A father who has spent 14 years in prison for stealing a mobile phone has been transferred from a secure forensic psychiatric hospital back into prison despite concerns about deteriorating mental health believed to be caused by the now abolished indeterminate Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence. This development comes days after Andy Burnham’s promise that his new government would be ‘finally grasping the nettle’ and addressing the injustice of IPPs as part of its attempts to tackle prison overcrowding. Photo: Clara and Kayden White with photo of Thomas
The case of Thomas White has featured previously on the Justice Gap (here). He was given an IPP sentence with a two-year tariff in 2012 for a non-violent offence, just four months before the sentence was scrapped due to widespread criticism. He has now served more than seven times the length of his original tariff. There are still 2,271 people still in prison serving IPPs.
White had been transferred from HMP Manchester to a secure psychiatric hospital last November following years of severe mental deterioration leaving him with paranoid schizophrenia. His family fear that returning him to prison risks undoing what little progress has been made during his treatment and placing him back into the environment they, and the independent psychiatrist, believe caused his illness in the first place. His family were alarmed at reports of his behaviour including jumping onto the safety netting on his wing, attempting to break his legs through cell bars, smashing his face against the floor and trying to set fire to himself. Ten years ago, while in HMP Norwich, Thomas began speaking in Roman numerals during calls home, presenting himself as Jesus Christ telling fellow prisoners he could heal them and walking around in a bedsheet.
White has now been transferred 14 times in over 14 years. Three years ago, James Daly, then Conservative MP for Bury North, told the House of Commons ‘if Thomas had been sentenced four months later, he would not be in prison now’.
Clara White, Thomas White’s sister, said that when her brother was moved to hospital ‘we finally felt a small sense of hope’. ‘After years of watching him deteriorate in prison, he was finally somewhere designed to provide care rather than punishment,’ she commented. ‘Now, after just nine months, he is being sent back into the very system that made him ill. This will be Thomas’ fifteenth prison. Fifteen prisons in fourteen years. How can anybody recover, rehabilitate or prepare for release when they are passed around like a parcel?’
‘My brother has served more than seven times the punishment that the court originally considered appropriate. He is a severely unwell man who needs treatment, stability and hope. Instead, he is being sent back to prison with no release date and no certainty about what his future holds. 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.’
Clara, sister of Thomas White
Campaigners cite other IPPs, like White, who committed low-level non-violent offences and have spent over a decade in UK prisons including Abdullahi Suleman in jail 20 years after he was handed an IPP for a laptop robbery, having been recalled for missing a hospital appointment and Shaun Anton who has been recalled to prison five times and served over 12 years for two street robberies he committed when he was 18.
