Government defends its prisoner early release scheme

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1:00Ditch that where's my money feeling. Most transfers arrive in under 20 seconds. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees. Be smart. Get wise. Download the Wise app today. T's and C's apply. Hello, I'm James Kamarasamy. Thank you for downloading the BBC's World Tonight podcast for Monday the 31st of August. As the government prepares to introduce legislation to allow the early release of some prisoners on indefinite sentences known as IPPs will examine the justice of that decision and the challenges that it could present. Also on the programme, the New York Metropolitan Museum cancels a celebration of the controversial British designer John Galliano.

1:42Lionel Messi hangs up his international boots, will have an appreciation from Argentina, plus the actor with Alzheimer's taking to the London stage in a challenging solo show. And no longer a lightweight, the Olympic rowing champion who's bulking herself up on a vegan diet. When MPs return to the Commons tomorrow, the government will set out further changes to its early prisoner release scheme, following the controversy over the inclusion of two of the killers of PC Andrew Harper on the list of inmates who could be set free. At the weekend, the Prime Minister Andy Burnham closed a loophole by announcing that anyone convicted of manslaughter would no longer be eligible for the scheme.

2:22But with prisons in England and Wales currently close to full capacity, the government is looking at other ways of freeing up space, including by introducing new legislation that would allow some people serving indefinite sentences known as IPPs to be released. IPPs, or Imprisonment for Public Protection, sentences were introduced by Labour in 2005, but were phased out by the coalition government seven years later after they ended up being applied more widely than expected. Under IPPs, prisoners are given a minimum, not a maximum, tariff, and only released when the parole board judges them not to be a threat to the public.

3:00They are then placed on licence, monitored and subject to certain rules. This is what Andy Burnham told BBC Breakfast on Sunday. The public, in my view, would prefer a situation where people who have served their time to be considered for release before those who haven't. And it is correcting an injustice that's been there in the system. Not all, but many were very young when they were sentenced. But the Conservatives have warned that this could lead to dangerous criminals being released. Former Prisons Minister Robert Buckland told the BBC the safety of the public had to be considered. Just under 1 ,000 people remain in prison on IPPs, having never been released.

3:42And the majority of them are in for very serious offences. They're not in for stealing a loaf of bread. They're in for serious violence and sexual offences. And therefore there is a public protection element that remains. Well, let's get a couple of perspectives on this. Joining us now, Sarah Ramsden, campaigner for the United Group for the Reform of IPP. In 2008, her partner was given an IPP. He has since been released. Good evening, Sarah. Good evening. Tell us about your experience with IPPs. So I'm a family member who's directly affected by the IPP sentence. As you mentioned before, my partner, Rob, got given an IPP in 2008.

4:19He was sentenced to one year, 288 days for an assault. that ended up with him spending 14 years in total in custody under that sentence he's since been released uh is in the community has committed no further offenses and has actually has his license revoked however um rob is one of the few a lot of people are still caught up in this as your reporter said and there has been a strong campaign ever since for people who've been affected by this and a lot of other people have joined into this just for the sheer injustice of the actual sentence and the difficulty it causes. Tell us about the difficulty then that prisoners on IPPs have had in getting out because they've had to pass various tests, haven't they, to prove that they would be safe on the outside.

5:07Well, a lot of the issues really resonate from the fact that once you go inside and you're on an indeterminate sentence, you have no release date, you're then put onto your sentence plan. Your sentence plan requests that you to do certain things in order to sit to your parole board and place release. A lot of prisoners are placed in prisons and they become trapped in that prisons because those courses are not available. So basically, the goalposts are constantly moving for them. So even if they have managed to complete a course, they will then get to the parole board and another course will then become available.

5:39And then they'll be requested to do that. So they get trapped into a cycle. And there is also issues with people's mental health. To be kept inside custody indefinitely with no idea of when you're coming out is going to have an impact on anyone's mental health. And it has. So we have a lot of people whose mental health has then become a barrier to them actually being released. What do you say then to the Conservatives? And Nick Timothy, for example, Conservative MP, said that the people who are still in prison on those sentences are dangerous because they've all been considered by independent expert assessors who have concluded they are not safe to be released.

6:15the concern that there are amongst these many potentially dangerous prisoners who could be released? What I would say is that anyone who was subject to an IPP sentence is not a unique type of offender. They were put into a unique type of sentence. They are people who prior to IPP brought in who've committed offences and people since IPP being abolished in 2012 who've committed offences. The prison system deals with them in a determinate way. So we've got people who've been labelled under a particular type of sentence who are then basically held to that beyond what anyone would deem to be reasonable for the offences they've committed.

6:54If you've been like my partner who was put on a sentence of one year, 288 days, and then served 14 years on that sentence, you have to ask yourself what is actually happening in a system that's allowing that to happen when he will serve alongside someone else who was served, who's committed an offence prior or after that, and then we'll go in, do the determinate bit and be released into the system as is now for the majority of people. Just a final thought then, are you, as someone who's campaigned on this, optimistic when you hear the noises from the government? I would say as someone who's campaigned on this alongside a lot of old people for a long time, it would be cautiously optimistic.

7:33There is a lot that needs to be done to make sure this is done properly. We're talking about people who have been inside the system for a long time, who will need specific support to be able to be released carefully and with keeping the public protection at the foremost as well. We're not saying just open the doors and let everyone out. We're saying that this has gone on for a long time, it will need addressing correctly and it will need doing proper to ensure that everyone feels satisfied that this is done correctly. Sarah Ramsden from the United Group for the reform of IPP. Thanks very much indeed.

8:04Well, let's turn to those practical challenges that could come from this. we can speak now to Ben Coburn, National Chair of NAPO. It's a trade union that represents probation officers. Good evening, Ben. Good evening. What has been the experience of you, your members, of working with people on IPPs? I think there's lots of merit in what Sarah says. It's been an incredibly difficult sentence for people who have been sentenced to this to understand and to deal with and to progress through. There's been a significant level of under-resourcing in the prisons, but also in the community as well, to manage people through this sentence and to work with people on the rehabilitation.

8:44I definitely think there's a significant case there for the effects of this sentence on people serving it in terms of their mental health. I think shorthand we use phrases like institutionalisation, and that's definitely something that the government needs to bear in mind. Again, lots of everybody who's serving this sentence has committed a serious sexual or violent offence as well, albeit in some cases decades ago now from when the sentence was imposed. and if the sentence is going to be simply terminated or deleted then I do think there are some significant considerations for the government to make about what happens to those people who are either in prison or who are being repeatedly recalled back to prison and what that looks like when they're actually released from prison.

9:24Well, on the Today programme this morning the Victims Minister Alex Davis-Jones said that the public would be able to be protected using exclusion zones. Is that feasible? well I'm not quite sure how that would work because if the sentence has been deleted then what supervision would there be under to attaching exclusions onto somebody I mean I think this is testament to some of the confusion in the way the government is thinking at this stage if that is the comment that was made because either they're going to be on some sort of license haven't been released from prison or they're not going to be serving the sentence anymore I guess the government can't have it both ways they can't be both supervising people and saying they're protecting the public and working on the rehabilitation using somebody like the probation service to manage these people coming out of prison, but then on the same sense have absolutely no control over them in terms of any sort of statute.

10:11What kind of support then would the probation service need in order to cope with the release of these prisoners on IPPs? I mean, I think that takes another point in terms of all of the early release schemes, all of these plans to empty prisons and to deal with the prison capacity issue completely ignores the fact that the probation is in absolute crisis when it comes to its own excessive workloads, and that's more pressing than the prisons as it stands currently. We've been overworked for years, and we're talking about a prison system that could reach capacity in a couple of months. It's been several years that we've been overcapacity, not able to cope with the amount of people that are coming through, but successive governments have looked at early release schemes, similarly we've seen to be looking at IPPs, and have seen this as being the solution without considering who's actually going to try to pick up the work.

10:59So you're saying that the pressures on prison capacity, which are clearly there, would just be what, transferred to probation workers? As they have been with every single early release scheme that's taken place since 2022 now, with the end of custody supervised licence. I think this is the key thing. The Prime Minister and the government seem to be focused on a crisis in the prison service that's coming rather than dealing with the one that they're in right now and that they've known about for two years since they've been in power. And what about electronic monitoring? Electronic monitoring is often pushed by ministers and others in terms of being some sort of solution, but it's really important for the public to know that probation staff react to those breaches.

11:40We contract them in real time. We don't have constant access. We're not sitting with some sort of alarm on our desks that go off when somebody enters an exclusion zone or, as planned in the future, leaves a restriction zone. We get notified of that sometimes hours after the event. And I think the public really do need to understand that if we're going to talk about what exclusion zones do and don't do, they definitely do not seem to be this magic solution that continually gets trotted out by different ministers. So as the government considers going forward with legislation on IPPs, what is your message to the relevant ministers?

12:18It's an incredibly complex and nuanced position. you are dealing with some of the most damaged and institutionalised people within the criminal justice system for the reasons that Sarah has spoken about. Equally, you are dealing with people who may well need some significant levels of support or supervision of some sort coming at the other end of when they are being released from prison or if they're just relatively recently out of prison, how that carries on in the long term. Now, how you reconcile that with some sort of statutory supervision or some sort of informal support. I really don't think the government has the answer to that at the minute.

12:53The other thing I would say is the probation service currently are struggling to deal with the workload that they've got. These are particularly complex individuals that need a lot of time and attention. So they are not, if there's no such thing as a normal person leaving prison, everybody's unique in that sense. But this creates so much more work that we need to be able to deal with and have confidence to deal with. and at that stage was simply all there. Ben Coburn, National Chair of the Trade Union, representing probation officers. Thanks very much indeed. And coming up later on in the programme, an actor diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease two years ago is returning to the London stage this week.

13:31He's told our reporter Jim Reid why it was so important for him to take on one of the toughest roles in theatre. I think it's a deeper recognition of it. I think I need to make the best of the early stage and prepare as best I can for the middle stage and then it'll be out of control. And I might live through it or I might drop. And it's a swan song. A swan song on stage, that report later on in the programme. Now, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has cancelled a major exhibition honouring the British designer John Galliano, The four-decade retrospective had been due to open next May, but Galliano and the Met have jointly pulled the plug following a backlash over the designer's previous anti-Semitic and anti-Asian comments.

14:25Fifteen years ago, a Paris court found him guilty of making public insults on the grounds of origin, religion or race. He was fired from his role as Dior's creative director, but he did return to the fashion industry three years later. In a statement today announcing the exhibition's cancellation, John Galliano wrote, I remain fully accountable for the pain caused by my words in the past, particularly the hurt I caused to the Jewish and Asian communities, and I remain deeply sorry for it. Well, the exhibition at the Met's Costume Museum would have been only the third for a living design. It was due to coincide with the Met Gala, overseen by John Galliano's long-time friend and supporter, Anna Wintour.

15:04Today, she backed what she called her friend's very courageous decision. The Speaker of the New York City Council, Julie Menon, was among those who had strongly objected to the exhibition, and earlier she gave me her reaction to today's news. I think this was absolutely the right decision. It was imperative that the Met reverse course on this because a decision to honour John Galliano in the first place was deeply troubling, and I think a very grave mistake. What were your main objections? As the first Jewish speaker of the New York City Council and as a daughter of a Holocaust survivor, the fact that the Metropolitan Museum would choose to honor someone who has a history of anti-Semitic and anti-Asian slurs was concerning.

15:54Obviously, the remarks that John Galeano made included remarks such as, I love Hitler, the Jews should be gassed. In addition to the anti-Asian slurs he made, the Met is a cultural icon. The New York City Council gives over$3 million to the Met for educational programs? And what kind of message would we be sending to young people in New York City to say that John Galliano should be celebrated and lauded? It's one thing to have his work, some of his dresses exhibited. It is an entirely different thing to do what the Met was proposing to do, which was to honor him in the celebratory gala where he would be exalted and lauded.

16:38I always believe in repentance and second chances, but that's not what was at stake here. What was at stake here is making a decision to honour him, to celebrate him. Well, we can speak now to Vanessa Friedman, who's fashion editor of the New York Times. Welcome to the programme, Vanessa. Before we get on to the controversy, the significance of John Galliano being given this exhibition, I mean, it is rare, isn't it, as I mentioned, for a living designer to get this kind of honour? It's historic. It's really almost unheard of. You think of designers like Poiré, Charles James, Versace, Schiaparelli, V &A.

17:20None of them had this honour when they were alive. And that is not surprising when you think of an institution like the Met, which really is about the preservation of history and art for posterity. and you know John would have been only the third living designer and that is what vaulted this the idea of the exhibition and the conversation around this really into a different a different level yeah and we heard there from the speaker of New York City Council I think she's been pretty instrumental in this outcome. It clearly was going to be controversial, given what happened and that prosecution in France, you know, a decade and a half ago.

18:06Yeah, I mean, the museum clearly expected this to be a little controversial. And, you know, one of the things they did before the announcement, actually, before the Times had discovered this was happening and we wrote a story about it and then they did an announcement right after that. One of the things they did was bring in a lot of rabbis, leaders of the Jewish community in New York, the president of the Anti-Defamation League, to meet with John and Anna and Andrew and Max Holleyn, the director of the museum, to judge for themselves whether or not, I guess, he was sincere and his atonement in a funny way that actually, I think, created sort of a distraction from what ultimately became the kind of crux of this story, which is the museum's decision to have the show.

18:57Just explain, if you will. I mean, they were being asked to judge John's repentance, when in fact, the real issue was the decision by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you know, one of the most important cultural institutions in New York, to have a show that celebrated this designer while he was still alive, given his history at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise in the city, in the country, and in the world. You know, these exhibitions don't happen in a vacuum. They happen in context. And I think it was felt increasingly by political figures, by museum supporters and donors, even by some people on the board of trustees, that the exhibit could act as a sort of provocation at a time when that could be really dangerous.

19:51Yeah. And I mean, clearly he's been involved in this decision. As you say, he was involved in these discussions to try and prove that his repentance for what he did in the past was genuine. in um where does this leave him do you think in the fashion world i mean i honestly think this was probably the best decision for everybody involved you know john really had um he had gotten a second chance in fashion he had used it well he was being lauded by the industry you know just in january of this year he sat front row at the dior couture show which was his first time back in that Brands since he had been fired.

20:33And, you know, the Arno family, which owns LVMH, which owns Dior, were hugging him, you know, supporters were surrounding him. So fashion had clearly re-embraced him. And I think by making this his choice, by saying, I don't want to harm the museum, to harm the city, to add to the tension currently in the current environment, And, you know, he was protecting both his own reputation and that of the museum. Vanessa Friedman, fashion editor of The New York Times. Thanks very much indeed for joining us. Support comes from Wise, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the globe. Fed up with losing out to hidden fees when you send money abroad with your everyday bank?

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21:45Five days after the flash floods in Nepal and Tibet, rescue efforts are currently focused on a vast network of mud-filled tunnels where hundreds of people working for hydropower plants are thought to be trapped. According to the latest official figures, around 950 people have died and nearly 4 ,000 others are missing after part of a glacier collapsed, causing a deluge which has flattened a series of villages, turning them into a muddy lunar landscape. Rescuers have continued battling to reach the trap workers today, using explosives to blast into the hillside, but time is running out. This man was waiting at the mouth of one of the tunnels, hoping to hear news of his trapped colleagues.

22:29The tunnel was the only safe place to go. When there is a flood or an earthquake, it's usually the only safe place to stay. But this time, it wasn't safe. The rescuers told me it's full of debris inside. They had come two days ago as well. They were able to get 90 metres inside, but they said there was a lot of mud and it was impossible to go in any further. Aman Budatoki is a commercial helicopter pilot who has been helping with the rescue efforts. He was flying over the affected territory last Wednesday and he told my colleague Rebecca Kesby what he saw. The scale on which everything was unfolding, we never thought it would be this huge.

23:13It looked like a landslide in the beginning as there was debris all over and there was a thick cloud of dust all over the surface of the river. And then the next five to ten seconds, we started seeing the whole scenario unfold. And how did you feel at that moment to be safely in the air and seeing this unfold on the ground? As soon as we realised what was happening, what was unfolding there, I looked at the other captain and I said, what do we do now? That was our first reaction. What do we do now? We were flying alone in that area. There were no other aircrafts inside that valley. And then we started making circles, orbits around the villages that we knew.

23:57And as we were having this conversation, me and the other captain, I asked him, the people down there, they might be hearing the sound of our helicopter, and they might have this little hope of us landing right now and then rescuing them. But unfortunately, with that dust cloud, as I said, it was impossible for us to go and land at that exact moment. So the only thing we could do was contact Kathmandu and then inform all the security personals so that rescue can be initiated as soon as possible. It felt like a tsunami was unfolding. It felt like that firsthand. And that was Aman Budatoki, a commercial helicopter pilot.

24:36He's speaking to the BBC's Rebecca Kesby. Now there are some big boots and an iconic number 10 shirt to fill after Lionel Messi announced today that he is retiring from international football. The Argentinian captain bowed out with the World Cup final, but not with the result he would have wanted. Of course, Argentina's top scorer and most cap player did lift the trophy four years earlier in Qatar and during a storied club career, including 21 years with Barcelona. He also won the most prestigious individual award in world football, the Ballon d 'Or record eight times. He also caused plenty of excitement in crowds and in the commentary box.

25:14And there he is! There he is! It's Messi!

25:20Messi gets the World Cup record! Argentino, what do you say, Leo? Another accolade for the little maestro! Pure Messi magic! Well, the Argentinian football writer Marcela Mora y Arrao joins me now. Marcela, well, look, the question, I think I might have asked you this before on air, is Messi or Maradona the greatest? I guess today people are reflecting on Messi. Yes, I don't think the comparison is in any way relevant. They were both absolutely amazing. Between them, they played in 10 of the last 12 World Cups. So Argentina's got now four generations at least of people who have one way or another enjoyed the sense of being the best in the world, you know, that sort of inexplicable pride and joy that comes from being from the same country as someone who is very, very good at something.

26:22and yes I mean his record most goals the most caps as well as that you know 2022 lifting the World Cup I mean I guess you know the superlatives people sort of run out of them really haven't they maybe you haven't no no I have completely run out of them and every time I think that's it something happens again but you know it's lifting the cup in 22 obviously the pinnacle of his career, the moment of true joy and happiness for millions of Argentinians and millions of football fans around the world who really wanted him to win a World Cup because it felt like the thing was missing. But reaching the final again in 26 and having reached the final in 2014 is an incredible accomplishment as well.