Dozens mistakenly freed from prison early under emergency release scheme

They are working hard to bring them back into custody

A Ministry of Justice source said 37 people were released in error on 10 September, because their offences for breaching restraining orders were wrongly logged under repealed legislation.

It meant that these 37 cases were not flagged for exemptions, which were designed to prevent those guilty of certain types of crime from being released.

While most of the prisoners have been brought back into custody, five have not yet been returned to jail.

One of those who had been mistakenly released has allegedly reoffended, charged with ‘intentionally touching’ a woman. He was recalled to prison.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "Public safety is our first priority. That is why we took decisive action to fix the broken prison system we inherited and keep the most dangerous offenders locked up.

"This included blocking the early release of domestic abuse offences such as stalking and controlling behaviour.

"We are working with the police to urgently return a very small number of offenders - who were charged incorrectly and sentenced under repealed legislation - to custody.

"The convictions remain valid with offenders monitored since their release and will soon be back behind bars."

The shadow home secretary, James Cleverly, took to social media platform X to criticise the government for ‘wrong priorities’ and ‘bad decisions’.

He said: “The British people can see this clueless, heartless Labour government for what it is.”

Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales said: “This kind of error is why I have called on government to exclude all perpetrators of domestic abuse from the SDS40 scheme, regardless of their conviction.

“Probation should not rely on an individual's index offence to determine risk but use local intelligence to understand if there is a history of abuse and exempt them from early release on that basis.

“I am encouraged that virtually all offenders released early appear to have been recalled, and efforts have been made to rectify the error so it cannot happen again.”

Approximately 1,700 prisoners were released from jails across England and Wales in a bid to cut overcrowding – with thousands more expected to be freed in October.

This is in addition to the 1,000 prisoners released each week.

The early release scheme came after the Ministry of Justice said overcrowding had pushed jails to the ‘point of collapse’.

Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans back in July to cut the proportion of sentences inmates must serve behind bars from 50 per cent to 40 per cent temporarily.