Family urge Streeting to help 'dying' IPP prisoner

A prisoner who set himself alight in his cell after serving 12 years for stealing a mobile phone under an indefinite jail term is being denied his right to healthcare, his family has warned.

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

Thomas White has developed severe mental health problems in prison as he languishes under a since-abolished imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence. Earlier this year, the father of one set himself alight in his cell in desperation as he lost hope of ever being freed. And his sister has said: “He’s dying in front of me.”

Two medical reports shared with The Independent this summer laid bare the toll of the devastating jail term on the prisoner, who suffers psychosis and religious delusions, as medics warned his “lengthy incarceration” was creating “impermeable barriers” to his recovery. Both called for him to be moved to a hospital.

White was due to have another key psychiatric assessment earlier this month to decide whether he can be transferred to hospital. But this did not go ahead after the prison did not have enough staff to get him out of his cell for the assessment, his family said.

Now his heartbroken sister Clara White has written to the health secretary Wes Streeting in a desperate appeal for him to intervene and find her brother a hospital bed before he makes another attempt on his own life.