Hundreds of criminals potentially let out wrongly after Scottish government IT blunder

Justice Secretary Keith Brown revealed at Holyrood yesterday that an IT blunder in a vital risk assessment system has meant that the records of hundreds of prisoners were wrongly marked with the wrong risk.

Under questioning from the Scottish Conservatives, Mr Brown was unable to answer how many prisoners have been wrongly released and how many more cases were yet to be evaluated.

As a result, hundreds of criminals may have been wrongly released from prison, including those serving life sentences released under licence.

Mr Brown admitted that they may now have to delve back through a decade of records to see how many more prisoners were wrongly assessed or mistakenly released early.

The Scottish Conservatives said it was “scandalous” incompetence and called the mistake a “potentially horrendous blunder that may have put the public at risk”.

Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary, Jamie Greene, said: “This is a horrendous blunder that may have put the public at risk. It is scandalous that hundreds of criminals may have been wrongly released from prison when they should still be serving sentences.

“This is a grave error on the justice secretary’s watch no matter how he spins it. He claimed that the public have not been put at risk but the reality is he doesn’t know yet. He has absolutely no idea if this mistake has resulted in harm to the public. That is shocking and unforgivable. 

“We need to know urgently from the SNP how many criminals were wrongly released from prison early, and the government must now guarantee that no prisoners are released whose risk assessment is, or even might be, wrong.”