Labour’s plan to release thousands of killers, thugs and paedophiles early – including two of PC Andrew Harper’s killers – thrown into chaos as nine in ten probation officers vote for industrial action

Labour‘s plan to release thousands of killers, thugs and paedophiles early was thrown into chaos today after probation officers voted for industrial action.

The National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO) union said nine in ten of the thousands of workers it represents voted in favour.

The poll was only ‘indicative’, meaning another official ballot must be held for any industrial action to be legal.

But union sources said they were looking to run an official poll after today’s result in about two weeks.

This would take around a month, meaning industrial action involving as many as 8,000 probation staff could start in early to mid-October.

This is the same month Labour will start releasing about 5,000 serious criminals – including killers and wife-beaters – early over a ten-month period under its early release scheme.

This would currently include two of PC Andrew Harper’s killers – Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers – which has sparked a furious backlash in recent weeks and left Prime Minister Andy Burnham scrambling to find a way of blocking their release.

Any industrial action threatens to throw the scheme into chaos as most freed early are likely to need supervision by probation officers, adding to their workload.

And there are concerns many of those released will reoffend if probation officers are forced to cut corners. Probation Service chiefs say the system is already at breaking point and reliant on officers working overtime.

Ben Cockburn, national chairman of NAPO, said the union would first look to refuse working overtime and then move to full-on walkouts if the dispute – about pay and workloads – is not resolved.

He added: ‘Excessive workloads are absolutely endemic across probation. That’s the issue.

‘Time after time, things like early release schemes, changes of sentencing, they’ve been loaded onto probation without any sort of workload relief coming the other way.

‘Unfortunately, the attitude seems to have been that probation has infinite capacity to take on work.

‘But unfortunately, the people who work in probation don’t have that capacity.’

Asked if serious offenders were more likely to re-offend because of planned industrial action, he said: ‘They could do.

‘It would mean that maybe people don’t have the time to spend with people on their caseloads.

‘Probation staff make decisions every day with life-changing consequences for the people we work with, victims and the public.

‘If excessive workloads prevent those decisions being made properly, the consequences can be devastating.’

As well as a solution to current workload levels, the union is demanding a 12 per cent pay increase for members. Talks with ministers are ongoing. It wants a recent announcement of £700million-worth of investment to be used to recruit more staff.

The Ministry of Justice said: ‘We have already exceeded our 2025-26 recruitment target, with 1,389 people starting as trainee probation officers last year against a target of 1,300.’