A mother-of-two who was strangled by her violent ex-partner as she held her newborn baby fears he will seek his revenge for being jailed when he is released early from his five-year sentence.
Mollie Cousins is among several domestic abuse survivors who have spoken out after their ex-partners were made eligible for early release, with the first batch of offenders freed on Thursday morning.
Some 4,500 prisoners are to be released in stages to ease prison overcrowding and Treasury secretary James Murray admitted on Thursday morning that he “can’t guarantee exactly what will happen” when asked about survivors’ safety.
The releases come despite overworked probation staff “firefighting day in, day out” and fearing serious further offences could be committed on their watch, a union warned.
Ms Cousins, 29, from Lancashire, endured a year-long campaign of terror from Daniel Bowler once the pair started a relationship after the lorry driver contacted her on Facebook.
It began with controlling behaviour over her mobile phone and then her relationship with her ex-partner and friends. When he found a sexual video of her on her phone, he humiliated her by sending it to her family members.
When one argument turned violent and she threatened to call the police, he smashed her phone and stood on her laptop. In a separate incident, he strangled her on the sofa as she held her newborn daughter in her arms.
After releasing his grip, she tried to escape but he ripped her clothes off and stuck his finger down her throat in a terrifying attack.
Bowler, 32, was jailed at Preston Crown Court last December after being convicted of controlling coercive behaviour, assault, strangulation, suffocation, harassment, assault and criminal damage.
Judge Graham Knowles reportedly told him: “You say you are a powder keg and the wrong woman could be a spark. It is not about the wrong woman. You are wrong here. You are the wrong man.”
Ms Cousins, waiving her right to anonymity to tell her story, toldThe Independent: “I’m scared he’s going to come back for me. He’s going to try and get revenge on me for getting him sent to prison.”
Bowler is subject to a lifetime restraining order against approaching her, however, a failure by him to abide by bail conditions not to contact her before his conviction has wiped away any reassurance, she said.
She has already moved house, changed her appearance, car and the school her eldest child attends in a bid to protect her family.
After being told by her victim liaison officer in June that Bowler would be eligible for release, she met with Alex Davies-Jones, minister for victims and tackling violence against women, but said she was told “we can’t lock them up indefinitely”.
Ms Cousins said: “We’re just over a year since everything went down and I’m traumatised by what happened and what will happen next.
“It’s like I’m on a sentence and I’m the one being punished when it really shouldn’t be this way. I shouldn’t be made to feel unsafe and scared to leave my house.”
Ms Cousins, who launched a petition signed by more than 1,000 people to “protect domestic abuse victims” from early release, said: “Victims haven’t been considered, the system has been set up without us in mind. They shouldn’t be letting domestic abusers out early.”
Her warning comes as domestic abuse commissioner Dame Nicole Jacobs warned that survivors across the country will be “looking over their shoulder and living in fear because the government and our criminal justice system has failed to protect them”.
On Thursday morning, as pictures emerged of smiling prisoners being released early, Mr Murray was asked if he could guarantee the safety of domestic abuse survivors. He said: “I can't guarantee exactly what will happen, but I can tell people that we have done everything we can to reduce the number of people being released as far as possible.”
Those released early will be electronically tagged he said, and there will be restrictions on where they can go.
Sophie, who is a survivor of domestic abuse, said her perpetrator’s prison sentence “gave me a small window of time where I could finally breathe”. Sophie, whose name has been changed to protect her safety, said it was “a small window to rebuild my life, create safety for my family and begin to recover from years of living in fear”. “Having that release date brought forward means that window is being taken away from me far sooner than I was prepared for.
“If the government is going to release offenders earlier to deal with pressure on the prison system, victims should not be the ones expected to absorb the additional fear and risk that creates”, she added.
Alice Russell-Harris, public affairs lead at the charity Refuge, said: “Although perpetrators may be released with licence conditions, including electronic tagging and restriction zones, we know that licence conditions are frequently breached by perpetrators, and we are concerned that an under-resourced probation service will not respond swiftly enough to keep survivors from further harm.”
Overworked probation staff are not prepared for the surge in offenders being managed in the community, a probation union warned.
Tania Bassett, national officer at Napo said: “Our members are really anxious about the workloads that they might have to deal with or that something might go wrong and they will get a serious further offence on their watch.
“One person contacted us who had 14 people being released today - it is a huge amount of pressure for just one person.”
She said the fear of a person you are supervising committing serious further offence “hangs over” probation workers, adding: “I genuinely think it's an impossible ask to expect everything to go perfectly well and there not to be mistakes made, because it's firefighting day in day out.”
Probation is still operating with a 26 per cent staffing shortfall and in June the union passed an emergency motion of no confidence in HMPPS because of workload pressures. They are due to ballot members on possible strike action in October.
The early release was scaled back in the summer to make exempt criminals convicted of rape and the most serious child sex offences after a public outcry over the potential release of the killers of PC Andrew Harper.
Prisoners let go early on Thursday thanked the prime minister as they walked free. One former inmate, holding his belongings in a bin bag, said to the press as he left HMP Durham in north east England: “Justice system, what justice system? Thank you Andy Burnham”.
Tom, 32, who was jailed for burglary, and was released from HMP Cardiff early, said prisoners were “buzzing” at doing less time. “They’re all loving it,” he said.
