Prisons & Probation – Latest News:
- Tue, 11 Nov 2025 22:30:07 +0000: Domestic violence victims at risk under bill aimed at easing prison overcrowding, watchdog warns - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
Victims and survivors “will be put in harm’s way” with “devastating consequences”, domestic abuse commissioner says
Violent partners will be allowed to “return to harassing, stalking and abusing” with impunity under a bill before parliament that is supposed to ease prison overcrowding, a watchdog has warned the lord chancellor.
In a letter to David Lammy, the domestic abuse commissioner, Dame Nicole Jacobs, said the sentencing bill’s aim to re-release the vast majority of offenders recalled to prison after 56 days would mean that victims and survivors “will be put in harm’s way” and lead to “devastating consequences”.
Continue reading... - Tue, 11 Nov 2025 18:40:29 +0000: Nandy rules out taking action to remove Robbie Gibb from BBC board – as it happened - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
Culture secretary also condemns MPs who dismiss BBC as ‘institutionally biased’ in swipe at Badenoch and Farage. This live blog is closed
Here is a round-up of what various lawyers and commentators have been saying about Donald Trump’s legal case against the BBC.
Joshua Rozenberg, the legal commentator and a former BBC journalist, has said in a post on his A Lawyer Writes Substack that the corporation should settle. He explains:
Given what Brito is claiming, the lawyer is unlikely to be impressed with the BBC’s assertion that “the purpose of editing the clip was to convey the message of the speech made by President Trump so that Panorama’s audience could better understand how it had been received by President Trump’s supporters and what was happening on the ground at that time”.
So the BBC would be well advised to draft a retraction and apology in terms that the president’s lawyer finds acceptable. Brito is also calling for this to be broadcast as prominently as the original programme. And the corporation will have to pay compensation.
George Peretz KC, chair of the Society of Labour Lawyers, says on Bluesky, commenting on Rozenberg’s blog, that the BBC might be better off with a more robust approach.
So at the moment, despite @joshuarozenberg.bsky.social’s piece, I wonder whether a better BBC response would be the Arkell v Pressdram one. proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/a...
(At least to the extent he’s seeking more than a formal apology limited to the obvious mistake and a very modest offer of compensation.)
There is, after all, the risk of a dangerous precedent here. The BBC will often offend foreign leaders – some worse than Trump. Sometimes it will make factual mistakes in reporting on them. Yield to Trump now, and who next?
Mark Stephens, a media lawyer, told BBC Breakfast that a court case could reflect badly on Trump. He said:
Every damning quote that he’s ever uttered is going to be played back to him and picked over – not great PR.
Trump risks turning what’s currently a PR skirmish with the BBC very much on the back foot into a global headline that the court finds Trump’s words were incendiary …
George Freeman, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York and a former lawyer for the New York Times, told the BBC that Trump “has a long record of unsuccessful libel suits – and an even longer record of letters like the one you received that don’t end up as lawsuits at all”.
Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer who is trying to recover costs from Trump after the president sued him unsuccessfully in the UK, says Trump’s latest threat is preposterous.
Donald Trump’s threat to sue the BBC in London is preposterous. He remains in breach of English High Court orders in a case he brought and lost against Orbis 18 months ago. So any further abuse of the UK courts by him for such legal tourism and intimidation should be prohibited.
Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor, says the BBC has been told Trump does not have a case.
The legal advice to the BBC I am told is that President Trump was not meaningfully damaged by Panorama’s manipulation of his 6 January speech, and that therefore there is no legal necessity to pay him compensation. The BBC board is therefore likely to resist and fight his demand to be “appropriately compensated” out of court, and will risk him carrying through on his threat to seek $1bn in damages by going to court.
These times are difficult for the BBC but we will get through it. We will get through it and we will thrive. This narrative will not just be given by our enemies. It’s our narrative. We own things.
I see the free press under pressure. I see the weaponisation. I think we have to fight for our journalism.
We have made some mistakes that have cost us but we need to fight for that.
Continue reading... - Tue, 11 Nov 2025 18:38:04 +0000: David Lammy says 91 prisoners freed in error in England and Wales since April - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
Justice secretary tells MPs as many as four may still be at large and blames previous governments’ cuts for mistakes
The justice secretary has revealed that 91 prisoners have been released by mistake in England and Wales since April, of whom as many four remain at large.
David Lammy gave details in a Commons statement of three mistakenly released prisoners the police are trying to trace. He said the Prison Service was also investigating a fourth inmate released in error last Monday who may still be at large.
Continue reading... - Tue, 11 Nov 2025 05:00:10 +0000: When I met Craig he was 13 and homeless. I still thought his life might turn around. I was tragically wrong - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
I knew he was running away from something. It wasn’t until many years later that I discovered the truth
Craig was a runaway when I first met him. Missing from a local children’s home, he spent his days hanging out in Nottingham city centre. He had just turned 13 and he was tall for his age, easily recognisable with his blond hair, but he seemed invisible to the authorities.
No one was looking for him or the other dozen children who congregated on the market square. Most of them had absconded from care, some were dodging school. A few, like Craig’s mate Mikey, just didn’t bother going home. The youngest runaway, Mark, claimed he’d been missing from foster care for months and had spent his 12th birthday on the run. They were glad to have found each other and for a week or so they slept together in an alleyway. Craig organised bedding. He had picked up some tips from the experienced rough sleepers, he told me, as he collected cardboard he’d stored behind a bin. “Keeps the cold off your bones,” he said, without confidence. That was his first taste of being homeless.
Continue reading... - Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:54:59 +0000: AI chatbots could help stop prisoner release errors, says justice minister - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
HMP Wandsworth gets green light to use AI after team sent in to find ‘quick fixes’ after spate of mistakes
Artificial intelligence chatbots could be used to stop prisoners from being mistakenly released from jail, a justice minister told the House of Lords on Monday.
James Timpson said HMP Wandsworth had been given the green light to use AI after a specialised team was sent in to find “some quick fixes”.
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