According to the latest reports Omar Khayam has been returned to prison for breaching his probation rules. He acted like a numptie but AFAIK he didn’t actually break any laws, wasn’t arrested or charged with anything. So what did he do that was prohibited under his probationary licence? Don’t these things just relate to staying out of legal trouble and getting gainful employment etc? Or are things like conduct included?
Paging casdave.
It’s too long since I was involved with the Probation Service (in a professional capacity) for me to give an authorative answer, but IIRC, people who are released early are on license - they are not exactly free - and can be recalled to prison if they do not behave themselves.
Oops - hit submit instead of preview. Apart from my first line, my comment doesn’t help. Sorry.
Prisoners can be released in several ways.
- Time served on earliest date of release(EDR)
This applies to most inmates, basically, if they haven’t done anything seriously wrong to have remission taken from them, they will get out at this time.
2.Home Detention Curfew (HDC) To qualify for this you need to be serving less than some particular term, 4 years I think, and you can apply for very early release, but it only applies to certain offences, sex ofences are not one of them, violence is another. The inmate can get out up to 13 weeks sooner than the EDR, but must have a transponder attatched and live at a residence with a phone line which is used to communicate with the transponder.
The prisoner has terms on their freedom(licence) which will usually mean that they cannot leave the premises during certain hours.
- Parole, inmates have to be serving a minimum of 4 years, after some period of time an inmate can apply for parole, to qualify they must have completed lots of courses to address their offending behavious, and have an exemplary record as a prisoner.
It is not unusual for a prisoner to be turned down at their first application for parole and have to apply again some six months later.
4.Lifer parole, these are usually serious offenders, with murder rape, or repeat serious violence.
The presiding Judge will state a minimum time to release, however, to get that release the offender has to apply, and may often be turned down at their first application, it could easily be another three years before they can reapply.
Life sentenced prisoners can stay in prison decades longer than the tariff set by the trial judge if they do not comply.I know of one who will never be released, because of his behaviour in jail, and he came to jail with an 8 year sentence and would have been out in around 6 had he followed the rules, I guess taking staff hostage would be classed as not behaving.
- Full term served, usually this applies to those who got out on their EDR but broke their release conditions and they are recalled to prison by their probation officer, there is no trial but the prisoner ony serves the absolute maximum days that they were sentenced.
The latter is becoming more and more common and applies to the person in this case.
When a prisoner is released early, they must abide by conditions set out on their licence, such conditions may mean not going to a certain town, not associating with certain people, it will definately include not being around firearms, and if they are arrested on suspician of another offence(even if they are not actually guilty of another crime) they can be held for the remainder of their licence period, instead of being on bail.
This particular one was recalled as a precaution by the probation department, he will be held until some investigation takes place to see if he is suspected of another crime, or has just breached his licence conditions.
If it is judged that the gathering had an illegal purpose, such as promoting the deaths of others, he has almost certainly broken his licence, and will probably server the remainder of his prison term, and I believe that this will amount to around two to two and a half years.
If he does serve the whole of that time, he will be released under part 5. of this post.
This means that he will not have a licence and does not have to comply with probation requirements on release.
There are some very big changes slowly working their way through our system, it means that repeat offenders for what would be called lower crimes such as prolific burglary or bodily harm on several seperate occasions are now being awarded life terms, basically, if they breach any of their licence conditions, or are arrested for almost any reason, they can be recalled on the original sentance, no trial.
The standard of evidence for recalling someone on licence is far simpler than another trial, all that need be done is show how the subject breached their licence condition, which is relatively straightforward to do.
Thankyou for that wonderfully comprehensive answer casdave. 