Phone thief serving 12 years should be moved to hospital

Medical reports lay bare crippling toll of indefinite jail term

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

Medics have warned that a prisoner’s “lengthy incarceration” under an indefinite jail term is creating “impermeable barriers” to his recovery as they called for him to be moved to hospital.

Thomas White has developed severe mental health problems in prison after serving more than 12 years for stealing a mobile phone under an abolished imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence.

Earlier this summer, The Independent revealed he had set himself alight in his cell in desperation as he lost hope of ever being freed. Now fresh medical reports, shared exclusively with this publication by his heartbroken family, have laid bare the devastating toll the cruel sentence has taken on the father of one.

His sister Clara has begged the Ministry of Justice to move her brother to a hospital to get the care he needs amid fears “it is only a matter of time” before he makes another attempt on his life.

IPP jail terms were introduced under New Labour in 2005 and saw offenders given a minimum tariff but no maximum. They were scrapped in 2012 over human rights concerns but not for people already detained – leaving almost 3,000 prisoners like White languishing in prison with no release date.

The sentences have been branded “psychological torture” by a UN human rights expert after at least 90 IPP prisoners have taken their own lives.

An assessment by an independent consultant forensic psychiatrist last month found 40-year-old White, who has paranoid schizophrenia, has been suffering panic attacks and pacing in his cell at HMP Manchester as he struggles with psychosis and religious delusions.