𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

In a week of piddling, insignificant decisions, Andy Burnham has made one good one – to halt the release of 5,000 rapists, violent criminals and paedophiles. It’s obscene these ingrates were ever up for early release in the first place having served barely half of their sentences. But it was THE grossest of insults to their terrified victims who will forever live in fear of them. Yet this perversity was inflicted on us by a Labour Government. And the September release of those dregs of humanity would have happened had it not been for the outrage of PC Andrew Harper’s family – and the nation – at news that two of his three killers could be released having served just six-and-a-half years of a 13-year sentence.

These toerags were in the car that dragged PC Harper, whose foot was trapped in a tow rope, for a mile at high speed along a country lane. His body was so badly mutilated that the person who found him thought he was a deer carcass. And the bastards who did that – and laughed as they were jailed – were going to be freed after just six years!

It makes a mockery of our justice system that the people who commit THE most heinous crimes serve just a handful of years when most deserve to be locked up for life. And considering that only 5% of all crimes reported result in a charge it’s ridiculous that prisons are still full to bursting. But the solution to that isn’t to let the worst criminals go free – it’s to create more places in which to cage them.

Labour is currently building three new prisons but they won’t be ready until 2031 and, even then, they’ll only provide 14,000 extra cells to add to the 88,000 we already have. It’s nowhere near enough.

Why aren’t we building Nightingale-style prisons? Why aren’t we converting barracks and barges? Why aren’t we doing what Nigel Farage suggests and building temporary jails on land owned by the MOD? Put all the low-level, white-collar criminals in them and keep the hard nuts in secure jails. We also have 11,000 foreign criminals in our prisons – send them all back.

This isn’t rocket science, yet this Labour Government has done nothing – its attitude being: “To hell with the victims of these criminals…” Burnham wants us to believe he does “human”, so let him think for a minute about what letting scores of violent rapists out of jail does to their terrified victims for whom there is zero protection in place.

Let him think about the children who’ve been abused by filthy paedophiles. Let him think about the families of people like PC Harper who live in hell yet see the people who put them there released after just a handful of years. It makes them feel like the murders of the people they loved don’t matter, that the horrific way they died doesn’t matter.

Every victim of violent or sexual crimes deserves justice, but this early release scheme makes a farce of it. Which is why Burnham just pausing this scheme isn’t enough.

He has to come up with solutions – and fast – because jails are already at 98% capacity and within weeks there won’t be a single cell available. So for now he needs to forget devolution and all his other silly projects and concentrate on building some makeshift prisons.

His Number One job is keeping British citizens safe, not spending billions on a No 10 in Manchester we don’t need. THIS is more important.