Paul Birch
Paul Birch is a former police officer and counter-terrorism specialist.
The planned early release of two men convicted over the death of PC Andrew Harper is not merely an administrative decision. It’s a test of whether the justice system still places victims, police officers and public safety ahead of prison management targets. And it doesn’t look like it does.
Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole were jailed for 13 years in 2020 for the manslaughter of PC Harper. The prospect that they could be released after serving six-and-a-half years makes a mockery of public confidence in sentencing. Under the plans approved by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, people convicted of manslaughter are still to be released halfway through their sentences. This should alarm anyone who believes a sentence handed down by a court ought to mean what it says.
Those convicted of rape and serious child sexual offences (it makes one wonder if there are such things as ‘non-serious’ child sex offences), including grooming-gang offences, will now be excluded from early release after pressure from victims and families. This concession is obviously welcome. But it only underlines the wider problem: grave offences should not be treated as variables in any calculations of prison capacity.
Lissie Harper, PC Harper’s widow, was right to describe Burnham’s decision as an “utter betrayal”. Her words perfectly capture the human cost borne by families long after the headlines have moved on. Burnham argues that further exemptions could bring the prison system to the brink of collapse “within months”. But a state that can’t keep serious offenders behind bars has not solved a crisis – it has transferred risk from prison governors to the public.
The suggestion that more women prisoners could be released early because of the ‘lower risk’ they pose might ease what is undoubtedly intense pressure on the estate. But it doesn’t answer the central question: why has the government allowed prison capacity to become the public’s problem?
The temporary pause in the release of 6,000 offenders was presented as a review. Yet if Bowers and Cole can still be freed by the end of the year, the review has failed its most basic test: that of reassuring the public that justice is more than just a timetable for clearing prison places.
PC Harper was investigating the theft of a quad bike in Berkshire in August 2019, when Bowers and Cole tried to flee in a car driven by Henry Long (who is not eligible for early release). PC Harper died after his ankles became caught in a tow rope and he was dragged for more than a mile along country roads. Any system that treats early release in such a case as a routine administrative outcome has completely lost sight of the gravity of what happened.
PC Harper’s mother, Debbie Adlam, has described it as a “slap in the face and an insult”. Their justified anger is a demand that punishment, deterrence and respect for victims remain central to justice. The point isn’t about vengeance. It is about justice being credible and proportionate. When the public sees those responsible for such a death walking free years before what the sentence appears to require, the already-diminishing faith in the system will completely erode.
It is especially troubling that Adlam was reportedly told of the review’s outcome only after one offender had already been informed of his impending release. It seems that victims’ families are merely an afterthought in a process conducted in their name. The 13-year sentences handed to Cole and Bowers in 2020 were already inadequate. Cutting the time actually sends a disastrous message about the consequences of grave offending – or lack of.
The roots of this crisis lie in familiar and unglamourous territory – too few prison places, too little long-term planning and a willingness to present emergency releases as reform. The current government, always ready to blame the previous Conservative administration for problems of its own making, actually has a point in this case. This disaster was years in the making. But although overcrowding is undeniably real, it isn’t an argument for weakening public confidence in sentencing.
The original ‘earned progression’ scheme would have allowed serious offenders, including those convicted of killing or rape, to be released halfway through their sentences rather than after two-thirds unless they had breached prison disciplinary rules. That approach wilfully mistakes the absence of bad behaviour in custody for justice. The same logic applies to lower-level offenders. Early release may sometimes be justified, but it should be earned through genuine rehabilitation and public protection, not dictated by a shortage of cells. After all, it is this so-called low level criminality that really blights people’s lives.
Yes, Burnham deserves credit for excluding rapists and child sexual offenders after listening to victims’ concerns. But the principle can’t stop there. If a crime is serious enough to devastate families and undermine public safety, early release should be the absolute exception, not the operating assumption.
The PM has also requested a review of prisoners given indefinite sentences between 2005 and 2012. He said the policy, known as ‘Imprisonment for Public Protection’, had left “hundreds of people in prison since they were young but without any prospect of release”. Automatic tagging, tougher supervision and GPS tracking are not substitutes for custody. They might reduce some risks, but they can’t restore public trust if offenders are released in ways that contradict the seriousness of their crimes.
The problem could be much reduced, indeed eliminated, by deporting the foreign criminals currently residing at His Majesty’s Pleasure. We should not be clogged up with foreign criminals at the expense of British taxpayers and public safety. Ministry of Justice data put the prison population in England and Wales at 87,334 as of June 30th 2025, while foreign nationals made up around one in eight prisoners, with 10,772 foreign nationals in custody on the same date.
At a time when official justice data records 6.6 million police-recorded crimes in England and Wales in 2024–25 and prison capacity remains under severe pressure, deporting eligible foreign national prisoners swiftly and automatically would free up badly needed prison places, cut the burden on the public purse and send a message that those who come to this country and break its laws forfeit the privilege of remaining here.
Yes, there would be an inevitable return of British prisoners abroad, but they would be vastly outnumbered by foreign prisoners going the other way. The pledge to create 14,000 new prison places by 2031 is welcome, but it is an admission that the problem has been allowed to fester. Until capacity catches up with need, the political class shouldn’t be getting victims and the public to absorb the consequences of their own making.
A justice system worthy of the name must protect the public, punish serious wrongdoing and, at the very least, honour the sacrifices of those who serve. If prison overcrowding is allowed to override those duties, the state has not balanced justice with practicality – it has retreated from its most basic responsibility.
This article was originally published by the Daily Sceptic.
