A National Lottery thief who stole £2.5million has been released early from prison to free up space, despite not having paid back the stolen cash.
Edward Putman, 54, was jailed for nine years in October 2019, when with the help of Camelot insider Giles Knibbs, stole the huge amount.
He had previously been jailed for seven years for raping a 17-year-old girl in 1991.
The 54-year-old only paid back £94,000 from his Camelot con, with financial investigators forced to seize his assets and put his home up for auction.
Edward Putman was released early
PA
They had threatened to extend his sentence if he failed to settle a £939,000 confiscation order.
But instead of extending his sentence, he was instead freed under the Government's End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL), after only serving half of his sentence, the Daily Mirror reports.
The ECSL was launched in October last year and allowed prisoners to be released up to 18 days before the end of their sentence.
But last month that was changed and the early release could now move up to two months, in order to ease the pressure on crowded prisons.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Edward Putman was jailed in 2019
PA
Putman however was released less than five years after he was sentenced - half-way through the nine-year sentence.
He is now subject to tight conditions restricting where he can travel and who he can contact following his release.
A source told the Mirror: “Putman showed contempt for the repayment of the cash he stole but was still released early. It’s appalling.”
Putman and Knibbs crafted the con with the former using a fake ticket he said he had found in his van.
The fake 'winning' ticket
PA
He submitted the fake ticket just days before the time-limit to claim the prize expired, but was caught when Knibbs took his own life after he was cheated out of his share of the jackpot.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We are creating an additional 20,000 prison places – the biggest prison expansion programme since the Victorian era – so we can lock up dangerous offenders for longer.
"Only lower-level offenders who are a matter of days before their automatic release date are being considered for the End of Custody Supervised Licence Scheme and anyone convicted of a sexual, terrorist or serious violent offence is excluded.
"Governors can block the release of any prisoner and those who are released face strict monitoring and can be sent back to prison if they break the rules.”