There is a party atmosphere outside Britain’s prisons this morning as criminals set free under Labour’s controversial inmate release scheme praised Sir Keir Starmer for giving them their freedom.
Those walking out from behind bars whooped and punched the air in delight before hugging loved ones, with some crowing they would be finally be spending time with their girlfriends – but not before going to McDonald’s.
Some were greeted by a cacophony on their release, with friends blasting out music and giving them new clothes, and some even spraying the former prisoners with sparkling wine to celebrate their newfound freedom.
One convicted drug dealer said the policy had made him a ‘lifelong Labour voter’, while another insisted that he was a ‘good boy now’ after walking out to reunite with his family.
However, despite the scenes of joy that were commonplace across the country, experts have warned about the impact of releasing the convicts early with suggestions a third could reoffend.
More than 5,000 are to be set loose over the next six weeks, with everyone eligible for release apart from violent criminals jailed for more than four years.
A total of 1,700 are being released today, including hardened drug dealers, violent domestic abusers and even people who have played roles in the killing of teenagers, much to the fury of their victims’ loved ones.
There have also been concerns about the impact on communities where they are released with some admitting they will immediately become homeless after they are set free.
As the sun rose in London today, the first inmate to be released from HMP Isis, Category C young offenders institution in Thamesmead, south east London, walked out with some being greeted by family members.
Djaber Benallaoua, 20, who is a convicted drug dealer, was greeted by five friends this morning.
He said the early release policy had made him a ‘lifelong Labour voter’.
The ex-prisoner – a convicted drug dealer – was released from Isis and was greeted by five friends.
Asked how he felt to be free, he said: ‘I thank Labour.
‘Because I’ve come out five or six months early than I was supposed to so I’m just happy.’
Benallaoua was originally handed a two-and-a-half-year sentence but was let out six months earlier than planned.
He went on: ‘It’s a very good policy because it’s given a lot of prisoners a lot of hope.
‘When prisoners found out they’d be released early they were very positive.’
And asked about his future plans, he said: ‘I’m just elated right now. I’m gonna get lit.’
Another inmate thanked Sir Keir for policy, saying it was a ‘smart decision’.
Daniel Rutuls, 19, was the 15th person to walk free from HMP Isis at 10am as he was released a month early after spending almost a year-and-a-half inside.
He was originally given a three-year sentence for aggravated burglary.
The teenager, from Harlesden in North London, said: ‘I’m really happy to be out. It’s only a month early but it’s still worth it.
‘The reaction was very positive when we found out we would be released. Being in there is long.’
Asked if he had a message for Sir Keir Starmer, he joked: ‘Thank you, and it’s a smart decision, because now you’ve got more space.’
And he said he would ‘100 per cent’ vote Labour now.
Do YOU know any of the released inmates? Email [email protected]
Calvin Foster, 25, who was jailed for conspiracy to commit robbery, said he was going to ‘chill and work’ with his girlfriend and friends after walking out of the south east London prison.
Foster, a mechanic who had been handed a 25-month sentence for conspiracy to commit robber, was one of the first to leave just before 8.30am.
He told : ‘It’s jokes, my actual release date was tomorrow. It’s one day earlier, but I’ll take it. It’s sweet, isn’t it.
‘I didn’t find out I was being released early until I got my papers through a few days ago.
‘I kept my head down inside, got on with my stuff. I kept myself to myself – didn’t get in with any gangs or nothing.
‘I’m a good boy now. I’m going to see my girlfriend, see my mates, and just chill and work. I ain’t going back in there (prison).’
Another young man who declined to talk on his release said ‘no, I apologise’ before embracing a family member and getting into a waiting car.
Meanwhile, at HMP Wandsworth a large group of young men were seen listening to music and smoking as they waited for someone to be released.
The group had two bottles of Luc Belaire sparkling wine ready for the welcome party as they waited for an hour for the first prisoners to be released.
The first person to walk out just before 10am confirmed to he had been set free as part of the early release scheme.
The man, who did not want to give his name, told it felt ‘good’ to be free and he had accommodation lined up.
The second prisoner was released around 10 minutes later. He embraced the group of men outside and said he had been released four months early through a four year sentence.
Another inmate released from the prison told reporters the first thing he was going to do was ‘go to McDonald’s’.
The man, who didn’t give his name, added that the prison was overcrowded and that people criticising the policy ‘haven’t been in there’.
Not everyone was happy to be out though, with Jack Creighton, 54, telling reporters he was going to ‘spend the night on a park bench’ due to having no accommodation lined up.
At Holme House prison in Stockton on Tees there were cries of delight and beaming smiles from inmates as they passed through the large retracting metal doors.
Taxis ferried inmates away from the 34-year-old prison, while wives and girlfriends patiently waited in a visitor car park for emotional reunions.
One newly-freed prisoner, picked up in a white Audi, celebrated his early release by stopping at a nearby McDonald’s drive-thru minutes later.
One prisoner, who served time for fraud but did not want to be named, told how he was freed ahead of his scheduled November release date.
He said: ‘There are loads coming out today – there are 52 of us. We’re coming out six at a time, the next lot are just being processed now.
‘I was meant to be out in November but instead of serving half the sentence in prison, they’ve taken ten per cent off.’
A prisoner released early from his two-year assault sentence told how he was going home to Redcar, North Yorkshire.
He said: ‘I was meant to be out in November but they told me a month ago that I’d be coming out a couple of months earlier.
‘I’ve been buzzing to get out. I’ve got a couple of meetings with probation then I’m going to see my family. I can’t wait to see my mam and dad.
‘We’ll have a drink to celebrate.’
One prisoner told how the jail, which has capacity for 1,179 prisoners but only 38 spare bed, was ‘rammed’.
Released from a two-year sentence for violence, the man, carrying two hold-alls of prison possessions, said: ‘It’s chock-a-block in there.
‘People are climbing the walls with anxiety. I’ve been coming to jails since 1998, but this is the worst it’s ever been. There’s no space to move in there. It’s horrendous.’
Prisoners released from HMP Elmley on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent were similarly effusive about the Prime Minister.
One, who was released at 9.30am, had served four years for fraud.
The man, who did not want to give his name, said: ‘It’s like a great escape.
‘I had a few months left I thought. I am delighted. I’ve not been in trouble since I have been in prison and I don’t want to go back.’
He added: ‘Thank you Sir Keir Starmer, you’re the best.
‘It’s a right touch. My family are well pleased.’
Those released were greeted by waiting family and friends, with bottles of champagne being popped when on inmate was released.
Many of them were given new clothes by loved ones as they walked out, included one who received a £120 Nike tracksuit.
Another said: ‘It’s just brilliant. I can’t wait to start again. It was quite easy in there. I kept out of trouble.
‘I thought I had got another six months left. This is a brilliant policy. It’s packed in there. People deserve to be let out early.’
He added: ‘The system won’t last much longer if it carries on that way. I have no idea how it ever got that bad.’
There were similarly strong words from offenders released at HMP Manchester, with Karl Wilson, saying: ‘The system is f***** plain and simple. Drugs and mobile phones are rife.
‘The first thing he needs to deal with is the volume of foreign prisoners in British jails. The second is to get serious about the prison system. And the third is to put some money into the system.’
Charlie Taylor, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, has said the government has ‘no choice but to do something’ as ‘the bath was in danger of overflowing, and they either had to turn the taps off or they had to let some water out’.
However, he told Sky News this morning: ‘It’s a risky time with so many prisoners coming out at the same time. Normally, there are about 1,000 prisoners coming out a week.
‘Most of those 1,000 prisoners will still come out this week.
‘But on top of that, we’ve got 1,700 other prisoners, and then in October, we have another tranche of around 2,000 coming out as well, inevitably, that puts some risks into local communities and greater strain on already stretched probation services.’
He told BBC Breakfast: ‘It’s inevitable that some of these prisoners will get recalled to custody and it’s inevitable that some of them will go out homeless.
‘If people are coming out, they’re not properly prepared, and they’re homeless, then what we’ll see is the danger that they’ll commit more offences, or that they breach their bail conditions, in which case they’ll end up back inside again.’
His claim that some inmates would reoffend was echoed by Martin Jones, the chief of probation.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it is a ‘certainty’ some will reoffend, adding that ‘around a third’ will commit further crimes.
Mr Jones added that the scheme was putting a ‘huge amount of pressure’ on the probation service and that due to a lack of probation officers the system is ‘significantly overstretched’.
Inmates currently behind bars will be released after serving only 40 per cent of their sentence – the first time this has been lowered from the previous 50 per cent.
The deeply controversial move will be the largest release of prisoners in a decade, with some prisons in rural areas preparing to lay on coaches to transport freed criminals.
Among those being released is Lawson Natty, who supplied a machete that was used to kill 14-year-old Gordon Gault in Newcastle in November 2022.
The 18-year-old was convicted of manslaughter and jailed for two years and eight months in March, but will be released today, to the disgust of his victim’s mother, Dionne Barrett.
She told Good Morning Britain: ‘I feel totally sick to my stomach that he’s allowed out now after only serving months it’s absolutely sickening.
‘He’ll be getting out within the next couple of days he will be going to an immigration processing centre to start with but then he could get bailed from there.
‘He’s going to be back out on the streets after months.
‘Fair enough let petty crimes out, not somebody who’s killed a 14-year-old child, someone who purchases machetes. What if he goes out and does it again to somebody else.’
I think it’s a massive risk, a massive risk in these circumstances for someone to be let out after such a small amount of time
Among those released is a thug who told his ex girlfriend he was ‘enjoying’ attacking her and another who broke his partner’s jaw are among the prisoners who could be free men today under Labour’s early release scheme.
Among those set to walk free are Connar Shaw, from Rotherham, who will only serve 13 months of his 32-month prison sentence after strangling his partner and threatening to throw acid in her face during years of abuse.
It comes despite his victim saying in court how she would be scared when he is released as ‘there will be repercussions and that he will want to get his revenge on me for being in prison’.
She added: ‘Connar is a psycho and he frightens me – I’m afraid that one day he will end up killing me.’
Shane Riley, from Swansea, will be released after serving less than nine months for punching, kicking and headbutting his ex partner after she broke up with him on June 8, 2020.
Riley, who said he was ‘enjoying’ the abuse, was sentenced to 23 months for causing actual bodily harm, common assault, making threats to kill, and criminal damage. He will serve less than nine months.
Another offender who will taste freedom will be Jordan Green, who was put behind bars after he pleaded guilty to robbery and dangerous driving in March.
He was jailed for 27 months after an incident saw him approach a woman’s window in Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees and screech: ‘Get out of the f***ing car.’
He proceeded to hurl her mobile phone out of his window as he sped off, which allowed her to take an image of the criminal.
Green, who was previously handed a prison sentence after he attacked his own mother, will only spend four months in jail.
Others set to be freed include drug dealer Patrick Scotland, of west London, who was jailed for ten years in 2020 after police found £2.2million of MDMA and crystal meth in his flat.
Fellow criminal Jason Holland, from Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, who was part of a gang which supplied drugs worth £70million around the M25 could be freed despite being jailed for 12 years in 2020.
Prison bosses are now having to ‘carefully choreograph’ the mass releases over fears of violent clashes between gang rivals, understands.
Meanwhile, a rise in homelessness is also feared as some prisoners are released with nowhere to go.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is providing accommodation for 12 weeks only, meaning some could end up on the streets and committing crime.
Prison leaders said there was even a risk that some of those freed today will become homeless straight away.
Mark Fairhurst, national chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association, told the Mail: ‘History tells us that there will be people who slip through the net.
A significant number of inmates at jails such as HMP Wandsworth and HMP Thameside in London are subject to ‘non-association’ orders preventing them from mixing with other inmates – usually members of rival gangs.
This means their releases will have to be staggered to avoid violence, a source told .
They added that these releases were being done in small groups, but warned that any delays with getting prisoners to reception, recovering their property and arranging transport could lead to rivals being brought together by mistake.
Dame Diana Johnson, the policing minister, insisted plans would be put in place to avoid re-offending by domestic abusers and other high-risk criminals.
She told Sky News: ‘There’s been a real trawl through to try and identify where their primary offence isn’t domestic abuse, we know there’s a history, and that’s where the steps have been put in to protect as best we can.
‘Because we know, unfortunately, domestic abuse is so prevalent amongst the offending community.’
Asked by the BBC how many prisoners were due to be released today, she said: ‘I understand it’s in the region of about 1,700.’
A senior government source warned yesterday that a high proportion of those released would be domestic abusers.
Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, warned that about a third of domestic abuse survivors were likely unaware that their perpetrators are due to set free.
She told the Times that victims were ‘paying the price’ for Britain’s overcrowded prisons, warning that survivors are at risk of their attackers getting in contact with them, with them likely knowing their workplace and home address.
‘We must ensure that victims aren’t lost in the shuffle of the changes that are being made in the prison release schemes and the perception of justice and fairness.
‘Victims of domestic abuse are very focused on those release dates, it causes them sleepless nights, they will change so much of their daily activities knowing that their perpetrator is being released, the uncertainty of not knowing if that person will comply with licensing conditions and of release.
‘This is incredibly stressful in the normal situation so for those dates to change unexpectedly or without them knowing that is a huge consequence for them to pay.’
Newly appointed Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said measures have been taken to reduce the number of domestic offenders being freed by excluding those serving time for coercive control, stalking, harassment and breach of a restraining or non-molestation order.
But prisoners convicted of broader offences like assault or criminal damage, which are not specific to domestic violence, are not excluded.
Official figures showed there were 88,521 people behind bars on Friday, 171 more than the previous record set at the end of last week.
The prison population has now risen by 1,025 people over the past four weeks and now stands at its highest level since weekly population data was first published in 2011.
Crimes exempt from the new early release scheme include prisoners sentences for sexual and violent offences of over four years.
The Justice Secretary said she has been told that the emergency early release plan could prevent prisons running out of space within weeks.
The MOJ has said the move will give them an extra 18 months to allow more prison places to be freed up and allow for a wider review of sentencing to take place.