Rapists and child sex offenders will be barred from the scheme, which will restart in October, the government says.

PC Andrew Harper was killed in 2019 when he was dragged by a car down a country road The mother of PC Andrew Harper has told the BBC she is "devastated" two of his killers remain eligible for early release after the government revised plans to tackle overcrowding. Prisoners who committed rape, grooming, and serious child sex offences will be excluded from the scheme for England and Wales, the government announced on Monday, in a bid to tackle prison overcrowding. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he "wanted to go even further", but that would not be possible without the prison system collapsing and putting the public "at much greater risk". PC Harper, 28, was killed in 2019 when he was dragged by a car down a country road as three teenagers fled the scene of a quad bike theft in Berkshire. Speaking to BBC Newsnight, his mother, Debbie Adlam, said: "It feels like we're letting Andrew down again. "We've been through the justice system, we thought we'd done as best as we could. "Now we're standing up to fight again... so I just feel really let down, for Andrew's sake as well as ours."