The public is at risk of violent criminals because of underfunding in the probation service, a whistleblower has told ITV News Central.
A probation officer working in the Midlands says she fears staff shortages and mounting workloads are leaving dangerous gaps in the system designed to protect the public.
'Sofia' - who cannot be identified for fear of losing her job - claims some officers are doing the work of three people.
She warns lessons from previous serious failures - like the Killamarsh murders where four people were killed by a man on probation - have not been learnt.
Killamarsh murders
In September 2021, Damien Bendall killed his pregnant girlfriend, Teri Harris, and her three children, aged 11-13-years-old, at a house in Derbyshire.
When he was on probation for a previous crime, he had said he would kill them if his relationship "went bad".
An inquest at Chesterfield Coroner's Court in October 2023 heard that an officer fitting an electronic tag on Bendall did not report the comments.
Sofia describes Bendall's case as a "perfect storm of missing so many opportunities to safeguard potential victims".
"Once he was sentenced, he was allocated to an inexperienced, relatively newly qualified probation practitioner," says Sofia.
“I have seen newly qualified officers carry risk that they shouldn’t have, because they just simply do not yet have the competence and the experience. So, what happened in Bendall’s case - it could happen again.
"It’s really a luck of the draw...
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