'It's a disgrace!' Labour accused of being 'soft on justice' as thousands of criminals will be released early

The Labour Government has been accused of being "soft on justice" by a former Attorney General after unveiling plans to release thousands of prisoners early.

Speaking to GB News, Sir Michael Ellis declared the decision to free criminals early is a "disgrace".

Up to 6,000 criminals convicted of manslaughter, rape and sexual assault could be released early as part of Labour's prison scheme.

The first group of 700 prisoners will be released in September, with a similar number of criminals freed for each of the next nine months in a staggered release schedule.

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Criticising the Government's decision, Sir Michael told GB News: "This is a disgrace. Being in Government is about leadership and it's about making decisions, and this Government has decided they don't want to invest in the prison estate.

"They don't want to invest in the criminal justice system. What they want to do is to give more money to welfare. They want to tax people and put more money into welfare."

He added: "So they've made a decision that instead of investing in the prison estate and instead of investing in criminal justice and the courts, what they want to do is just get people out of prison quicker. That will then cost the taxpayer less.

"It's a decision to be soft on justice in order to give money elsewhere."

Host Martin Daubney then explained that under the scheme, a criminal jailed for a total of 15 years for manslaughter or for rape would be freed "in under seven and a half years".

Sir Michael responded: "It is totally soft justice. So for decades, the situation has been if you've got a sentence of more than four years imprisonment, you would serve two-thirds.

If you've got a 15-year sentence, you'd serve 10 years, and the remaining five years you'd be on prison licence, which means that you were susceptible to being returned to prison in those last five years if you committed any offences. Now they're reducing that from two-thirds to a half.

"And of course, it's going to mean that people are out of prison in very quick order, and they may well be finding that their victims are on the street with them."

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The ex-Attorney General argued that the Labour Government has made it "very difficult" for judges to "send people to prison in the first place".

He told GB News: "It's almost impossible now for a judge to send someone to prison for less than 12 months, because all of the guidelines and all of the criteria militate against it.

"So it's hard enough to get people into prison, and now when they have been got into prison, they're out after a third of their sentence for the minor offences."

Sir Michael criticised the "lack of deterrent" for repeat offenders under the Labour Government's current justice system.

He said: "The whole point is there has to be a deterrent effect to sentencing. This isn't about a lack of mercy, I believe in looking mercifully at each case and exercising judgment rather than some sort of automatic sentence.

"But once somebody has committed dozens of offences and dozens of shoplifting episodes, it's quite clear nothing is going to stop them from offending except getting them off the streets and giving law-abiding society a break."

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said the Government was "making sure punishment works to cut crime and strengthening supervision in the community".

They added that the Government is "investing £700million into probation, recruiting 1,300 additional probation officers this year, and ensuring every prison leaver is tagged unless there is a clear reason not to".

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