Anonymous portrait of Michelle, who says of police and probation services: ‘It is as if they are waiting for something really bad to happen.’ Photograph: Peter Flude/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Anonymous portrait of Michelle, who says of police and probation services: ‘It is as if they are waiting for something really bad to happen.’ Photograph: Peter Flude/The Guardian Domestic violence Domestic violence survivor living ‘in terror’ after attacker released without tag Woman among hundreds asking why electronic trackers not fitted before offenders leave prison
Prefer the Guardian on Google A domestic violence survivor who was punched, threatened with a knife and had her front door kicked in by her former partner is “living in terror” because he has still not been fitted with a tracking tag, weeks after his release from prison.
Michelle, 38, who now lives in a static caravan with her four children, said relatives were sleeping on her floor in case the man tried to attack again. He had been recalled to prison on several occasions before for breaching his probation conditions.
“The police and probation know that he is a threat to me and has breached the terms of his probation before. It is as if they are waiting for something really bad to happen to me or my children before they help,” she said.
Michelle is among hundreds of domestic violence survivors demanding to know why tags are not being fitted on offenders as they leave prison. Instead, the private-sector firm Serco is being contracted to fit them after they have been released.
“They should be tagged as soon as they come out,” Michelle said. “Who knows where violent people are going to go and what they are going to do? Tags should be fitted in prison before they walk out the door.”
View image in fullscreen Michelle’s former partner breached his probation and was recalled to prison twice. Photograph: Peter Flude/The Guardian Nearly half of offenders are not tagged “promptly” on release , and in one in 10 cases a device is fitted up to five months later, according to a report released on Thursday by the chief inspectors for probation and prisons.
The prison officers’ union, POA, has written to the justice secretary, Alex Norris, suggesting members should be trained to fit tags in prison.
Michelle said she was first punched in the face by her former partner, a crack cocaine user and the father of her three-year-old boy, in early 2024. She called the police, and he was arrested and bailed.
The following day, he returned to her then five-bedroom, privately rented home, kicked in the door and threatened her with a knife, she said. “My 16-year-old son had to intervene to drag him off me after he held me down by my hair and waved a knife around. My ex-partner was convinced I had another man in my bedroom,” she said.
He was convicted of two counts of assault by beating and one count of affray, and sentenced to 38 months in November 2024. On release in February 2025, he was ordered to stay away from Michelle’s home and the town where she lives.
He breached the terms of his probation in July 2025 and April and August this year: photos he and his friends uploaded showed him at parties and pubs in towns from which he was barred.
Michelle reported two of these breaches, resulting in the man being recalled to prison for 56 days on both occasions. On 15 October, he was released, with Michelle’s police liaison officer reassuring her that a GPS tag would be fitted to keep track of…