Peers have demanded answers over the government’s refusal to resentence prisoners trapped under “no hope” indefinite jail terms, insisting: “It is not right and it is not fair.”
In an impassioned debate in the House of Lords, peers urged prisons minister James Timpson to take decisive action to end the injustice of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) jail terms.
Successive governments have refused justice committee recommendations to resentence more than 2,500 prisoners still trapped under the abolished jail term.
The open-ended sentences were scrapped in 2012, but not retrospectively, leaving those already jailed incarcerated indefinitely.
Victims of the scandal, whose tragic cases have been highlighted by The Independent, include: Leroy Douglas, who has served almost 20 years for stealing a mobile phone; Thomas White, 42, who set himself alight in his cell and has served 13 years for stealing a phone; and Abdullahi Suleman, 41, who is still inside 19 years after he was jailed for a laptop robbery.
In a speech as his private members’ bill to resentence IPP prisoners reached committee stage on Friday, Labour peer Lord Tony Woodley admitted it will not succeed without government support.
Addressing IPP prisoners and their families, he told them not to give up hope, but added: “Sadly, my bill by itself will not bring you justice. But it can help build pressure on the government to do the right thing, and it can help build public awareness of this industrial-scale miscarriage of justice.
“So please don’t have false hope in my bill. Hope – but not false hope – is my aim here.”
Raising a series of “probing” amendments designed to “expose the lack of logic” behind the government’s refusal to resentence IPP prisoners, he said it is “as big a scandal as the Post Office and the infected blood scandal”.
“Almost 100 prisoners have taken their own lives – hundreds more have been driven to insanity, with this no-hope, never-ending sentence,” he said.
“The only difference with IPP is that not enough people know about it.”
He reminded the government that almost 700 IPP prisoners have served at least 10 years longer than their original minimum tariff.
He added: “How can the government deny resentencing to these people, still inside, over 10 years past their minimum sentence?
“My lords, let me remind you we are talking about people who have been locked up for over a decade longer than someone else convicted of the exact same crime, but before 2005 or after 2012.
“My lords, a lot of nonsense is spoken about ‘two-tier’ justice, but this is one situation where that label seems to apply. It is not right and it is not fair.”
His proposals were backed by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Dr Alice Edwards, who said the jail terms have caused “unlawful psychological torture” to prisoners.
In a statement before the debate, she said: “It is time to end the perpetual damage caused by the IPP scheme.
“These sentences have caused unlawful psychological torture and ill-treatment to too many prisoners under the care of successive British governments.
“A resentencing court is a promising way forward, in which there could be an initial prioritisation exercise of cases, necessary exclusions and, for those whose mental state requires psychiatric or other intensive treatment, their transfer to a secure mental health facility outside the prison service until such time as they are deemed fit, with regular reviews.”
However, prisons minister James Timpson said none of the amendments eased his fears over resentencing, insisting the government’s priority is public protection.
He said the IPP Action Plan, designed to support each prisoner’s progress to release by the parole board, is “where we will sort this out”.
However, he vowed to “pull hard on every operational lever” to address the crisis and said he was carefully considering separate proposals put forward last month by an expert panel convened by the Howard League for Penal Reform.
The panel, led by former lord chief justice Lord John Thomas, called for all IPP prisoners to be given a release date within a two-year window at their next parole hearing and for fewer offenders to be recalled.
