Paedophiles avoid jail under Labour’s sentencing law change.
Attempt to ease overcrowding in prisons leaves abusers among criminals walking free from 12-month sentences
Published 15 August 2026 8:53pm BST
Paedophiles and domestic abusers are being spared jail under Labour’s new sentencing law, The Telegraph can reveal.
Offenders who would previously have spent as long as a year in jail for serious crimes – including possessing thousands of child abuse images, historical child abuse or violent attacks on partners – are walking free.
It also introduced the controversial policy of allowing some prisoners to be released early after serving only a third of their sentences.
At the bill’s second reading in Parliament, David Lammy claimed it would make the country safer by keeping lower-level offenders for whom “prison does not work” in the community.
Mr Lammy, who had replaced Ms Mahmood as justice secretary, said this would mean prisons were not left “with nowhere to put dangerous offenders”.
However, The Telegraph has found that serious and potentially dangerous criminals who could have spent more than a year in prison are now walking Britain’s streets after admitting their crimes.
Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, has said he is confident he can exempt the killers of Pc Andrew Harper from the early release scheme Credit: James Manning/WPA Pool/Getty
In one case, identified by The Telegraph, Callum Powell, 34, who posted parkour videos to more than 11 million YouTube followers, avoided prison after admitting possessing almost 3,000 indecent images of children.
Powell possessed 178 Category A images depicting the most serious abuse. District Judge Amanda Kelly ruled that “the circumstances of this case are so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified”.
Citing the volume of material, the victims’ young age and the two years during which it was collected, she raised the starting point from 12 to 18 months.
But Powell’s early guilty plea cut his term by a third to exactly 12 months, triggering the presumption that it be suspended.
“Some may find it difficult to understand why offending of such a repugnant nature does not result in immediate imprisonment,” District Judge Kelly said.
“However, judges do not sentence according to personal opinion, public pressure or public outrage. They sentence according to the law enacted by Parliament and the sentencing guidelines issued by the Sentencing Council.”
Under section one of the Sentencing Act 2026, which came into force on March 22, defendants must be handed a suspended sentence for jail terms of 12 months or less unless a narrow exemption applies.
The exemptions include offenders already in custody, those who offended while subject to a community or suspended sentence, and those being sentenced for breaching a court order.
A further exemption in the law does allow immediate custody for terms of 12 months or less in “exceptional circumstances”. But a month before Powell’s sentencing, the Court of Appeal ruled that an offence’s seriousness alone was unlikely to meet that threshold.
District Judge Kelly therefore found that his offences, while “truly abhorrent”, were not legally exceptional, and suspended his sentence for a year.
In another case, a 56-year-old man was able to walk free after being convicted of historical child abuse. Clint Barnes had been convicted of three indecent assaults in the late 1990s and early 2000s, two against a boy under 16.
Sentencing him on May 6, Judge Stephen Climie said he had no choice but to suspend his 12-month sentence.
He told the defendant: “I don’t deal with the legislation, I have to apply it, and for those reasons, and only those reasons, as this is a case which last year I would have sent you to custody immediately for 12 months, I suspend that for the next two years.”
The guidelines apply to all sentences of 12 months or less, meaning that, as well as abusers, drink drivers and other offenders will walk free.
When the legislation was debated in the Lords in January, Lord Keen, the Conservative shadow justice minister, tried to get sexual offences and domestic abuse excluded from automatic suspension, but Labour defeated the motion.
Labour peers argued further exemptions were unnecessary because courts could jail offenders who “put a particular individual at significant risk of physical or psychological harm”.
Yet cases identified by The Telegraph show domestic abuse does not always meet that threshold.
On May 12, Liam McCarthy, 28, received a 12-month suspended sentence after admitting repeatedly punching his then partner, breaking a tooth and leaving her with two black eyes and a displaced septum requiring surgery. Police had found blood stains throughout the property where the offence took place.
Judge Dennis Watson KC considered that there “could not be said to be a significant risk” to McCarthy’s former partner by having him in the community, and suspended his sentence.
Last month, Daniel O’Hagan, a former Plymouth Argyle footballer, also avoided jail after assaulting his partner three times in five months. During the final attack, he punched her and broke her nose.
Criticism of Andy Burnham
The early release scheme has been high on Mr Burnham’s agenda since he became Prime Minister earlier this summer.
In his first intervention since taking office, he said rapists, some child sex offenders and grooming offenders should not be freed early from jail.
He faced criticism after The Telegraph revealed that two killers of Pc Andrew Harper were due to be released early. However, he has since ordered Alex Norris, the Justice Secretary, to find a way to keep the Pc Harper’s killers in prison.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Public protection is our priority, and judges will always have the power to send offenders to prison when deemed necessary. Community sentences can also include tough requirements like curfews, tagging and exclusion zones – offenders who breach them can be jailed.
“The Sentencing Act is restoring order to a prison system left on the brink of collapse, while our record £700m investment in probation and community punishment is ensuring staff have the resources, powers and technology they need to manage offenders safely in the community.”
The spokesman also pointed out that the law creates new provisions for courts to ban offenders from attending pubs, bars and clubs, as well as public events such as sports and concerts and to prohibit offenders from driving.
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