PM insists he never wanted to let prisoners go free but says Britain’s jails were ‘at bursting point’
Sir Keir Starmer has said he is “really angry” after criminals released from prison early thanked him as they were picked up in luxury cars.
The Prime Minister said he was infuriated by the scenes outside jails which saw one prisoner who had been released early shout “big up Keir Starmer”.
He insisted that he had never wanted to sign off on the controversial early release scheme but had to because Britain’s jails were “at bursting point”.
Sir Keir was asked how he felt about criminals, who had been set free up to a year early, thanking him for signing off on their release.
In one instance a convicted armed kidnapper who was released early from jail shouted “big up Keir Starmer” as he posed on a new £150,000 Bentley.
The Prime Minister said: “I’m really angry about having to release these prisoners at all.
“I didn’t spend five years of my life as chief prosecutor putting people in prison in order to, as PM, have to release them because our prisons are overfilled.
“But we’ve got to do it because they are at bursting point.”
Sir Keir said that during this summer’s far-Right riots No 10 had to be given charts every day on how many prison spaces were left available.
He said there was “real concern” that there wouldn’t be enough room to lock up people arrested by the police for “very serious offences”.
The Prime Minister blamed Rishi Sunak for the situation, saying his predecessor had ignored police warnings about the lack of space in jails.
He added: “Under the previous administration, we had to tell our courts etc to go slower, because we couldn’t fit them into our prisons.
“That was a really disgraceful state of affairs. I don’t want to release any of these people and I’m angry that we’re having to do so.
“We’ll clear it up and we’ll get it to a proper place so this never happens again. But should it be happening? No, of course it shouldn’t.”
More than 1,200 prisoners serving sentences of five years or more were released on Tuesday morning under a scheme where they are freed just 40 per cent through their jail terms rather than halfway.
They are the second mass release under the emergency plan announced by ministers days after the general election, as men’s prisons in England and Wales almost ran out of spaces by the August bank holiday weekend.
One prisoner released from HMP Swaleside thanked Sir Keir “from the bottom of my heart” and said he had been freed a year earlier than he expected from a four-year jail sentence.
