After huge public pressure, Burnham paused the early release scheme last week after a backlash from victims and their families. Badenoch said the early release policy applied to a category of offender, those convicted of serious sexual and violent crimes, that had never previously qualified for early release under any government, including her own. “We had early release, but not like this,” she said. We never had killers, rapists, paedophiles on early release.” “It is outrageous that the government are minimising the early release by saying it is only a small amount of time off the sentence,” she said.