Tony Woodley is outraged by the injustice of it all. Enough is enough, says the Labour peer who has introduced a private member’s bill to resentence prisoners who are still serving time in imprisonment for public protection (IPP), which was abolished 12 years ago because it was deemed an affront to decency.
Although the sentence was abolished, it was not done retrospectively, so nearly 3,000 IPP prisoners remain behind bars, mostly for minor offenses, with no idea when or if they will ever be released.
IPP is so horrific, according to Woodley, that many people do not believe him when he tells them about it. “If you told someone, ‘You have 16 years in jail for stealing a plant pot,’ they would say, ‘You are the bloody plant pot for saying that!'” People did not believe or did not want to believe some of the cases we mentioned.”
Ronnie Sinclair, who spent 16 years in prison for stealing the plant pot, is one of the people mentioned in the Guardian’s series on the IPP scandal this year.
We examined other equally shocking cases in greater detail. Tommy Nicol was given an IPP sentence for stealing a car. He committed suicide in 2015 at the age of 37 (one of 90 IPP prisoners to do so), after being denied parole for the second time, despite having committed no further crimes. Donna Mooney, Nicol’s sister, was one of the founding members of Ungripp, a campaign group that has highlighted the injustices of IPP.
Martin Myers, for example, is serving an 18-year sentence for attempting to steal a cigarette. He, like many other IPP prisoners, was on a short tariff (19 months and 27 days), which was the minimum amount of time he could serve in jail.
Like many IPP prisoners, he was recalled to prison for violating his license rather than committing another crime. Myers was recalled because he took Valium without a valid prescription.
David (now Lord) Blunkett, then the home secretary, introduced IPP sentences in England and Wales in 2005. The sentence was designed for people who were considered a threat to the public and had committed serious crimes other than murder that did not warrant mandatory life sentences, and it was intended to be used sparingly.
The reality was quite different. Judges used IPP frequently and applied the sentence to minor repeat offenders rather than serious criminals who posed a threat.
In total, 8,711 sentences had been issued, with 6,000 people serving them when IPPs were abolished seven years later in 2012, after the European Convention on Human Rights declared their use “arbitrary and therefore unlawful.”
In 2020, former Supreme Court Justice Lord Brown described IPPs as “the greatest single stain on our criminal justice system.”
Adrian Usher, the prisons and probation ombudsman, stated last year that “a prisoner’s IPP status should be considered as a potential risk factor for suicide and self-harm,” and Alice Jill Edwards, a UN torture expert, stated that IPP prisoners “are experiencing a punishment that is inhumane and often amounts to psychological torture”.
David Blunkett, who has vocally opposed the sentence he introduced, has stated that introducing IPP is “the biggest regret” of his political career.
IPP is also known as the “99-year sentence” because IPP prisoners can technically be held in prison and released on parole for that period of time. New legislation passed in November allowed IPP prisoners to apply to have their licence period terminated three years after being released, rather than ten years.
But this is not enough for campaigners like Woodley, who says it is a disgrace that any prisoners are still serving such a harsh sentence. Ninety-eight percent of IPP prisoners have served more than their sentence.
According to Ministry of Justice data released in October, 67 IPP prisoners have served more than 16 years in prison despite being given tariffs of 18 months or less.
For Woodley, resentencing is the only solution. This means that the 99% of those who have served beyond their tariff will have a release plan in place, while those who remain will be sentenced appropriately for the crime they committed.
Woodley, a former head of the transport and workers union and a founding member of the union Unite, is hoping that Labour, which was reluctant to adopt resentencing while in opposition because it was viewed as a political hot potato, will change its mind now that it is in government.
However, he is aware that the government is still concerned about negative headlines, particularly because prisoners are being released early due to overcrowding in jail. In November, Justice Minister Nicholas Dakin stated that the government opposes resentencing IPP prisoners because it would “pose an unacceptable level of risk to members of the public, and, in particular, victims.”
Woodley disagrees. “The government always claims that resentencing will result in their immediate release, but we do not believe this. The bill is extremely clear. We would have an expert committee oversee it, and they would make sure it was done in a way that kept the public safe. You could prioritise those with the lowest tariffs or those with the highest tariffs.”
If the government has concerns about any of his bills, Woodley says he is open to suggestions. The only option he will not consider is the status quo. “Doing nothing and leaving these people to rot in prison in what is really a life sentence is just unacceptable.”
He recently met with prisons minister James Timpson, who stated before taking office that he believed a third of Britain’s prisoners should be released immediately and another third should be released soon. James Timpson, the former CEO of Timpson Shoe Repair and Key Cutting, has made it a point to hire former prisoners.
“If someone says to me ‘I have employed 30 ex-IPP people, and they were a credit to themselves and my business’, as he did, that will do me,” according to Woodley. “I was very impressed by the man’s sincerity and his determination to make this disgraceful set of circumstances change.”
Will Timpson support his bill, however? “I do not know,” Woodley admits bluntly. “I would not want to snooker him.” While the prime minister made a bold decision to appoint a well-known reformer as prisons minister, little has been heard from Timpson since.
This is why Woodley insists that all votes on his bill be unwhipped. “The free vote is important like any conscience vote, and resentencing has cross-party support.” He pauses. “Let me tell you what you do not want. You do not want your own party to oppose you.
Ungripp backs Woodley’s bill. Since the Guardian series on IPP, Ungripp has received the Longfellow Award for its work on prison reform, a well-deserved honour for a fantastic campaign.
But it will be meaningless unless there is a timetable for the release of all IPP prisoners – and soon. Martin Myers was recently released back into the community after being recalled. He appears to be doing well, but if this bill does not receive royal assent, he knows he could be recalled to prison in the next three years for even the smallest violation of his licence conditions, which scares him.
Meanwhile, Lord Woodley is well aware of the challenges he faces. Only a small percentage of private members’ bills (introduced by parliamentarians who are not in the Cabinet) become law. But he is on a mission. “I have fought injustices my entire life and I am not going to stop now. “There is too much at stake here.”
What happens if his bill fails? “Well, we have had 90 people take their own lives already; how many more do they want?” He speaks faster and more urgently. “We are doing it because of the heinous injustice that has happened and continues to occur.
How come, 12 years after IPP sentences were abolished, we still have nearly 3,000 people in prison with no hope? It cannot be right. “I repeat myself,” he says, exasperated. “How the hell ?”