Seven life prisoners given temporary release with wrong risk score still in jail

Seven of the eight prisoners given temporary release while having the wrong risk score are still in jail, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

An IT glitch led to 1,317 risk scores in the system used by the prison service and social workers not matching the correct risk level identified by professionals, 285 of which were “open cases”.

Under new rules put in place in 2011, a “first grant of temporary release” for prisoners serving a life sentence was put in place – which would allow the community safety minister to approve requests for the first temporary release.

Justice Secretary Keith Brown told the Criminal Justice Committee last week that eight such prisoners were granted temporary release with the wrong score.

But the First Minister told MSPs on Thursday that seven of these prisoners are still in jail and no threats to public safety had been identified.

“I can confirm today that of these eight individuals, seven of them are actually still in custody as we speak,” she said.

“Because first grant of temporary release is not final release, it is about allowing some form of limited access to the community for the first time.

“All 285 open cases that the risk scoring level appeared to have effected have also now been checked by social work professionals and they have provided assurances again that no public protection issues have been identified.”

The First Minster went on to say that the decision to release prisoners, temporarily or permanently, is not “based solely” on risk scores.

But Conservative justice spokesman Jamie Greene, standing in for Douglas Ross at First Minister’s Questions after the party leader had fallen ill, said it is not yet known if those released early with the wrong risk scores had offended again.

“The reality is we still don’t know how many people were wrongly released, we also don’t know how many of them went on to reoffend in our communities,” Mr Greene said.

“I’m afraid that this blunder is just another sign that this Government has lost its way on justice.

“Because it’s not just letting criminals out early by accident – half of violent criminals avoid jail completely.

“Even when they do go to jail, the SNP’s latest proposal is to cut automatic early release even further, so they serve even less time in jail in the first place.”

Mr Greene referenced an ongoing consultation on proposals for the justice system, which suggest some of those on short sentences could be released after serving a third of the allotted time.

The Tory MSP also hit out at the courts backlog, which is predicted to take until 2026 to relieve, saying one victim of domestic abuse saw her court date delayed 18 times over three years.

“She told us that ‘this now feels like court sanctioned abuse’,” he said.

“It’s a shocking case, but she’s not the only one.”

Mr Greene pointed to a report compiled for the Scottish Government’s Victims Taskforce which found that six women had withdrawn complaints due to delays in the process.

“Of course Covid made it worse, but let me tell you there were tens of thousands of cases in that backlog before Covid even started so it cannot be used as an excuse,” he said.

In response, the First Minister said: “There is a serious backlog caused, and certainly exacerbated, by Covid in our court service and we are very focused with the court service and the wider justice community in addressing that, and I know everybody who works in our courts service, everybody who works in the Crown Office, is very seized of the importance of prioritising domestic abuse and violence against women and children cases.

“These are very serious cases and I absolutely recognise that.

“That is why we have invested in the recovery fund, that is why in the Budget we are increasing the resources available to the courts service so that they can tackle that backlog.”