Prisoner allegedly charged with sexual assaulting woman an hour after being freed under early release scheme
14 September 2024, 09:53 | Updated: 14 September 2024, 13:05
A prisoner has been charged with sexually assaulting a woman just an hour after being let out of jail under the early release scheme, according to reports.
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The 31-year-old allegedly assaulted a female prison worker while being given a lift to a railway station on Tuesday, MailOnline reported.
Labour’s programme, known as SDS40, means criminals can be freed after serving 40 per cent of their sentence rather than 50 per cent, due to jail overcrowding.
The alleged crime took place on the first day of the scheme, which has resulted in more than 3,000 unused prison places, according to reports.
The offender was among a group of inmates given a lift as a "gesture of goodwill" from HMP Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, to Sittingbourne station 11 miles away.
An official log of the incident reportedly said: “At approx 10.30hrs [the released prisoner] was being escorted by an OSG [operational support grade] in a pool car to Sittingbourne station following his release under SDS40.
“During the journey it was alleged that [he] sexually assaulted the OSG.
“[He] vacated the vehicle and his whereabouts are unknown at this time. The victim is understood to have had their thigh allegedly groped by the criminal.”
The offender reportedly caught a train to London before he was arrested the next day in Croydon.
His release came after serving 40 per cent of a jail term for breaching a restraining order, according to reports.
National chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, Mark Fairhurst, said: “I'm appalled that out of sheer goodwill a member of staff gave a released prisoner a lift and was allegedly sexually assaulted as a result.
“Clearly our members are at risk and this should never be allowed to happen again.”
The released prisoner was immediately recalled to jail, charged with sexual assault and is due to appear at crown court next month, a British Transport Police spokesman said.
His release under SDS40 has raised concerns that Labour's scheme is handing sentence discounts to inappropriate offenders.
Read more: Prisoners freed under early release scheme 'already back in jail'
Tory MP Neil O'Brien said: “This just shows the unbelievable naivety of this scheme, which is already having horrifying consequences. People are committing serious crimes within minutes of getting out of jail.”
Another of the prisoners released under the scheme was recalled just 36 hours after being let out after failing to report to probation officers.
Weekly statistics from the Ministry of Justice published on Friday showed the prison population dropped by 2,188 in the previous seven days, a fall of about 2.5%.
There were some 88,521 prisoners as of 6 September - a record high with only 1.2% capacity left in the system, but as of Friday, the number had fallen to 86,333.
That is the greatest weekly fall since records began in 2012, according to reports, and nearly double the second-largest, which came in April 2020 to minimise coronavirus risks.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had said he did not want to be in a position of releasing people who should be in prison, but said the situation was at "crisis point".
"We have to release people early because otherwise we'll have an absolute crisis in our prisons," he said.
