{"id":582855,"date":"2026-08-04T11:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T11:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/582855\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T11:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T11:18:09","slug":"prison-early-release-scheme-comes-at-expense-of-victims-grieving-partner-says-despite-policy-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/582855\/","title":{"rendered":"Prison early release scheme comes ‘at expense of victims’, grieving partner says despite policy changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A timeline of how we got herepublished at 10:30 BST<\/p>\n

10:30 BST<\/p>\n

\"AImage source, PA Media<\/p>\n

There has been various twists and turns regarding the government’s new prisoner release scheme for England and Wales, which Keir Starmer’s government voted through in January 2026.<\/p>\n

The Sentencing Act 2026 changed the rules<\/a> around the sentencing and management of prisoners to ease overcrowding in jails, and implemented recommendations by a review conducted by former justice secretary David Gauke – published in May 2025. <\/p>\n

Some 6,000 criminals were due to be released at varying stages, and the scheme was due to come into force from 2 September. A revised version of the scheme will now begin from October.<\/p>\n

But on 22 July, PC Harper’s mother, Debbie Adlam, called the scheme<\/a> – which could reduce the sentences of two of her son’s killers – an “insult”. <\/p>\n

She told the Telegraph she had received a letter from the Ministry of Justice confirming the sentences might be reduced for Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, who were sentenced to 13 years in custody for manslaughter in 2020.<\/p>\n

A day later on 23 July, newly elected Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced he was pausing the scheme for review. <\/p>\n

On 3 August, the government announced a revision to the scheme – that prisoners who committed rape, grooming, and serious child sex offences will be excluded. <\/p>\n

Harper’s mother Debbie Adlam told BBC Newsnight she was “devastated” that the change to the scheme still left two of her sons’ killers eligible for early release.<\/p>\n

This morning, Justice Secretary Alex Norris said the government is trying to avoid running out of prison spaces as soon as October. “We would like to have gone further than that, but we cannot I’m afraid,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A timeline of how we got herepublished at 10:30 BST 10:30 BST Image source, PA Media There has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-582855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}