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One criminal charged with murder each week while supervised by probation, LBC reveals
22 May 2025, 08:24 | Updated: 22 May 2025, 23:56
An offender under the supervision of the probation service in England and Wales is charged with murder every six days, latest figures uncovered by LBC indicate.
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An offender under the supervision of the probation service in England and Wales is charged with murder every six days, latest figures uncovered by LBC indicate.
New data shared exclusively with LBC shows that between January 2020 and April 2024, 244 offenders who were let out from prison on license went on to be charged with a murder committed after their release.
LBC’s revelation comes as the government mulls the findings of a major new report by the former justice secretary David Gauke, which includes proposals for offenders to spend a greater proportion of their sentence in the community to ease the burden on the prison estate.
The findings are likely to call into question the Probation Service’s ability to monitor dangerous individuals as they serve the remainder of their sentences in the community, with the families of victims raising concerns among those raising concerns, particularly as these do not account for the changes to early release since the general election.
In 2015, 18-year-old Conner Marshall was beaten to death in Porthcawl, South Wales. His killer, 26-year-old David Braddon, was already being monitored by probation services after committing drug offences and assaulting a police officer.
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“We were faced with our son in a neck brace, badly beaten, hypothermic - unrecognisable from the bruises, and the cuts and swelling all over him,” Conner’s mother, Nadine Marshall, told LBC.
“The nightmare continued for four days. Conner battled for his life relentlessly; we were with him for every minute of every day, but sadly, four days later, due to his injuries, which were significant, particularly the blunt force injury to the back of his head, he had to give up his fight for life.”
During the inquest into Conner’s death, it emerged that the probation officer handling Braddon’s case was “overwhelmed” by her workload in the months leading up to his unprovoked attack.
Nadine’s charity, Voices, which supports families who have gone through a similar experience to hers, obtained the data via Freedom of Information requests. She believes that the government’s attempts to reduce the prison population create a “ticking time bomb”, which could result in other families suffering such devastation.
“My biggest fear [is] that any other single family has to endure the nightmare that we continue to live. Unfortunately, I'm very, very fearful… There's a significant shortfall in experienced probation officers. There's a shortfall in the quality of the newly appointed staffing that are being brought into the system.
“It's just another accident waiting to happen. The staffing isn't there, as it currently stands, to effectively manage what they have already, with an increase in offenders being released or put to community orders and supervisions.
“It's just a ticking time bomb. It absolutely is. And it scares the living daylights out of me that the government is well aware of these problems and these areas.”
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has warned that the criminal justice system faces “total and complete collapse” without action to ease the overcrowding crisis in prisons across England and Wales.
Last week, Ms Mahmood announced that over a thousand inmates will be released early to free up spaces in prison.
This announcement followed a measure unveiled last summer which saw offenders released after serving 40% rather than 50% of their sentence.
Alongside prisons minister, Lord Timpson, the justice secretary will now consider the findings of a review carried out by her predecessor, the former Conservative politician David Gauke.
Mr Gauke’s review argues for “radical reforms” to sentencing, including a further reduction to the point at which some offenders can be released into the community. This means some will be let out of prison after serving just one-third of their sentence.
However, NAPO, the probation workers’ union, conceded that their members are already handling caseloads “way in excess” of what can be effectively managed.
Ben Cockburn, the organisation’s national chairman, told LBC that the probation service was already facing difficulties due the volume of cases they are handling:
“Probation officers could be supervising anything up to thirty, forty or fifty people on order or license at any one time…. Clearly, that’s way in excess of what’s achievable in terms of doing that quality work with people to understand the causes of their previous offences and try to put things in place to stop them reoffending.”
Presented with LBC’s findings, Mr Cockburn lamented that cases where offenders go on to kill, as occurred in Conner’s case, resulted in “trauma” for probation staff.
“I think it's important to remember that the probation staff who are involved with those cases are really significantly impacted by that,” he explained. “It does leave a mark on probation staff and it does have an impact and a trauma for the probation staff working with them, and it does affect you going forward for months or even years before.
“We've represented members who've had to leave the service because of the impact on them that just didn't feel as if they could maintain their work.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of all impacted victims.
“The government inherited a criminal justice system in crisis which has put huge strain on the probation service. The Lord Chancellor will today set out plans to fix it, alongside the new investment of up to £700 million in the Probation Service.”
