Issue 423  8th November 2025

Two prisoners are still at large after being mistakenly freed last year, the BBC understands. Another two, who were set free in error in June 2025, also remain missing. Details of the four erroneously released prisoners are emerging as ministers face growing pressure over a number of high-profile mistaken releases. Two other men who were released in error from HMP Wandsworth are now back in custody after high-profile police manhunts this week, after a migrant sex offender was mistakenly set free in late October...

Some 262 prisoners in England and Wales were mistakenly freed in the year to March - up from 115 the previous year. The names of the four still missing, as well as why they were imprisoned and the reason for their mistaken release, remain unclear. A Ministry of Justice (MoJ) spokesperson told the BBC: "The vast majority of offenders released by mistake are quickly brought back to prison, and we will do everything we can to work with the police to capture the few still in the community"...

Paper-based systems will be replaced by 'cutting edge technology' to end the spate of mistaken prison releases currently dominating news headlines, the deputy prime minister has said. David Lammy was speaking at the groundbreaking of a new prison in Gartree Leicestershire following two releases in error this week from HMP Wandsworth. The deputy prime minister and lord chancellor said that a specialist team of engineers, analysts and designers will be deployed to roll out cutting-edge technology to more prisons, reducing human error and modernising the archaic processes that have led to mistakes...

Human error could have led to criminal cases involving alleged grooming gangs being dropped, the early stages of a massive review have found. Operation Beaconport - a National Crime Agency project tasked with unearthing failings to tackle grooming gangs - is set to look at thousands of cases where police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service decided to take no further action against suspects. Police say that there appear to be cases where lines of inquiry were not pursued properly, victim accounts were not taken, and suspects were not interviewed as they should have been. Investigations that were wrongly closed with no further action taken have already been discovered...

Operation Beaconport is a national policing operation led by the NCA and was set up earlier this year in a bid to eliminate inconsistencies in how cases are handled by police forces. It is reviewing cases between January 2010 and March 2025... So far, 1,273 cases relating to allegations of group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation identified by 23 police forces have been referred to the investigation team. Of these, 236 relate to allegations of rape, which Operation Beaconport is reviewing as a priority. The NCA expects the operation to involve thousands of officers from across policing, with Mr Leary claiming it will be "the most comprehensive investigation of its type in UK history"...

Amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill will see ‘child prostitution’ convictions disregarded and pardoned, the government has said. Under the new provisions, people who were convicted or cautioned as children for loitering and soliciting for prostitution offences will automatically have these convictions or cautions disregarded and pardoned. As a result, the criminal records for these offences will be expunged ‘removing the lasting psychological burden, social stigma and barriers to employment and other freedoms these historic convictions have caused’...

The disregard and pardon scheme will apply to individuals convicted for on-street prostitution offences when they were under 18, before the concept of child prostitution was abolished from legislation in 2015. Once the bill receives royal assent, the scheme will apply automatically...

The Council is proposing a series of changes that are designed to bring greater clarity and consistency to guidelines and reflect developments in legislation and case law. These proposals include:

• Making changes to guidelines for two either-way offences: Fraud – to add a reference to gain made or intended by the offender as part of the harm assessment; Strangulation or suffocation – to clarify the wording of the high harm factor
• Amending the Reduction in sentence for a guilty plea guideline to clarify that disqualification from driving is not subject to a guilty plea reduction.
• Changing the presentation and content of magistrates’ courts sentencing guidelines for non-imprisonable motoring offences and the introduction of several new guidelines for these offences, which would allow the Council to provide more detailed guidance, help sentencers and other court users distinguish between similar offences, and bring clarity over how the guidelines should be applied, when and to whom.

The consultation is open until 29 January 2026.

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee is conducting a short inquiry into forensic science, following up on its 2019 inquiry and the recent work from the Westminster Commission on Forensic Science, which described the sector as being in a ‘graveyard spiral’. The inquiry will look at the state of forensic science provision in the UK. It will examine whether issues identified by the previous inquiry and the Commission, including an absence of high-level leadership, a lack of funding, insufficient R&D, and piecemeal provision, have been resolved. It will focus on the future of forensic science in the UK: possible solutions to the crisis, funding models, the role of research and development, especially in digital forensics and AI, and what policy actions need to be taken now...