Stop scaremongering over prisoners trapped by indefinite jail terms, ministers told

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Ministers have been accused of “scaremongering” after revealing they will not resentence thousands of prisoners trapped under indefinite jail terms.

This will leave more than 2,600 languishing under “torture sentences” with no release date, including James Lawrence, who is still in prison 18 years after he was handed an eight-month jail term; Thomas White, who set himself alight in his cell after serving 12 years for stealing a phone; and Abdullahi Suleman, who is still inside 19 years after he was jailed for a laptop robbery.

Despite repeated calls from the UN, recommendations from the cross-party justice select committee, and at least 90 suicides in prison, justice secretary Shabana Mahmood and prisons minister Lord Timpson have said they will not consider a resentencing exercise for those still serving abolished Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences.

In a letter to a campaigner, Lord Timpson claimed any resentencing exercise would lead to “dangerous” offenders being automatically released without licensed supervision.

But politicians and campaigners have hit back, accusing ministers of “scaremongering” and making excuses, as they call for the government to reconsider ahead of a second reading of a private member’s bill tabled by Lord Woodley this week.

The Labour peer said he is determined to use his bill to find common ground and bring resentencing a step closer, adding: “There are many of us in parliament who will not rest until it fixes the dreadful mistake it made 20 years ago.”

“Wholeheartedly” lending his support to The Independent’s campaign for all IPP prisoners to have their sentences reviewed, Lord Woodley said the government’s reluctance is based on “excuses for inaction rather than real reasons”.

Fears that resentencing would automatically free dangerous prisoners was a claim also touted by Ms Mahmood in the Commons.

However campaigners have strongly challenged this, insisting the government is able to legislate for whatever safeguards, supervision or staggered approach to resentencing they deem necessary.

“Most of the arguments against resentencing sound like excuses for inaction rather than real reasons, because we all know that, where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Lord Woodley added, noting his bill includes the establishment of an expert panel to advise on the safest way to resentence.

He said public opinion against what he called “torture sentences” is growing, adding that keeping people detained over crimes they might commit in future is “utterly wrong”. In many cases, the indefinite detention itself has caused severe damage to prisoners’ mental health.

“It was the state that broke these people – and now the state is using the fact they’re broken as a reason to keep them locked up, breaking them some more every day this living nightmare continues,” he said.

Reformed IPP prisoner Marc Conway, who was one of the heroes of the Fishmongers’ Hall terror attack, said the government was “scaremongering”.

“The fact that Shabana Mahmood in parliament has said that all dangerous people are going to be released straight away – that is not true,” he told The Independent. “It’s scaremongering and she knows it.”

He believes the government’s reluctance could be about fears over potential compensation claims, after the UN has previously called for over-tariff IPP prisoners to be paid reparations.

Speaking exclusively to The Independent ahead of the private member’s bill, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Dr Alice Jill Edwards, urged the government to consider a partial resentencing programme, starting with those jailed for minor crimes.

The controversial jail terms, which saw offenders given a minimum tariff but no maximum, were scrapped in 2012 over human rights concerns, but not for those already detained.

Of the 2,694 IPP prisoners still incarcerated, around 700 have served more than 10 years longer than their minimum term as they wait for the parole board to declare them safe for release. At least five IPP prisoners who were given minimum terms of less than six months, usually for minor crimes, have remained in jail for at least 16 years.

Human rights expert Dr Edwards has previously branded the jail terms “psychological torture”. She said: “For certain cohorts of prisoners, the government should consider a partial or prioritised resentencing exercise, which could start with a court-supervised resentencing process for those serving time for more minor crimes.

“I will continue to monitor progress on all fronts. We cannot allow more people to take their lives out of a lack of action.”

She welcomed the automatic termination of licences for 1,800 long-released IPP prisoners earlier this month, but said she was “troubled” to hear reports that 30 per cent of those still inside are being held in prisons that do not provide a pathway out of the jail term.

In his letter to campaigner Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Lord Timpson vowed the government would “redouble” its efforts to help IPP prisoners progress in order to pass the parole board’s statutory release test.

But Mr Conway, who now works as a prison reform campaigner, warned that pledges to support IPP prisoners inside are impossible to implement amid the current jail crisis.

“Prisons are not fit for purpose at the moment, I think we can all agree on that,” he added. “You are trying to navigate through a sentence but you haven’t got the environment to do that productively.”

Mr Garside agreed that the government’s claim about resentencing “simply does not stand up” as he warned the current pace of release for IPP prisoners remains “glacially slow”.

Shirley de Bono, co-founder of campaign group IPP Committee in Action, said: “They have got to put resentencing back on the table, they have got to deal with these IPPs. They are not going to shove them out the door in one go, it will take years to deal with it.

“I wouldn’t like to think that they are letting someone dangerous out. They would go through each one with a fine-tooth comb.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “It is right that IPP sentences were abolished and we recently terminated the lifetime licences of 1,800 rehabilitated offenders. We are now exploring ways to improve access to mental health support and rehabilitation for those still in custody.

“However, with public protection our first priority, we will not be pursuing a resentencing exercise. Doing so would bypass the role of the parole board, who assess IPP prisoners for release every two years, and make their decisions based on public protection.”