Survivors fear being hurt by abusers released early from prison

Debbie Beadle, chief executive of Fearfree, which works to end domestic abuse, sexual violence and stalking in the South West, said the impact of the early release scheme on women was “huge”.

“It makes them very unsettled and often fearful for their lives,” she said.

She added that “what we’re saying to women” with early releases “is that it doesn’t matter what happened to you, and we’re enabling these people that have harmed you to come out early”.

Other charities, like the Hollie Gazzard Trust, set up following the murder of Hollie by her ex-partner in Gloucester in 2014, say an overhaul of the justice system is needed to make it more victim-focused.

“It’s a very difficult place to be in when you don’t feel safe, when you don’t feel the state is protecting you,” Beadle added.

“We can’t have that in a civilized society going forward, we have to change things.”

Concerns have also been raised by police forces, which say the scheme will add to their already stretched workloads.

Police and Crime Commissioner for Gloucestershire Chris Nelson said forces would have to make tough decisions.

“There’s the issue of monitoring, which is primary the responsibility of probation, but there’s also a certain amount of monitoring that goes on within the constabulary,” he added.

“So when you increase the load on a police force without any additional money, you have to ask hard questions – where are you going to support? Who are you not going to support?”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said new “restriction zones” were being introduced to confine the highest-risk sexual and violent offenders to an area just a few miles wide and to keep them away from their victims.

They added a “record number” of offenders were also being electronically tagged along with bans from pubs, clubs, football matches and public events.

Justice Secretary Alex Norris said it was the “toughest ever range of tools to control prison leavers and better protect the public”.

“We understand the anxiety victims face ahead of offenders’ release dates, but the greatest danger to victims would be prisons running out of cells for dangerous criminals, which was the crisis this government inherited,” he said.

“Our plan will make sure this never happens again by building 14,000 prison places while subjecting offenders to the toughest ever controls – leaving them nowhere to hide and under no doubt that we are watching them.”