Family fears for IPP prisoner sent back to jail

The family of a man serving an indefinite prison sentence say they fear for his health after he was transferred back to jail from a secure psychiatric hospital.

Thomas White, 43, was given an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence for stealing a mobile phone in 2012. The sentences, which have no fixed release date, were abolished four months later.

His sister, Clara White, said he was "a severely unwell man who needs treatment, stability and hope".

The Ministry of Justice has been approached for comment.

Clara said the family "felt a small sense of hope" when White was moved from HMP Manchester to a secure psychiatric hospital, but now say "he is being sent back into the very system that made him ill".

She said her brother, who has a teenage son, had already been moved between 14 prisons and that this latest transfer would make it his 15th in 14 years.

While he needed treatment and support, he was instead being "sent back to prison with no release date and no certainty about what his future holds", she said.

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

He was given an IPP sentence with a minimum tariff of two years. His family said he has now spent more than 14 years in custody, serving more than seven times that period.

The family's calls for the government to step in come days after Prime Minister Andy Burnham pledged to tackle the issue of IPP sentences as part of efforts to address prison overcrowding.

Clara said: "Andy Burnham's pledge to resolve the IPP injustice is a welcome first step, but we now need a clear timeline and plan from the government."

White's family said he was transferred from HMP Manchester to a secure psychiatric hospital in Northumberland in November 2025 after years of severe mental deterioration.

They said he had developed paranoid schizophrenia while serving his IPP sentence and that an independent psychiatrist concluded that his indefinite imprisonment was the probable cause of his illness.

The move followed a six-year campaign by his family and interventions from former Home Secretary Lord Blunkett and former Prisons Minister Lord Timpson.

White's family said he had also made attempts to harm himself in prison and feared his return would risk undoing the progress made during treatment.

Clara White said IPP prisoners were expected to complete rehabilitation programmes to demonstrate reduced risk and secure release, but the multiple transfers her brother had faced meant he had never been given a realistic opportunity to complete them.

In 2016, while held at HMP Norwich, White began speaking in Roman numerals during calls home.

He was also reportedly seen walking the prison wing wrapped in a bedsheet, presenting himself as Jesus Christ and telling fellow prisoners he could heal them.

IPP sentences were introduced in 2005 and intended for the perpetrators of serious crimes and persistent criminals.

They were scrapped in 2012, but the change was not applied retrospectively.

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.

In July, the United Nations described the continuation of IPP sentences as "perpetuating serious human rights violations".

The human rights body said nearly all unreleased IPP prisoners have served terms beyond their original tariff periods, while almost three-quarters have spent more than a decade in prison beyond the punishment originally considered necessary by the sentencing court.

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