Have been sent an astonishing letter from the Met, excoriating in its view of the Early Release Scheme introduced this year by the Government. It highlights the case of a prolific shoplifter & sex offender, released on Thursday, who seems to have gone directly on a crime spree.
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As elected representatives and partners, you will be aware that the criminal justice system is under severe and growing pressure - which has built over the past few years under
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successive Governments. The impact of that, primarily on victims, is striking – they are increasingly likely to withdraw from the criminal justice process because of delays; the Crown Court backlog has more than doubled since 2019. They are also losing confidence in a system that is not handling offenders and suspects adequately: tagging orders are not being strictly enforced and dangerous people are frequently being released on bail. In this context, it is concerning that the Early Release Scheme, introduced through the Sentencing Act 2026, will place more people within the community to serve the remainder of their sentence. While recognising the challenges facing the Government over prison capacity, the Met has repeatedly raised concerns that placing more criminals within the community comes with significant risks to victims and places more costs onto policing. In this latest example, last Thursday, a prolific shoplifter and registered sex offender was released as part of this scheme from HMP Wandsworth. He was serving a sentence for shoplifting and breaching his criminal behaviour order and has subsequently been arrested following further offending within north-west London. This individual had been assessed as a high-risk offender by the Probation Service and had 16 previous convictions linked to more than 100 investigations, including multiple thefts, criminal damage and an incident of indecent exposure. While I am sure it is not surprising that someone with this history went on to reoffend, the speed with which he did so, and the impact on frontline policing, is astonishing. Just one day after his release, he was captured on CCTV stealing from two supermarkets in north-west London. When local neighbourhood officers visited the stores, staff reported that he had continued shoplifting …
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