Michelle, 38, is living in a static caravan with her four children, not by choice but by necessity. Her former partner — a man who punched her, kicked in her front door and held a knife to her throat — was released from prison on 15 October. Weeks later, the GPS tag that was supposed to monitor his movements has still not been fitted. The police and probation services know he has breached licence conditions three times before. They know he is violent. Yet he walks the streets unmonitored, while Michelle and her children hide.
A Life Upended by Violence
The nightmare began in early 2024. Michelle’s ex-partner, the father of her three-year-old son and a crack cocaine user, struck her for the first time. She called the police. He was arrested and bailed. The very next day, he returned to the five-bedroom home she rented privately. He kicked the door down, dragged her by the hair and waved a knife in her face, convinced she had another man in the bedroom. Her 16-year-old son had to physically pull him off her.
He was eventually convicted of two counts of assault by beating and one of affray, receiving a 38-month sentence in November 2024. When he was released in February 2025, strict conditions were imposed: stay away from Michelle’s home, stay away from the town where she lives. He ignored them. Photos on social media placed him at parties and pubs in the very areas he was banned from — breaches in July 2025, April 2026 and again in August. Michelle reported two of them. Each time, he was recalled for 56 days. Each time, he came back.
The Tag That Never Arrived
When he walked free again on 15 October, Michelle’s police liaison officer offered reassurance: a GPS tag would be fitted. It would track his movements. It would keep her safe. But the tag never came. Days turned into weeks. Michelle describes the feeling as “living in terror” — relatives sleeping on her caravan floor, children barely allowed outside, the constant fear of a night-time attack or an attempt to abduct her toddler.
“It is as if they are waiting for something really bad to happen to me or my children before they help,” she says. Her words carry the weight of a system that has failed her repeatedly.
Only after The Guardian approached the Ministry of Justice for comment did a government source confirm the tag had finally been fitted — two devices, in fact: a GPS monitor and an alcohol tag. The source insisted there was “no causal link” between the media inquiry and the sudden action. For Michelle, the timing speaks louder than any denial.
A Systemic Failure Exposed
Michelle’s case is not an anomaly. A joint report by the chief inspectors of probation and prisons, published last Thursday, laid bare the scale of the problem. Nearly half of all offenders required to wear electronic tags are not fitted “promptly” on release. In one in ten cases, the wait stretches to five months. The contractor responsible, Serco, is paid to fit devices after prisoners leave the gate — not before.
The watchdog found that Serco had been judged to have met its performance targets merely by attempting to fit tags, not by actually securing them on offenders. The single biggest reason for failure? The offender simply wasn’t at the agreed address when the contractor arrived. That accounted for a third of the 5,000 people currently in the community without a functioning tag.
Vikki Slade, the Liberal Democrat MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole, raised Michelle’s case in Parliament on Monday. “The fact that we are still releasing people without a tag from prisons is utterly crazy,” she said. “Why are domestic violence survivors with children not being given more protection?”
Calls for Change from Inside the System
The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) believes it has a solution. In a letter to Justice Secretary Alex Norris this month, national chair Mark Fairhurst proposed training prison officers to fit and activate electronic tags before prisoners are released. “Given the documented performance issues, the importance of public protection and the availability of an experienced public sector workforce, there is a compelling case for a formal assessment of insourcing,” he wrote.
The Ministry of Justice acknowledges the inheritance of a “justice system in crisis after a decade of underinvestment” and points to “the biggest ever expansion of electronic monitoring and tagging more offenders before they leave the prison gates.” Serco, for its part, says it attempts to fit a device to every person required to wear one, and reports any failure or breach to the relevant authorities.
But for Michelle, policy promises and contractual semantics offer little comfort. She has already lost her home. Her children have lost their stability. And she is still waiting to feel safe.
Why it Matters
Electronic monitoring was sold to the public as a shield for victims — a technological guarantee that dangerous offenders would be watched, tracked, and recalled the moment they strayed. Michelle’s story exposes that promise as a fiction. When tags are fitted weeks or months late, or not at all, the system does not merely inconvenience administrators; it leaves women and children exposed to the very violence the state pledged to prevent. The failure is not abstract. It has a name, an address, and four children sleeping on a caravan floor tonight, listening for footsteps that should never be allowed to come near them.
