EXCLUSIVE: Fears over thugs and sex offenders being released from prison recalls without Parole Board assessments

PAROLE Board chiefs fear violent thugs and sex offenders could be among criminals automatically released from prison recalls without adequate risk assessments under planned changes to recall releases to free up more jail spaces.

Last month Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, introduced emergency measures that mean some criminals serving sentences of between one and four years, who are recalled to prison after breaching their licence conditions, will be returned to custody for only a fixed 28-day period.

Now, under additional changes being introduced following the Independent Sentencing Review by former Tory Lord Chancellor David Gauke, offenders on all standard determinate sentences (SDS) of any length, who are recalled to prison after licence breaches, will serve a fixed 56-day duration before an automatic release.

Currently, they usually serve the remainder of their sentence in prison and are only released again once the Parole Board has been satisfied that they pose little risk to the public.

Those excluded from Ms Mahmood's emergency measure included any offender who was recalled for committing a serious further offence and those who are subject to higher levels of risk management by multiple agencies.

However, the Parole Board has warned no such exemptions have been highlighted under the Gauke Review proposals.

A source within the justice system fears that if no exemptions are applied, it could potentially lead to more cases like that of Jordan McSweeney, 32, who brutally murdered Zara Aleena, 35, after there were a string of failures by the Probation Service to instigate a recall.

Newly released prisoner McSweeney sexually assaulted then beat to death the law graduate as she walked home in Ilford, east London, in the early hours of June 26 2022.

He was graded as medium, instead of high risk, and there were multiple failings in his monitoring, after he failed to show up to his first probation meeting, which should have triggered an immediate recall.

The Parole Board is responsible for assessing whether prisoners serving indeterminate sentences, such as life or Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP), can go into open prisons or be released.

But, the other half of its work is to assess the risk of any offenders being let out again, after they were recalled back to prison for breaching licence conditions after previously being released from an SDS.

The board faces losing half of its workload once the accepted recommendations of the review are implemented.

It has also revealed fears that there are no exemptions for even serious violent and sexual offenders, including those who pose a serious threat to the public and are managed by the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) framework, highlighted in the Gauke review.

A Parole Board memo sent to the media,<see attached> said: "We wanted to explain how the Parole Board will be impacted by one of the accepted recommendations.

"As we understand it, the review recommends a fundamental change to the way standard determinate recalls operate.

"Currently anyone serving a determinate sentence, who is subject to a standard recall has to come to the Parole Board to consider their re-release before their sentence ends.

"The proposal is that all standard recalls for determinate sentenced prisoners should be replaced with a fixed term recall of 56 days, where an offender recalled will be re-released automatically without a Parole Board risk assessment.

"This would result in no standard determinate recalls being referred to the board once the necessary legislation is enacted.

"As we understand it, there are currently no exemptions, regardless of MAPPA level, nature of index offence, nature of the recall, and whether there are allegations, like domestic violence. Apart from potentially a Terrorism Act exemption, but we are awaiting further details on that.

"It could be that as the legislation passes through the necessary scrutiny, exemptions are then added."

The justice system source said: "Look at prisoners released automatically who have gone on to commit serious further offences who might not have been released, had the Parole Board had oversight of that.

"Jordan McSweeney should have been recalled and went on to commit serious further offending.

"You might question the risk to the public of wider releases without any real independent assessment of risk."

But, Mr Gauke's review report argued the number of prisoners on recall needed to be reduced, to ease prison overcrowding, after it more than doubled over the seven-year period from March 2018 to 2025, from about 6,000 to around 13,500.

Nearly three-quarters of all recalls were for licence non-compliance, rather than new offending, it added.

Mr Gauke wants to see recall used as a last resort as it is in France, so less people will recalled and only for a maximum of 56 days, replacing nay shorter ones

His review has estimated that this could "save around 2,300 prison places."

His review report said some "high risk" offenders could be kept in longer than 56 days, in exceptional circumstances, but risk assessments will be done by the resource stretched Probation Service which has been criticised for its actions in a number of cases including McSweeney and Damian Bendall.

On September 18 2021 Bendall, 33, beat to death with a claw hammer his pregnant partner, her two children John Bennett, 13, and Lacey Bennett, 11, and her friend Connie Gent, also 11, while he was high on cocaine.

Peter Nieto, the senior coroner for Derby and Derbyshire, sitting at Chesterfield Coroners' Court, slammed 51 separate failings by the service at their inquest, including a pre-sentence report by a trainee probation officer, after he was convicted of arson just months before the killing, which wrongly graded him medium risk and concluded he was suitable to receive a curfew to live at Ms Harris’ house.

But, the Gauke Review report said: "A mechanism that allows detention beyond the 56 days could be incorporated into the recall procedure for SDS for those offenders where further risk management is deemed necessary.

This should be exceptional and used only in cases where there is a specific, imminent and high risk of serious harm. This would prevent dangerous offenders from being automatically released after the 56 day period.

"The removal of the role of the Parole Board in SDS recall reflects the nature of the SDS which has an automatic release date,

providing capacity for the board to focus on their primary role of determining whether prisoners serving indeterminate sentences

(life and IPP) and those on extended determinate sentences who have been assessed as dangerous, continue to represent a significant risk to the public."

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson (MoJ) said: "The Government has accepted most of the Independent Sentencing Review's recommendations in principle. However, we are now working through the detail before introducing legislation shortly."

She said the Parole Board’s comment was "inaccurate" as it "assumes that the Government will implement recommendations exactly as set out by the review," but that it makes clear, further work is required to determine the exact detail.

She did not provide a timescale for when the changes will be implemented.

A Parole Board spokesperson said: "The proposals will impact on the board and we will be working with the MoJ to understand more about the details."