Overview
- The Prime Minister ordered an urgent review on Monday and announced that rapists and the most serious child sex offenders will be excluded from the Sentencing Act changes, and that the first wave of early releases will be pushed from September to October.
- Under the revised rules about 5,000 prisoners are now expected to qualify for earlier release, down from an initial estimate near 6,000, because offenders with longer fixed terms become eligible at the halfway point while shorter sentences shift to one-third.
- Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, each jailed for 13 years for manslaughter over PC Harper’s 2019 death, remain eligible to be released after serving half their sentences, which has prompted outrage from the Harper family and senior Thames Valley police leaders.
- The Police Federation and Thames Valley chiefs say they will consider legal action to block the releases, and the government has apologised to the Harper family while promising tougher community supervision such as presumptive electronic tagging, GPS monitoring and longer licence periods.
- Ministers say the changes were driven by near‑full prisons and the need to avoid the system collapsing; critics call for alternatives including faster prison building, repurposing sites, more tagging and deportation of foreign offenders as longer‑term solutions.