Secret prison documents shows government plan to tackle IPP scandal will fail
Damn prison predictions revealed Independent The emergence of the government’s action plan to tackle the indefinite prison sentence scandal will leave hundreds of prisoners languishing.
Shocking figures obtained by the Ministry of Justice through a Freedom of Information request show that at least 520 prisoners were widely discredited and have now been removed. Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences are expected to begin in March 2030. These prisoners will never be released.
What has emerged refutes the government’s claim that the ‘IPP Action Plan’, which promises to help the safe release of prisoners, will address the scandal.
England’s former chief justice, Lord John Thomas, said the figures proved the government’s plan was a “failure” and would not end “blatant injustice” for those serving suspended prison sentences.
Open-ended sentences, which have been linked to almost 100 suicides in prisons, have been compared to a “gulag system” that traps thousands of people, including some for misdemeanors, without a release date.
Lord David Blunkett, the architect of the tainted sentence, has since admitted that the brutal punishments imposed during Tony Blair’s Labor government were his “greatest regret”.
But recent estimates suggest the government is prepared to leave IPP prisoners like Leroy Douglas, who was jailed for stealing a mobile phone in 2005, to rot for up to 25 years. His case is currently being investigated by the United Nations, which is examining whether Britain violated human rights law by arbitrarily detaining him.
The total IPP prison population in 2030 is likely to be even higher because the estimates exclude those who were released but found themselves trapped in a vicious cycle of indefinite recalls from prison for breaches of strict licensing conditions.
They also exclude hundreds of people held in secure hospitals whose mental health deteriorated during imprisonment, described as a form of “psychological torture.”
The controversial sentencing policy was rescinded in 2012, but not retroactively; Thousands of people were imprisoned indefinitely, some trapped for up to 22 times longer than their original minimum sentence.
In December 2025, almost 2,400 people were still languishing under IPP sentences; Among them were 924 people who were never released. The majority served at least a decade longer than their initial minimum term.
A 2022 cross-party justice committee inquiry found the sentences were “irredeemably flawed” and called for resentence against all IPP prisoners, but successive governments have rejected this.
A different peer, Lord Thomas, who served as head of the judiciary from 2013 to 2017, has repeatedly warned that the government would have blood on its hands unless it acted to help those trapped under “completely unfair” sentences.
He called on prisons minister James Timpson to give all IPP prisoners a release date within two years of their next parole review, as part of a package of proposals put forward by the Howard League for Sentencing Reform.
But prison officials insisted that inmates follow the IPP Action Plan, which is supposed to help them get released by the government’s Parole Board.
Responding to the forecast figures, he said: Independent: “These figures show the failure of the government’s ‘action plan’ and the consequences of the government’s refusal to do justice to those granted IPP.
“They show that by keeping them in prison for 18 years after abolishing a form of punishment long misunderstood and recognized as wrong in principle, and in many of these cases by keeping them in prison for more than 20 years after sentencing, he accepted that his plan would result in a manifest injustice to a significant number of people who were never released.”
Other victims of the scandal whose cases came to the fore Independent Thomas White, 43, who served 13 years in prison for stealing a phone and setting himself on fire in his cell; and Abdullahi Suleiman, 43, who remains in prison 20 years after he was first imprisoned for a laptop robbery; and Wayne Williams, 37, who has been in prison for more than 19 years and has not been released for attempting to injure a police officer in a fight.
Campaign group United IPP Reform Group (UNGRIPP) admitted the government’s action plan “will not move the dial” and called on the government to end the nightmare.
A spokesman added: “The government is using ‘projections’ instead of justice. We know the IPP sentence is lethal and the government knows it.”
“For 11 years they have hid behind ‘Action Plans’ that do nothing to move the dial.
“It is time for civil servants and ministers to do the job they are paid to do: stop managing this nightmare and start putting an end to it through a full-blown anger exercise or other sensible options put forward.”
Families and supporters joined UNGRIPP last month to launch a display in justice minister David Lammy’s North London constituency that will see thousands of stones painted red for every IPP prisoner languishing in solitary. Other places will be painted white for those who cannot escape prison sentences.
Meanwhile, three families who have seen their loved ones’ mental health deteriorate while serving an IPP sentence met Prisons Minister Lord Timpson earlier this month, urging him to intervene to help such prisoners be released from hospital.
Shirley Debono of the IPP Action Committee said many had been “left to rot” for so long that they no longer had outside friends or family to support them.
Responding to the forecast figures, he added: “These figures tell the story. How can the government monitor this when they know they can stop it right now by being angry at all these IPP prisoners… What is happening is too great for words.”
“This has been going on for 20 years. We’re already in our third decade. Are we going to be in our fourth decade until the last one dies in prison?”
His son Shaun Lloyd is also among five IPP prisoners whose cases are being investigated by the UN after a major complaint was made to working groups about arbitrary detention.
Separate data, revealed in response to a Parliamentary question in December, also shows the government continues to prevent many IPP prisoners from progressing to open conditions.
Between January and March 2025, the Parole Board recommended 34 IPP inmates to prison. However, then-minister of justice Shabana Mahmood rejected their decisions in a third of the cases.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “It is true that IPP sentences have been lifted and we have already taken action to support these offenders to move on with their lives.
“This includes providing additional support for IPP prisoners and changing the law to enable quicker termination of licenses for those serving these sentences in the community.
“Since April 2023, the never-released IPP population has decreased by 30 percent, and all but a handful of remaining IPP prisoners have been repeatedly deemed too dangerous to live in the community by the independent Parole Board.”
