Victims fear 'lives at risk' over early release - as GPS tagging won't be rolled out nationwide until the end of the year

The government insists that prisoners will be under the toughest supervision in history.

Andy Burnham made tweaks to the sentencing act over the summer - excluding manslaughter and serious sexual assault cases from being eligible for early release.

But not all areas of the country will get access to live GPS tracking - which will provide updates within fifteen minutes - until the end of the year.

It means that prisoners in certain areas including London and the West Midlands will be able to get state of the art tagging systems for offenders.

But those in other parts of the country face a postcode lottery until the end of the year.

The government has insisted that "world-first restriction zones" will keep victims safe.

Around 700 prisoners will walk free today in the first wave of the government's expanded early release programme designed to free up spaces in jails.

They say a record number of people will be tagged and there is a new national helpline being launched today for victims.

Prisoners let out early will also face bans from pubs, clubs, football matches and public events.

Rhianon Bragg, who was stalked by her former partner, has been told us she's worried about high-risk offenders coming back onto the streets.

Earlier this year she bravely told her story of how her former partner, Gareth Wyn Jones, held her at gunpoint when she ended their relationship.

He was convicted in February 2020 of False Imprisonment, Threats to kill, stalking, possession of a firearm with intent & not keeping a shotgun properly.

He was sentenced to four and a half years behind bars - and had a big exclusion zone.

He was subject to a GPS tag - but it was not in 'real time' giving updates to probation staff.

She told LBC: "Our offender had a GPS tag. We were living within an exclusion zone, so he was excluded from an area, in our case of 4 counties, which was considered massive, but I think is the absolute minimum this sort of thing needs to be.

"If he had breached the exclusion zone, then it would have caused an alert to go off, but not an alert that would have been picked up in real time.

"And that's what really matters, because if alerts aren't picked up in real time, you leave a huge opportunity for offenders who are often incredibly targeted about their victims to cause horrific damage.

"If it's not real time, lives will be lost. I strongly feel lives will be lost."

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"And that's not taking into account that I feel the mental health damage, which leads to physical health damage, that victims are being put under by not knowing, but knowing that these really high-risk people are coming out, not knowing what protection they may be given... that will lead to lives potentially being lost.

"There is too much potential opportunity for offenders to break a restriction zone and reach their victim him life or death before an authority is able to respond, before they even are aware of a breach. And that's totally unacceptable in my opinion."

Though she acknowledged the difficult situation that the government are in, she said that there are people being let out "who shouldn't be released".

She added: "Although I completely appreciate the prison overcrowding issue, I don't think that's the best way to go forward to protect victims.

"And I welcome the government taking on restriction zones. It's one that seems absolutely basic. That some sort of liberty should be given to victims who have done nothing wrong and that the offenders should be contained, but they will only work if they are implemented properly, if they're implemented fully. And that's looking at matters like the distance between a restriction zone and the victim needs to be substantial.

"If a breach occurs, if an offender breaks from the restriction zone, then there needs to be time for the agencies involved, police or probation, to get to the offender before the offender has an opportunity to get to the victim. Realistically, that means it has to be a substantial distance, in my opinion.

"If tagging isn't in place properly, if responses to tagging aren't in real time, then in reality victims are being left at incredibly high risk.

"And quite frankly, at this late stage, without enough information, how on earth can they expect to try and plan in any way possible for what is on the very near horizon for them?"

And Kirsty Pellant, who has been a victim of online stalking and AI deepfakes after one of her colleagues had used photos of her to create deepfakes and portray her online as a sex worker, spoke to Shelagh Fogarty today.

She said victims she's spoken to "are desperately worried, they fear they may be killed, that the perpetrator will want revenge.

"Having a reactive measure, how does that make any victim feel safe? It's not victim-centred."

The government say the new technology will allow probation staff to access near real time data when it's rolled out.

They say the new systems - which is already live in London, East of England and West Midlands - will be rolled out nationally by the end of the year.

Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Alex Norris, said today: "Today we are introducing the toughest ever range of tools to control prison leavers and better protect the public.

"We understand the anxiety victims face ahead of offenders release dates, but the greatest danger to victims would be prisons running out of cells for dangerous criminals which was the crisis this government inherited. 

“Our plan will make sure this never happens again by building 14,000 prison places while subjecting offenders to the toughest ever controls – leaving them nowhere to hide and under no doubt that we are watching them."