'My brother doesn't know if he will ever leave prison'

The sister of a man who has been in prison for 14 years without a fixed release date, has welcomed government plans to review "inhumane" indeterminate sentences.

Thomas White was jailed for a minimum of two years in 2012 for the theft of a mobile phone. He was subject to an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence, with no maximum term and is still serving his sentence.

But after the Prime Minister asked for a review of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences on Monday, his sister Pastor Clara White said there is now hope in sight.

"My brother doesn't know if he will ever leave prison or die there," Clara said. "It's inhumane. But the review brings a light in the darkness."

Intended for the perpetrators of serious crimes and persistent criminals, Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences were introduced in 2005. And allowed judges to give out sentences with no maximum tariff to perpetrators of serious crimes or repeat offenders.

Deemed controversial IPPs were scrapped in 2012, but this was not retrospective. As of this year, more than 2,000 people are still in prison on IPP sentences according to the United Nations, (UN), who have called for the end of IPP sentences.

After Andy Burnham asked Justice Secretary Alex Norris to review Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences on Monday, the Ministry of Justice said it will be "reviewing options to help those offenders who have been held long beyond their initial tariffs".

Thomas White, now 43, had been binge-drinking in Manchester before he stole a phone from two Christian missionaries in 2012.

As an IPP prisoner White needed to complete a rehabilitation course before he could be released, but Clara said because her brother developed paranoid schizophrenia while in custody, he was moved between 16 different prisons and was not given the chance to complete such a course.

After spending the last nine months in a psychiatric hospital in Northumberland, Clara said her brother now faces the prospect of being relocated to HMP Manchester, to continue serving his IPP sentence.

"Any day now he could be sent back to the prison that physically, spiritually abused him," 44-year-old Clara said.

Clara said White's 14 years of detention under his IPP sentence has changed White as a person and ruined more lives than his own.

"Thomas was a fully functioning human being who loved to write music and songs and produce them," Clara recalled.

"Thomas never suffered from any of these mental health issues until this sentence.

"'I've seen so much negligence that has happened to Thomas that to speak to him, he isn't the brother or adolescent I grew up with now.

"When you visit him you have to see a man that doesn't even own his own soul anymore.

"And you go home and you go to bed and that very much sticks in your mind and you have to find a way of working through that what you've just witnessed is far beyond cruelty.

"My life beforehand was built on a strong foundation, I was very happy, I had my family.

"I don't have that now.

"None of us have been able to really live up to our full potential in our lives.

"It has ruined our lives."

White was sentenced three months before the abolition of IPPs.

"If IPPs were abolished three months sooner, he would have served his sentence and he would have been out now and just living his life," Clara said.

White also had an 18th-month-old son when he was sentenced in 2012.

"He could have been a good father to his child," she continued.

"His little boy is, well he's a big boy now.

"And he has missed all those beautiful milestones.

“The prison system failed him.

"The mental health inside prison failed him.

"Successive government after government failed him and the hospital that he is in now has failed him.

"It's nothing but negligence."

The proposed government review comes weeks after the United Nations described the continuation of IPP sentences as "perpetuating serious human rights violations".

According to the human rights body, nearly all unreleased IPP prisoners have reportedly served beyond their original tariff periods, while almost 75% have spent more than a decade in prison beyond the punishment originally considered necessary by the sentencing court.

Clara who said she has spent years campaigning with other families of IPP prisoners for a retrospective abolition of IPP sentences said she "will not give up" and hopes the proposed review will lead to an abolition of IPPs "once and for all".

"Nobody until today has really looked at IPP sentences," she said.

"When I heard the news of the review, I felt whole.

"My family, and other families have been met with darkness during our campaigning and that is very painful.

"But today I've seen light, which was really lovely to hold on to."

She added: “There is now a chance to go that extra mile and abolish IPPs retrospectively once and for all.”

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