Victim's anger over attacker's early jail release

Elizabeth Hudson said she "sobbed" on being told her attacker was expected to be released early from jail

An assault victim has said she felt "sick" after being told her attacker could be released from jail earlier than she expected.

Martin Underwood, 49, attacked Elizabeth Hudson at their home in Barnsley in April 2021, before assaulting a second victim while out on police bail.

In February last year, Underwood was jailed for six years and three months, but under the Ministry of Justice's new emergency plan to ease prison overcrowding, he could now be let out in June.

While the government said the scheme was a “temporary measure, giving us time to set about long-term change in the prison system", Ms Hudson said it risked "retraumatising victims".

Underwood, who was Ms Hudson's former partner, was jailed 671 days after his first attack, following several delays.

He had admitted making threats to kill and assault occasioning actual bodily harm against the mother-of-two.

He had also admitted a third charge of non-fatal suffocation against a second woman.

Martin Underwood was jailed in 2023 for more than six years

Ms Hudson said that when Underwood was jailed, she felt like she "could breathe again...I could start to rebuild my life".

However, last Friday she received a letter from the Ministry of Justice telling her Underwood would be released in June 2025 under the emergency scheme.

That would be three months earlier than he would previously have been eligible for release before the introduction of the emergency scheme.

In the letter, it also said Underwood could be eligible for release in December under an existing scheme known as Home Detention Curfew.

"I felt sick, anger. I sobbed," she said.

"That period of calm and stability and safety I thought I had has now been shortened."

Ms Hudson said the letter had come "out of the blue" and she had believed Underwood would not be released early due to his previous dangerous behaviour.

Under the emergency scheme, eligible prisoners who have served only 40% of their fixed-term sentence, rather than the usual 50%, will be automatically released, according to the government.

If Underwood was released in December, it would come after 29 months of his 75-month sentence was served, which was about 38% of his total term.

'Prevent collapse'

Ms Hudson said that knowing Underwood's release date had been brought forward had left her feeling "out of control".

"There's a few months left of peace, so we have to enjoy those. We have to hope the system is capable of managing this," she said.

She added that she thought the government was "retraumatising victims".

"I don’t have any faith in the criminal justice system to keep anyone safe right now," she said.

In a statement, the government said the planned early releases would give it time to go about "building the prisons we need and driving down reoffending".

Meanwhile, Labour's Shabana Mahmood, the lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice, said the change needed to happen to "prevent a total collapse of our criminal justice system that would leave the public less safe".

“If we had not acted when we came into office, there was a real risk the courts would have been forced to delay sending offenders to jail and police left unable to arrest dangerous criminals," she said.

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