Child rape survivor calls on Andy Burnham to completely block rapists and paedophiles from early release

A survivor of child sexual abuse has called on the Prime Minister to completely block rapists, paedophiles and violent offenders from ever being eligible for early release.

Speaking to GB News, campaigner Jade Belgrove said that although she is "grateful" for Andy Burnham's pause on more criminals being released early, there must be a "complete stop".

Confirming the freeze on the scheme on Thursday, Mr Burnham said that he wants to "assure myself that everything has been looked at before this policy proceeds".

He added: "I can’t say that I can change the policy completely but I will look at it in detail before we go further forward."

Reacting to the decision, Ms Belgrove told GB News that it is "very much welcome".

She said: "I do very much welcome the pause on it, but it needs to change officially.

"We need to put a whole complete stop to rapists, paedophiles and violent offenders being let back out into the community."

Asked by host Charlie Peters whether she believes the sentences for such crimes are "long enough in the first place", she was quick to disagree.

She said: "Not at all. My perpetrator on paper was sentenced to 30 years for three counts of rape and one of sexual assault, so on paper, he had 30 years, but because it was a concurrent sentence, he only had to serve nine of that.

"Obviously, when it was put in place, it was two thirds, when he had done six years in prison. So six years for what he has put me through is nothing.

"And then obviously on top of that, to then have the early release scheme come through, it was just more insult after insult, and it's awful for us to be honest."

Ms Belgrove noted her campaign, a petition named "Oppose the Early Release Scheme", which has secured almost 89,000 signatures, and stressed that they have voiced their concern for the scheme for weeks.

She told GB News: "We've been doing this for weeks now. Myself and other survivors, we've been campaigning and trying to be heard about how serious this really is.

"So for the pause to be put into play, I am very grateful for it, but we should have been listened to a lot longer before than what we have been now."

Ms Belgrove argued that such schemes and release of perpetrators further "undermines their confidence" in Britain's justice system.

She said: "It takes every bit of you to do it and get your justice, and then if that's taken away and people see these schemes coming into place, they'll think, well, what's the point? Because they get nothing anyway. What is the point?"

Ms Belgrove called on the Government to seek other options for increasing prison spaces instead of releasing violent and dangerous criminals back into communities.

She concluded: "There needs to be something put in place, whether it's looking at the non-violent criminals and letting them out, then, okay, that is one thing, but they haven't caused a life sentence for people.

"They haven't physically hurt other people and ruin people's lives, so if that needs to be looked into then albeit.

"But other prisons need to be built or refurbished, because we've all heard about how the the parties had closed prisons down.

"Instead of doing the tagging and the probation, which we all know doesn't work, we all know has faults, and we've already seen that nothing has actually been arranged and put into place for us when we are weeks away from that law coming in.

"So instead of putting them in things that we already know are set up to fail, then invest that in refurbishing prisons and building new ones."