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A killer driver, described by police as the “drunkest ever seen behind the wheel”, is set to be released from prison early under Labour’s efforts to reduce overcrowding.
Malcolm Waite, 72, killed Fenella Hawes, 20, when his car mounted a pavement. He drove on until he hit a road sign and trees a mile away.
Officers found him slumped in the driver’s seat smelling strongly of alcohol, with a half-drunk bottle of vodka beside him. He was four times the legal alcohol limit.
Waite was jailed for eight years in 2022 after admitting causing death by dangerous driving, but is now to be released after serving half his sentence in prison, rather than two thirds. The case will pile pressure on Labour over its prison early release scheme.
Andy Burnham has pledged to review the policy after The Telegraph revealed that two of the killers of Pc Andrew Harper were to be freed early.
Lissie Harper, Pc Harper’s widow, has described the plans as “deplorable” while Jason Hogg, the chief constable of Thames Valley Police, where he served, said plans for their early release were “wrong”.
Waite could be one of the first of more than 5,000 offenders including killers, rapists and violent criminals to be freed under the scheme when it begins on Sept 2.
Ms Hawes’s family has called for anyone who has caused a death to be exempted from the early release scheme, saying reducing his sentence would be “no deterrent” to Waite repeating his crime.
The thought of seeing him free on local streets was “petrifying”, her family said.
Ms Hawes, a Lancaster University natural-sciences undergraduate, had been walking on a pavement on a Sunday afternoon, carrying sunflowers for her mother, Margaret, when Waite’s Lexus hit her. She died at the scene.
Pc Callum Walchester, who arrested Waite, said he “was the drunkest person I have ever seen behind the wheel of a car”.
Ms Hawes’s sister, Rosemary Shepherd, a dental nurse and mother-of-three from Cromer, Norfolk, told The Telegraph the four years served by Waite were not “equivalent to Fenella’s life at all”.
She said: “She was 20 years old and had a whole life ahead of her. It doesn’t correlate. It’s not a deterrent for anyone else to not drink drive because they can run someone over and only have to do four years for killing someone.”
Mrs Shepherd said: “This has brought up everything surrounding my sister’s death again for all of my family. I’m happy that people are now aware that this is happening to families like ours. I want people to be as angry as I am. I know it’s not going to bring my sister back.”
The family felt the eight-year sentence was unduly lenient, but their appeal to the Attorney General was unsuccessful.
It mirrors the outcry over the sentences for Pc Harper’s killers, which led to a change in the law that introduced compulsory life sentences for criminals who kill police officers.
Mrs Shepherd said: “It’s scary to think that we might see him in the street, and that is petrifying to me. I’ve got children; they know his face. They are aware of what’s going on. The impact that seeing his face would have on any of us would send us into a state of shock.
“He might get back in the car. He might do the same thing again. He got an 11-year ban on his licence but that started when he was in jail and he has already done four years.
“After seven more years, he could be back in a car legally. Road users won’t know that. It is just astonishing they don’t get a lifetime ban for killing someone.”
She said there should be exemptions from early release for killers such as Waite, adding: “I understand why the act was put in place, but it should not apply to people who have caused a death.
“It shouldn’t even have been considered in the first place for their release to be earlier because of the impact it has on families.”
Government has ‘not considered victims’
Mrs Shepherd added: “Anyone who’s caused a death and is in prison should not be eligible at all. I don’t think it’s right at all.
“It just doesn’t really make sense, and they’re not really thinking of the victim’s impact. The Government has definitely not considered the victims enough. I don’t think they listen.”
She was told by the Ministry of Justice on June 15 that Waite would be considered for early release under the Sentencing Act 2026, with the earliest possible date being Sept 2. She had previously been told he would not be released until December 2027.
Mr Burnham has pledged to review the “whole policy” after The Telegraph revealed two of Pc Harper’s killers, Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, were to be freed halfway through their 13-year jail sentences for manslaughter, rather than two thirds.
The pair were in a car driven by Henry Long escaping the scene of an attempted theft, when Pc Harper’s ankles were snagged in a tow rope and he was dragged more than a mile on country roads.
Debbie Adlam, Pc Harper’s mother, told The Telegraph the potential early release of the killers was an “insult beyond anything able to be put into words”.
Mr Burnham is under pressure to exempt the most serious offenders from the early release scheme, including killers, rapists, child groomers and criminals convicted of serious violence against emergency workers.
The Police Federation, representing front-line officers, has called for the review to stop the automatic early release of violent offenders who attack police.
To support their case, they have highlighted the case of Alex Quinn, 20, who broke a police officer’s leg and ankle but was freed 82 days into his sentence of three years and ten months.
From September, the new policy will allow serious criminals – including killers, rapists and paedophiles – to be eligible for early release, provided they have not committed any serious rule breaches in prison.
Criminals convicted of less serious offences will be eligible to be freed as little as a third of the way through their sentences.
‘Sex offenders should not be released early’
A woman who was raped and sexually abused by a man for four years from the age of 11 has urged the Prime Minister not to let out her attacker early under an early release scheme.
The victim, who is anonymous for legal reasons, told BBC Newsnight that she had been “devastated” to receive a letter from the Ministry of Justice telling her that the paedophile, who was sentenced to 18 years in 2019, could be freed in September.
Addressing Mr Burnham directly, the woman, given the pseudonym Katy, said she thought paedophiles should be exempt from the scheme, adding: “Andy, child abusers, sex offenders should not be being released early ... we need your support to stop this.”
She added that he needed to “really look into these people that could have this release happening and start listening to victims. We are the people that suffer. We suffer day in, day out. It’s a lifetime for us.”
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Katy also suggested that paedophiles could be chemically castrated as an alternative to prison.
It comes after another woman who was groomed and raped as a child by a friend of her family waived her anonymity in The Telegraph to appeal to Labour to abandon its plans to free him nearly two years early.
Jade Belgrove, 30, described the Government’s early release scheme as an “absolute disgrace” that would put women and children at risk from scores of rapists and sex offenders freed prematurely.
She said the two rapes when she was 14 had left her with a “life sentence”, while the rapist who groomed her would just “get a slap on the wrist”.
