Today, Thomas White – a prisoner who has spent 12 years locked up on an abolished indeterminate sentence for stealing a mobile phone – has now spent time at 12 prisons in the 12 years he has spent languishing in prison in what his family has called a ‘prison merry-go-round’ torture.
Thomas White was handed an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence in 2012 after he stole and later gave back a mobile phone. Under his ‘IPP’ – a type of indefinite prison sentence that came into force in 2005 in a New Labour bid to appear ‘tough on crime’ – White was given a 2-year minimum tariff, after which his release would be at discretion of the Parole Board.
12 years on, he is still in prison with no immediate prospect of release. Since his incarceration, he has been in prisons all around UK including HMP Chelmsford and HMP Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent – nearly 300 miles from his family.
When Thomas was based at HMP Swaleside, his family were able to visit him only once due to the cost of the 600-mile round trip, which was over £900.
Thomas’s latest transfer has seen him return to HMP Manchester, where he began serving his IPP sentence back in 2012.
Until recently, Thomas White did not have the basic right to see his son, Kayden White who is 14 years old. However, an intervention by Lord David Blunkett (the Former Home Secretary who introduced IPPs) made an emotional reunion possible at HMP Garth in May this year, 12 years since their last meeting. Kayden is hoping to see his dad again for the second time in 12 years in early June.
Thomas’ family says that these constant transfers have prevented Thomas from settling at a prison and progressing with his sentence, and – compounded by his ‘indefinite’ IPP sentence and his inability to see his family regularly – has had considerable negative impact on his mental health. A recent independent assessment concluded that Thomas has developed paranoid schizophrenia in prison and that his treatment under his IPP sentence was the probable cause of this serious mental illness.
Thomas’ family are seriously concerned that his most recent transfer to HMP Manchester, where he is spending 23 hours a day in his cell, will cause him added distress, not least because there are no progression courses for IPP prisoners at the prison, meaning he has no opportunities to work towards his release.
The family are urgently seeking his transfer to a psychiatric hospital where he can access appropriate mental health treatment. Lord David Blunkett and James Daly MP for Bury North have both pledged their support to this mission and to challenge the two hospitals in the Greater Manchester area which have rejected a bed for Thomas in the last 6 months, despite his worsening mental health.
Clara White, sister of Thomas White, said: “My brother who has paranoid schizophrenia has been passed around like a parcel by prisons across Britain. They haven’t thought twice about his condition or how to help him be released. They just care about the short-term numbers. This system is a shambles and my brother and many others like him are the victims. It’s been 12 years and 12 prisons. This prisons merry-go-round isn’t what justice is about – they’ve failed and forgotten us.”
IPPs were abolished in 2012, just four months after Thomas White’s incarceration, due to widespread concern over the sentence’s implementation and psychological impact on inmates as an ‘indefinite’ sentence. However, this abolition was not made retrospective, and recent data has shown that 2,796 people remain in prison today serving IPPs, 705 of whom (like Thomas) are 10 or more years beyond their original sentence.
Many stuck in prison on IPPs today are low level offenders. Others include Wayne Bell, jailed aged 17 for an assault while attempting to steal a bike nearly 20 years ago in 2007, and Aaron Graham, given an IPP in 2005 for a GBH charge, who will have spent 19 years in prison in December this year.
Due to the nature of their sentence, IPPs are at higher risk of suicide and self-harm. Recent government data showed that 86 IPPs have killed themselves in prison since 2005, and there have been an additional 33 self-inflicted IPP deaths in the community since 2019.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Dr Alice Edwards, has called IPPs “psychological torture” and has called publicly for the UK Government to make reforms, along with other legal and psychiatric experts.
Despite the IPP mental health crisis and pressure from both domestic and international actors, there has been little action to resolve the IPP crisis. Recent Government concessions within the Victims & Prisoners Bill, which were rushed through Parliament before it was prorogued for the upcoming general election, fell well short of IPP campaigners’ ultimate demands, who believe that resentencing is the lasting overdue solution to this national scandal.
Henry Rossi, Founder of The Institute of Now and IPP campaigner, said: “Despite widespread recognition of all of the problems associated with IPP, those at the heart of our governance system have prevented substantive change on IPP for over a decade, needlessly prolonging this psychological torture for thousands like Thomas White. But a general election accelerates the possibility for change under a new government… It would be a radical, life-saving policy to commit to resentencing IPP and would speak to the basic standards of British justice most in this country believe in.”
