Freed prisoner stabs his pregnant girlfriend just HOURS after leaving jail

Derek Burns, 46, plunged a 10-inch knife into Leigh-Anne Hammond's back as their four children screamed in terror.

He had been jailed on November 27 for 16 weeks for assaulting Miss Hammond's mother and for drink driving.

Controversial: Prisoners are being released early to ease overcrowding

Burns had a string of convictions for violence including common assault, assault causing actual bodily harm and criminal damage, a jury at Ipswich Crown Court, Suffolk, heard yesterday after finding him guilty of the attack on Miss Hammond.

Miss Hammond was not told when he was freed in December after barely two weeks in jail under the Government's End of Custody Licence (ECL) scheme to ease desperate levels of prison overcrowding.

Within days Burns had accused her of having an affair while he was in prison and carried out his attack.

The jury took less than an hour to convict Burns of wounding Miss Hammond - then five months pregnant - with intent during a blazing row at the couple's home in Bury St Edmunds.

Critic: Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, says the case calls into question the criteria used to decide which prisoners go free

Judge David Goodin branded the stabbing a 'wicked attack'.

While their children, aged five, four, two and one, screamed in terror, the four-year-old boy climbed on to Burns's back but was fought off by his father.

Miss Hammond, who has since had a baby boy, ran barefoot from the house in her pyjamas and collapsed in the street before being taken to hospital with a punctured lung.

Last night Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: 'Overcrowding in the prison estate is now forcing the Government to release prisoners early and is undermining public confidence in criminal justice.

'We need to think seriously about the dangers of overusing custody as the be-all and end-all of tackling crime, as we simply cannot keep up in sustaining the prison places.'

She added: 'The best way to free up places for those who do require custody would be to look at the many people in jail whose addictions and mental health problems would be better treated by properly resourced programmes in the community.'  

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said Burns was on an ECL scheme which was only available to prisoners whose offences are not considered serious enough by the court to justify a long term of imprisonment.

He said: 'Of those released on ECL, just one per cent have been notified to the National Offender Management Service as allegedly offending during the ECL period.'