UN urges Starmer to review indefinite prison sentences

The UN special rapporteur on torture has urged Sir Keir Starmer to review the cases of thousands of people trapped in prison indefinitely under Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences.

- ANDY GREGORY

Dr Alice Jill Edwards appealed directly to the prime minister to end the injustice, criticising the scandal which has left thousands of people to “languish without hope” in prison as “a terrible indictment” of the UK’s justice system.

First introduced by Tony Blair’s government in 2005 to allow courts to hand offenders jail terms with a minimum length but no maximum time limit, IPP sentences were scrapped in 2012 over human rights concerns.

But some 2,734 people are still incarcerated under the abolished sentence as of June, down just 6 per cent on the previous year. An estimated 700 people have served at least 10 years longer than their minimum tariff.

This publication has highlighted numerous such cases, including those of Thomas White, who set himself alight after serving more than 12 years for stealing a mobile phone, and Abdullahi Suleman, who has spent nearly 20 years behind bars for a laptop robbery.

Shaun Lloyd recently expressed fears he could be hauled back to jail for the fourth time for stealing a phone almost 20 years ago, while Leighton Williams finally had his sentence quashed in May after serving more than 15 years in prison for a drunken fight at the age of 19.