My stalker is being freed early, says Loose Women’s Denise Welch – I feel sorry for anyone who is now living in fear
LOOSE Women star Denise Welch says her stalker is being freed early – adding she feels sorry for anyone who is now living in fear.
Denise shared the “terrifying” news during a discussion on the show about a controversial government scheme to release lags early.
The scheme allows lags to be released after serving 40 per cent of their sentence rather than 50 per cent, as it was before.
It’s not clear whether Welch’s stalker is being released as part of the scheme, which officials say excludes stalkers.
Welch said: “I myself have a stalker who is in prison and is being released early.
“I am not allowed to see any of his mental health reports as regards to the progress of his mental health.
“When I asked ‘Will he be tagged?’ they said ‘Well, that depends if his team decides if that’s encroaching on his human rights.
“So this is what we’re dealing with in this country and I’m glad we’re talking about it.
“I feel really sorry for anyone who is now living in fear because of these releases.”
It comes as a machete thug and a yob who paralysed a baby boy are among the next round of prisoners to be freed early in the scheme.
More than 1,600 inmates were released yesterday in a government bid to free up space in Britain’s overcrowded jails.
Scenes outside prisons across the country showed freed inmates celebrating and one being picked up by a Lamborghini.
Thousands more are set to be freed over the next 18-months – including some convicted of manslaughter.
Other freed lags warned it would be a matter of time before they were reoffending and back behind bars.
Among those due to be released is Lawson Natty, who supplied a machete used to kill 14-year-old Gordon Gault in Newcastle in 2022.
Natty, 18, was convicted of manslaughter and jailed for two years and eight months this March.
But he is now due to be released early as part of the the Ministry of Justice scheme.
Gordon’s mum Dionne Barrett said she was “sickened” by the prospect of Natty walking free before serving his full sentence.
She told Good Morning Britain: “I feel totally sick to my stomach that he’s allowed out now after only serving months.
“It’s absolutely sickening. He’ll be getting out within the next couple of days. He’s going to be back out on the streets.
“Fair enough, let petty criminals out. Not somebody who’s killed a 14-year-old child.
“Someone who purchases machetes. What if he does it again to somebody else?”
Natty had served time on remand which counts against his prison sentence.
It is understood he has been transferred to an immigration detention centre.
Adam Andrews, 37, is also due to be released “imminently” after he was jailed for three years in March.
The thug was handed the sentence for his brutal treatment of a 21-day-old baby boy in 2018.
His victim was left blind and paralysed – and now suffers 40 seizures a day.
The tot has a significantly reduced life expectancy and needs round-the-clock care.
His mum told the Telegraph: “Not only has this process taken almost six years to get a sentence.
“He was given such a lenient sentence in the first place – and now this is being used in his benefit.
“If he is not classed as a serious offender for almost taking my children away, then who is?
“I don’t think members of the public actually understand that people like him will be released.
“People who hurt children, who do the most horrific crimes against a child.”
Andrews, from Greath Whelnetham in Suffolk, was convicted of GBH without intent.
He has never explained why he brutally shook the defenceless baby boy.
Shane Riley, 44, may also be eligible for release after serving just nine months of his 23-month sentence.
Swansea man Riley admitted punching, kicking and headbutting his former partner after she broke up with him.
The brute was jailed for assault causing actual bodily harm, common assault, making threats to kill and criminal damage.
Labour’s scheme allows lags to be released after serving 40 per cent of their sentence rather than 50 per cent, as it was before.
Violent offenders handed sentences of less than four years are included in the early release programme.
More than 140 lags jailed for child cruelty or neglect will also be eligible for early release.
And 2,200 robbers handed sentences of less than four years will also be included.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood told the Commons: “We have taken every measure available to exclude offences from this measure.
“That includes serious violence, sexual violence, offences connected to domestic abuse, terror offences.
Addressing the release of manslaughter convicts, she said: “The offences and the sentences are both taken into account.”
Lags out - what happens now?
By JULIA ATHERLEY, Home Affairs Correspondent
On a day when we have seen drug dealers and violent offenders popping champagne and dancing outside prisons, you might be asking: what happens now?
More than 1,700 offenders have walked free from prison gates across the country today as part of a Government plan to tackle overcrowding behind bars.
But while criminals celebrate getting let out weeks or months earlier than planned, it is the victims who could pay the real price for this controversial policy.
Many have not been told that their perpetrators are set to be back in the community, leaving them blindsided and fearful for what could happen next.
While it was promised that domestic abusers would be exempt from the policy we know that some are likely to have slipped through the net.
Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor has already warned that it is a “certainty” that some of those let out today will reoffend.
On average a third of all those released from prison go on to commit another crime within a year of getting out.
Many inmates who were let out today might be finding themselves with nowhere to sleep tonight, despite the Ministry of Justice supposedly providing up to 12 weeks accommodation for all those at risk of homelessness on release.
While many prisoners were celebrating their freedom today, some were pessimistic about their own ability to stay on the right side of the law.
After serving short sentences in overcrowded prisons with little chance of rehabilitation, it is only a matter of time before they find themselves back behind bars.