Andy Burnham torn to shreds as TalkTV star loses it on air: 'Slap in the face!'

Andy Burnham's early prison release scheme has been slammed, with one TalkTV star branding it a "slap in the face" for decency. In July, the Labour scheme was paused after it emerged that the killers of PC Andrew Harper would be released from prison early, sparking widespread national outrage. The prime minister has now announced that prisoners convicted of rape, grooming, and serious child sex offences will be excluded from the scheme.

However, prison overcrowding is preventing the same from applying to other criminals. Author Philip Kiszely has now condemned Burnham's plan, arguing that it will only force the families of victims to relive what happened to their loved ones. Speaking to Kevin O'Sullivan, he raged: "There's no incentive here. This is just nonsense. This is, as his [PC Harper's] mum said, a slap in the face for decency. Let's just focus on the reason. This isn't some high meaning philosophical thing about justice and mercy.

"This is just the fact that the system is going to collapse if they don't let all of these people out.

"What about all the foreign criminals that are in the system? Can we not just deport those and maybe start with that?"

He added: "It's about common sense. It's about common decency and it's about not forcing these poor people, the families of the victims, to revisit and relive the horror of this stuff day after day. It's condemning them to misery and it's just revolting!"

PC Harper died after getting caught in a strap attached to the back of a car and dragged down a country road as three teenage suspects fled the scene of a burglary in 2019.

His killers, Albert Bower and Jessie Cole, were sentenced to 13 years in prison for manslaughter in 2020.

At the time, they were pictured laughing and acting up in front of the cameras as they entered court.

The family of PC Harper, who was 28 years old at the time of his death, have issued a scathing response to the announcement.

His mum, Debbie Adlam, told BBC Breakfast: "Andrew deserves better than this and so do we.

"We are bitterly disappointed. I don't feel like we should be in this position. It's not somewhere we would expect to be. We really feel we should have more support than this."