'I've missed out on growing up. Just living a normal life'

Leighton Williams was handed an indefinite jail sentence aged 19. More than 16 years later it was quashed. He tells Amy-Clare Martin IPP prisoner cases must be reviewed

- Amy-Clare Martin

Sitting on a video link from the Welsh prison where he had spent most of his adult life, Leighton Williams said what he witnessed in a courtroom 274km (170 miles) away “didn’t seem real”.

He was being freed, a judge in London told him, after ruling that the controversial indeterminate sentence he was handed for a drunken fight aged 19 was a mistake. He should have been given a five-year determinate sentence and would probably have been freed after serving half that time. He would have been out by the time he was 22.

But now aged 36 and having served more than 16 years – mostly in custody – he knows the imprisonment for public protection (IPP) he was wrongly handed has robbed him of some of the best years of his life.

“I have missed out on growing up with my friends,” he told The Independent. “Going out. Getting a trade, being able to work. Just living a normal life. I deserved to go to jail – I understand that. There is no doubt about that. But for the length of time – I don’t think you can justify that.”

In his first interview since he was finally freed in May, Mr Williams railed against the injustice of the IPP sentence, which he described as “mental torture”.

He revealed his anger at learning of the government’s early release scheme which will see prisoners freed after serving just 40 per cent of their fixed term sentence to ease overcrowding, while almost 3,000 IPP prisoners still languish inside with no release date.

The IPP jail terms – under which offenders were given a minimum tariff but no maximum – were scrapped in 2012 amid human rights concerns. But the abolition of the policy did not affect those already sentenced, leaving thousands trapped in jail for years beyond their original prison terms.