Recently, Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) campaigner Pastor Clara White, sister of IPP victim Thomas White, spoke on an ITVX Granada broadcast interview, urgently calling on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to review IPP prison sentences.
Thomas White was convicted for stealing a mobile phone in 2012 and sentenced to a minimum of two years under an Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentence. Fourteen years on, he remains in jail, having developed paranoid schizophrenia in 2014, which a psychiatric report stated was likely the result of the ‘hopelessness of the IPP sentence’.
IPP sentences, now “abolished,” are a form of indefinite sentence introduced by the New Labour government in 2003, yet over 2,200 people remain trapped in prison under IPP sentences in England and Wales. The United Nations has described the sentence to causing severe psychological harm and recently found that the continued detention of several IPP prisoners amounted to arbitrary detention.
The interview comes amid Andy Burnham’s pledge to resolve the “long-running injustice” of IPP sentences as part of efforts to tackle the prison overcrowding crisis.
The Communication Group plc supported with all public relations for The Institute of Now, designing and implementing an engagement strategy which secured coverage across leading UK national, regional and specialist legal media, including The Times, LBC News, BBC News and Metro, among others.
