The family of a prisoner who set himself alight in desperation as his mental health crumbled while serving an indefinite jail term is begging officials to halt plans to send him back to jail.
Thomas White was moved to a medium secure hospital unit last year following a major battle by his family, who watched him descend into psychosis as he languished in prison without a release date.
He was handed a controversial Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) for street robbery of a mobile phone in 2012. A judge told him he must serve a minimum of two years, but he has now been incarcerated for almost 14.
The 43-year-old was last week told by doctors that they plan to return him to prison - still without a release date - within the next four weeks, after just six months of hospital care for a litany of mental health conditions. After his family complained, the move has been delayed, but officials insist he will be returned to custody.
His devastated sister, Pastor Clara White, fears he will quickly deteriorate back in prison on the hopeless sentence, which has been described as “psychological torture” by the United Nations.
She told The Independent she feels officials are sending him back to be “tortured some more” after letting him “rest his nerves” during a brief spell in hospital.
She is calling for the justice secretary David Lammy, who must issue a warrant to permit his transfer, to “do the right thing” and prevent the move.
Her calls have been backed by Labour peer Lord Tony Woodley, who accused ministers of “heaping cruelty on top of injustice”, and a former deputy high court judge, who said it was “shamefully cruel”.
After hearing the news, a despondent White told his sister: “They are never going to let me go.”
White is one of around 233 prisoners serving IPP sentences who have been transferred to secure units, in many cases because the hopeless nature of the jail term has left them profoundly damaged. But as soon as they stabilise, they are back where they started: in prison without a release date.
The open-ended jail terms were scrapped in 2012, but not retrospectively, leaving thousands of inmates who were already sentenced incarcerated indefinitely.
In December last year almost 2,400 were still trapped on the jail terms and at least 94 people had taken their own lives in prison after losing hope of getting out.
Pastor White had long campaigned for her brother’s hospital transfer - backed by The Independent - after he endured repeated mental health crises in prison, including setting himself alight and smashing his face on the cell floor.
But she was dealt a fresh blow last week when clinicians informed her that he would be sent back to prison because it is the only place he can work towards release.
She insists the prison system failed her brother for 13 years before he was hospitalised, adding: “He’s doing better but he’ll go downhill from today, I think. It’s awful, sitting there knowing that any day that bus is coming to take you back to prison.
“I said to the doctor it’s not going to take long for him to revert back to how poorly he was before he went. I’m going to be applying again and fighting again to get him back in hospital.
“The hopelessness in him is so sad. It’s painful to see.”
Doctors at the secure unit have concluded White has learning difficulties, complex trauma, ADHD, a personality disorder and has suffered from drug-induced psychosis.
However two medical reports in 2024 laid bare the toll of the devastating IPP jail term on his mental health, warning that his “lengthy incarceration” was creating “impermeable barriers” to his recovery.
Their mother, Margaret White, said she is praying for a miracle and says this will be her son’s 14th transfer in as many years, after years of being bounced around prisons.
“I can't visit more prisons and watch my son disappear in front of my eyes all over again,” she told The Independent.
Lord Woodley, who has repeatedly called for all IPP prisoners to be resentenced, urged the Ministry of Justice to “show some humanity”.
“To send Thomas back to prison, the very place that made him so unwell, after just six months, is simply heaping cruelty on top of injustice,” he said.
“I urge ministers to show some humanity and intervene to halt Thomas’ transfer and urgently act to help all those still languishing on this cruel sentence by bringing it to an end, once and for all, with a resentencing or reconsideration exercise.”
Nicholas Cooke KC, a former Old Bailey and deputy high court judge, said there is an “overwhelming moral and humanitarian case” for over-tariff IPP prisoners who have become mentally unwell to be dealt with by doctors, rather than the prison system.
He added: “They have, to use an old fashioned term, 'paid their debt to society' and now should be treated like anyone else who is suffering from mental illness.
“Transferring them to hospital, treating them and then sending them back to prison and the foreseeable prospect of consequent stress related relapse is shamefully cruel to them and their families.
“There is also a practical reason for ending this shocking practice. It is the Mental Health Review Tribunal and not the Parole Board who are best placed in terms of experience and management tools to rehabilitate these individuals and minimise any risk to themselves and others in the community.”
White’s case is one of eight examples of IPP injustices raised in a major legal complaint to the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Dr Alice Gill Edwards.
The application, filed last month, is the second submission to the UN over the jail terms. A separate complaint over five other IPP prisoners is already being investigated by the UN’s working group on arbitrary detention.
Any finding of degrading treatment or arbitrary detention would be a damning indictment of the government’s handling of the scandal.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Protecting the public is our top priority and while it is right that IPP sentences were abolished, decisions about treatment and hospital discharge are clinical matters made by health service providers and based on clear medical evidence.
“All IPP prisoners treated under the Mental Health Act are entitled to aftercare when they leave hospital, whether returning to prison or going into the community. This support prepares them to cope with life outside hospital, reducing the risk of their mental health deteriorating.”
