability to govern”, it was
reported last night.
Her Majesty made the comments at a
private event shortly after David Cam-
eron’s resignation as prime minister
following the 2016 referendum, The
Sunday Times said.
It quoted a royal source who claimed
the 93-year-old monarch’s frustrations
have grown since then.
“I think she’s really dismayed,” the
source said. “I’ve heard her talking
about her disappointment in the cur-
rent political class and its inability to
govern correctly.”
The Queen’s alleged comments
emerged after The Daily Telegraph re-
vealed that Buckingham Palace and
Downing Street are holding talks about
how to keep her out of the looming
constitutional crisis over Brexit.
Sir Mark Sedwill, the Government’s
most senior civil servant, and Edward
Young, the Queen’s private secretary,
talked last week about the increasing
calls for Her Majesty to step in.
The conversation was prompted by
growing speculation that politicians
will try to force the Queen to get in-
volved if Boris Johnson, the Prime Min-ister, loses a no-confidence vote early
next month.
John McDonnell, the shadow chan-
cellor, threatened to send the Labour
leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to Buckingham
Palace “in a cab” to tell the Queen that
the Opposition would be “taking over”
if Mr Johnson were to refuse to resign
after losing a no-confidence vote.
The Queen is known for being strictly
neutral and has stayed out of the politi-
cal affairs of the state throughout her
reign. She has remained scrupulously
impartial throughout the increasingly
toxic Brexit rows in recent years.
Nobody from Buckingham Palace
was available for comment last night.РЕЛИЗПОДГОТОВИЛАГРУППА"What's News"
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