HOME Secretary Priti Patel has issued a warning to criminals: “We are coming after you”.

Ms Patel, who represents Stanway, was giving a speech at the Conservative Party conference today.

In her speech she said the party backed police officers and was listening to the public.

She told the conference thugs who attack officers would receive a sentence which “fits the crime”.

Witham MP Ms Patel said: “As we renew our place as the party of law and order in Britain, let the message go out from this hall today: To the British people - we hear you.

“To the police service: We back you.

“And to the criminals, I simply say this: ‘We are coming after you’.”

Ms Patel, the daughter of Ugandan Asians, told the conference it was her job to end the “free movement of people once and for all”.

She added: “This daughter of immigrants needs no lectures from the north London metropolitan liberal elite on how our country is enriched by - and better for - being internationalist.

“Margaret Thatcher knew that if you made the British people your compass, if you took time to understand their lives and their priorities, then your direction would always be true.”

Her speech followed news the Government will end the system which sees some of the most serious offenders released after serving just half their sentence.

Sexual and violent offenders will be kept behind bars for longer under plans being set out by the Justice Secretary.

The move is the latest sign of the Tories seeking to burnish their credentials as the party of law and order ahead of an expected General Election.

Justice Secretary Robert Buckland set out his plans in his conference speech in Manchester.

He is promising immediate action to ensure that the worst sexual and violent offenders - those sentenced to at least four years in prison for crimes which carry a maximum life term - are no longer released at the halfway point.

Instead, those offenders will be required to serve two-thirds of their sentence behind bars.