The country’s miscarriage of justice watchdog is investigating at least 175 cases which saw offenders, including children and young people, handed abolished indefinite jail terms.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has announced it has launched a major project to review applications from prisoners languishing on Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) jail terms.
The open-ended sentences, which were scrapped in 2012 and have been described as “psychological torture” by the UN, have left thousands trapped in jail for up to 22 times longer than their original tariff.
This includes many who were children at the time of their offence and handed a type of IPP sentence for under-18s called a Detention for Public Protection (DPP) jail term.
Now scores of cases are set to be reviewed by the watchdog after a string of IPP and DPP sentences were overturned by the Court of Appeal. Eight of 12 cases referred to the appeal judges for review have resulted in the sentences being quashed, reduced or substituted.
This includes father-of-three Leighton Williams, who was wrongly handed an IPP sentence with a 30-month tariff for a drunken fight aged 19.
He served almost 16 years under the sentence – mostly in custody – before it was quashed and replaced with a five-year determinate sentence in the Court of Appeal last year. If he had served half of that time in custody, he would have been out of prison by the time he was 22.
Three appeal judges finally set him free on 9 May last year, aged 36, after finding the original sentencing judge had wrongly counted a previous offence, committed when he was 17, against him.
After he was released, he told The Independent the jail term had robbed him of 16 years, adding: “I have missed out on growing up with my friends. 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 a similar ruling in October, Darren Hilling’s IPP sentence was quashed and substituted because the sentencing judge had failed to attach the necessary importance to his age and maturity when he committed his crime aged 21.
Other victims of the scandal, whose tragic cases have been highlighted by The Independent, include: Leroy Douglas, who has served almost 20 years for robbing a mobile phone; Thomas White, 42, who set himself alight in his cell and has served 13 years for stealing a phone; and Abdullahi Suleman, 41, who is still inside 19 years after he was jailed for a laptop robbery.
A total of 2,486 IPP prisoners were still languishing in overcrowded prisons without a release date at the end of June. Almost 700 of them have served at least 10 years longer than their original tariff.
At least 94 IPP prisoners have taken their own lives in prison as they lose hope of getting out, according to campaigners.
The CCRC project will see the body – tasked with independently reviewing alleged miscarriages of justice – consider up to eight current applications from people serving IPP and DPP sentences, before systematically re-reviewing a backlog of 175 historic applications to see if they should be referred to the Court of Appeal in light of the recent judgments.
“This starts with young people principally because that’s where the chink of light is from the Court of Appeal,” CCRC chair Dame Vera Baird told The Independent.
Reviews will start with those who were handed indefinite jail terms as children, before looking at those aged 18 to 25, followed by those over 25. This is because sentencing judges may have considered previous convictions as children when they handed out the jail terms to adults.
However, there is no timeline for the wide-ranging review and Dame Vera warned that the CCRC has been allocated no additional resources for the project.
The news has been welcomed by campaigners, including the Howard League for Penal Reform, which this summer called for a special CCRC process for IPP prisoners in a major report on the jail term.
Other recommendations put forward in the report, including seeing all remaining prisoners given a release date to work towards at their next Parole Review, are being considered by the government.
Their director of campaigns Andrew Neilson said he was thrilled to see the CCRC take this “hugely positive” step, adding: “Justice is long overdue to the thousands of people serving IPP sentences in prisons and in the community, and we hope that this will be one of many similar policies that will finally end the suffering of this abolished sentence for good.”
A spokesperson for United Group for Reform of IPP (UNGRIPP) added: “It is extremely encouraging that the CCRC are taking a lead in reviewing past appeals for those who were given a DPP or an IPP.
“We hope that this project includes all previously appealed cases regardless of age. Our hope is that everyone who was given an IPP can have their case reviewed, something we called for in a report we recently submitted to the law commission consultation on appeals.
“This won’t fix the issue with IPP, but it will ensure fewer people will be subject to it, while we wait for the government to do what is right and end IPP sentences once and for all.”
