Most of us feel a jolt of panic when we spot flashing blue lights in the mirror after nudging a few miles over the speed limit.
We slow down, hope it’s not us and promise to pay more attention next time.
Now imagine being convicted of burglary dozens of times — and still not going to jail.
That’s exactly what I found in a recent investigation into prolific offenders in the UK justice system.
When I started digging through Ministry of Justice figures, I wasn’t expecting to find multiple offenders with triple-digit conviction histories still walking the streets.
The aim was to find out how many serious repeat offenders were dodging jail time — and whether our justice system is actually following through on its own sentencing powers. The numbers were sobering.
One man — with 265 previous convictions, including 57 for burglary — had just been spared prison. The most extreme case? Someone with 407 convictions, including robbery, who also avoided jail.
Another man had been convicted of eight knife crimes and had 94 previous convictions. Still no jail. One case involved a man convicted 19 times for drug possession who again walked free.
These weren’t technicalities. These weren’t one-offs. The data showed a pattern of leniency toward serial criminals — some of them violent, many long past the point of “second chances.”
Getting the data wasn’t easy. The MoJ refused to release names, citing “data protection,” but they didn’t deny the scale of the problem. What I did get painted a grim picture of a revolving-door justice system, where prolific offenders can treat sentencing like a minor inconvenience.
I spoke to a former senior detective who said Britain needs more prison space to ensure custodial sentences are actually served — and that they’re long enough to act as a deterrent.
The story ran as an exclusive in The Sun on Sunday on March 30th. You can read the full story below.
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