Father on IPP sentence is refused transfer to hospital

Thomas White has developed paranoid schizophrenia and psychosis after serving almost 13 years for stealing a phone

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

A father who has developed paranoid schizophrenia and psychosis in prison after serving almost 13 years for stealing a phone will not be transferred to a secure hospital, his devastated family has learnt.

Thomas White, who suffers from religious delusions and last year set himself alight in his cell, is languishing under an imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence. These indeterminate prison sentences were abolished more than a decade ago, but those already serving them were not released from the conditions they impose.

IPP sentences have been described as “psychological torture” by the UN, while campaigners have pushed for all remaining IPP inmates to be resentenced. White’s family claim he is being denied his basic right to healthcare inside HMP Manchester, a category A prison, as they battle for him to be transferred to a hospital setting.

Two medical reports shared with The Independent last summer laid bare the toll of the devastating jail term as medics warned that White’s “lengthy incarceration” was creating “impermeable barriers” to his recovery. Both called for him to be moved to a hospital.

In a previous report, in 2023, a psychiatrist found that the indefinite jail term handed to White, which had a two-year minimum tariff, was the “probable cause” of his poor mental health. However, the hospital transfer was blocked after a new assessment arranged by the prison in December concluded that White lacks motivation in prison and will therefore lack motivation in a forensic psychiatric hospital.

After hearing the news, White, 40, told his family: “I am going to die in here.”