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Criminals sent to Englands two foreigners-only jails to be deported
have been released early and allowed to stay in Britain instead.

Ministers opened prisons in Canterbury and Bullwood Hall, Essex, for
overseas convicts so that they could be sent home once their sentence
was complete.

The Ł15million policy is designed to help immigration staff concentrate
on having the robbers, burglars and drug dealers removed.

But at least 21 convicts sent to the prisons have already been freed
under the Governments controversial early release scheme.

They walked out 18 days before their sentences reached the halfway
point, and were given up to Ł174 each in spending money.

The prisons are meant only for inmates who will be deported. But
officials decided that EU and human rights laws prevent those freed from
being kicked out of the country.

The laws bar the deportation of criminals to countries which are
considered unsafe, or those who have established a family life in the
UK.

But critics said the decision made a mockery of the Ministry of
Justices foreign- only jails policy.

Tory justice spokesman Nick Herbert said: This blows a hole in Gordon
Browns pledge to deport all foreign national criminals.

It is bad enough that the Government has released British prisoners
early because the jails are full, without then extending this privilege
to foreign inmates as well.

Ministers were claiming that holding foreign nationals in dedicated
prisons was a way to speed up their deportation.

This was totally misleading. Not only has Brown failed to deport them
as he promised, but we now learn he actually has a policy which allows
some of them to be released before their sentences are complete.

Canterbury and Bullwood Hall were opened to increase the rate at which
the 11,100 foreign nationals held are deported. Last year, only 210 a
month were removed.

The target is 4,000 this year - or 330 a month. Prisoners are only
supposed to be sent to Canterbury if there is an expectation of
removal.

But at least 13 inmates there have instead been released under the
Governments End of Custody Licence.

The policy, which allows inmates to be released 18 days early, was
introduced in June as prisons reached bursting point.

Foreigners who may be deported are not supposed to be eligible.

But officials at Canterbury - which holds 284 inmates - have decided
that 13 convicts held should be allowed to stay in Britain permanently.

A decision was taken they, too, should be released early.

Eight foreign convicts at Bullwood Hall, which holds 184, were freed for
the same reason.

The jails cost about Ł7.5million each to run.

Earlier yesterday, Prisons Minister David Hanson had said the point of
these jails was to deport prisoners who are rightly to be deported as
quickly and as smoothly as possible.

Lord David Ramsbotham, the former chief inspector of prisons said
foreign nationals disrupt ordinary prisons.

A better solution would be for them to serve half of their sentences
back home, he added.

Concentrating on foreign nationals in one prison makes it easier for
that prison and also lessens the problems elsewhere.

But there are a huge number of prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs and
Wandsworth, and having two prisons holding about 500 prisoners out of a
total of about 11,000 is merely scratching the surface.

What has been happening at the moment is that they have not been
completing deportation procedures in prison and so the prisoners have
been sent to the immigration centres to wait while the deportation
procedures take place.

My own view is that we ought to get rid of them before their sentence
is completed. We ought to start the deportation procedure.

Lets say somebodys been given three or four years.

I believe that they ought to serve half of it here and try and get them
back, in the same way that I think we ought to try and get our prisoners
who are sentenced to countries overseas back here so they can be
resettled into this country.

Gordon Brown, under pressure at Prime Ministers Questions yesterday,
pledged to establish agreements with countries which have a total of
3,000 inmates in British jails, so they can be removed more quickly.

The Prime Minister said: We will do more by signing agreements with
countries like Jamaica which have 1,400 foreign prisoners in British
cells, Nigeria which has more than 1,000 foreign prisoners in British
cells, Vietnam and China 400 and 300 prisoners in British cells.

We will sign agreements with these countries so we can return prisoners
from our cells as expeditiously as possible.

Later, it emerged that the deal with Jamaica was signed in June.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: Foreign national
prisoners are eligible for End of Custody Licence if the Border and
Immigration Agency has notified them of a decision not to deport.