‘I was like a hostage. After almost 18 years on an indefinite jail term, they finally admitted my IPP sentence was wrong’
IIn prison, Haroon Ahmed was told to keep his head down and never question the indeterminate sentence he was serving for robbery.
He was part of a generation of persistent young offenders who had a string of convictions before being handed a controversial Public Protection (IPP) prison sentence.
He was told he would face a minimum of two-and-a-half years in prison for his role in a knife-point raid on a Derby service station in 2008, when he was 19; This situation left the manager unhurt but badly shaken.
But when that time was up, a letter was pushed under Mr Ahmed’s cell door. The Parole Board panel, whom he had never met before, decided that he would need to remain in prison for at least two more years before his case would be re-evaluated.
He spent almost eight years behind bars before he was even allowed an in-person hearing by the Parole Board. It’s been 12 years since he was first released, but a year later he was returned to prison indefinitely after being convicted of causing actual bodily harm.
In frustration, he fled several times, including a high-profile incident in 2015, each time getting himself into further trouble with the courts. He says he is “fighting the system” because he refuses to accept the reality of an open-ended sentence.
But as he matured behind bars, the narrative began to change. IPP prison sentences were annulled due to human rights concerns about how they were implemented, and a growing number of voices were of the view that open-ended sentences were a serious injustice.
Excited to finally have her voice heard, she decided to appeal her sentence to the Court of Appeal. And last November, the 37-year-old judges finally admitted they had made a mistake.
After almost 18 years of “hell”, he returned home to Derby a free man after judges overturned his sentence.
He is now calling on the government to take responsibility for its actions, having resisted widespread calls for outrage from nearly 2,500 prisoners.
he said Independent: “It was their fault. And I would like them to take responsibility, because I had to do this because of my crime. I had to do this because of the wrongs I did.”
In his childhood, Mr Ahmed rebelled against his strict family and became involved in petty crimes. He left school in the 7th grade and was first sentenced to four months in a young offenders’ institute when he was 12.
“From there it was a downward spiral for me,” he said. “I wasn’t listening to anyone and I started to become a problem in society and among my family. I found myself in detention and detention all my life until I got my IPP in 2008.”
Although the accomplice who had the knife in the robbery was spared the IPP and sentenced to five years’ definitive imprisonment, Ahmed was initially told by his lawyer that there was no reason to object to the harsher sentence.
Feeling increasingly angry and angry, he rails against the system, escapes from several prisons, and gets into frequent trouble with the prison authorities. He now describes it as a form of self-harm that kept him in prison longer.
“You gave me a sentence where technically I don’t have a release date. What can you actually do to me? So if I see a way out, I’ll take it.”
But he added: “They never realized that actually a lot of the behavior I did to myself, the running away, the violent actions, were a form of self-harm.”
After his first escape in 2011, he was transferred to a maximum security prison. He said those years were, ironically, the best years of his prison life as he finally got an education and completed his GCSE and A-Level exams.
Initially, he was being pressured to stop questioning the open-ended prison sentence he was serving. But over the years, concerns about the legacy of the repealed sentence have grown greater.
Successive governments have described it as a “stain” on the justice system but have rejected recommendations from the cross-party justice committee to resent those still trapped indefinitely. To date, at least 94 people who lost hope of leaving prisons have committed suicide.
In 2023, Mr Ahmed realized he could appeal to the Court of Appeal using forms he had completed and printed out in the prison library.
Mr Ahmed, who watched the appeal hearing via video link from HMP Oakwood in Staffordshire last year, said he felt like it was 2008 as he listened to lawyers in a London courtroom retelling details of the robbery.
At one point he feared he would be returned to his cell. However, the judgment of Mr Justice Soole and Mr Justice Popplewell concluded: “Having considered all the material before the judge, we respectfully conclude that a second last resort sentence is not justified on this young applicant.”
The judges overturned his IPP prison sentence and replaced it with the five-year prison sentence he had already served and the five-year license period.
While he was waiting for his release papers to arrive at the prison, he started to get angry.
“I’m starting to feel a little bit of hatred for the system because I’m actually a victim,” she added. “The highest judges in the land told me it was abolished; I want to go home.”
He now wants to support other IPP prisoners to appeal their prison sentences, especially given major cuts to legal aid funding in 2013 have made it harder for prisoners to access support.
“We are actually hostages,” he said. “We have gone from youth to manhood and we are watching people who have committed much worse crimes being detained and released.
“Every sentence is being reduced; people are getting 30 percent, 40 percent off. Nothing is coming for the IPP. We just sat there and supported each other.”
He fears that without government action to help those still languishing in prison, more prisoners will take their lives in despair.
He said the prison service never offered support to him or other IPPs and manipulated them by giving them constantly moving goalposts.
“Going through this stress, having a parole hearing… I’ve seen some people 10 years later, they’re not the same. They’re using synthetic drugs, they’re harming themselves, they’re killing themselves, they’ve lost family members. They don’t see any hope.”
He credits his positive mindset with helping him get through the difficult 18-year period. He wants to show others: “If I can do this and be successful, then other IPPs can too.”
The UN has condemned prison sentences as “psychological torture” and 233 IPP prisoners are serving their sentences in secure hospitals; In many cases, the hopeless nature of imprisonment has left them deeply wounded.
Mr Ahmed supports proposals put forward by the Howard Alliance for Sentencing Reform to give all remaining IPP prisoners a release date within two years at the next parole review.
He said: “I think two years is a long, long time, but it’s better than nothing. In those two years you can start to feel the weight on your shoulders. You can start to get used to coming home.”
He added: “Let them go home and inform their families that something has happened. Everyone should put this issue aside now and let this be over.”
“Until then you’re still causing trauma and you’re still causing torture because it’s classified as a torture punishment. So keeping these prisoners there day in and day out, with nothing stable, is a form of torture.”
Prisons minister James Timpson stressed that the government supports progress towards the release of IPPs by the Parole Board with a revamped IPP Action Plan.
But Mr Ahmed says he was never offered any meaningful support.
“The prison did nothing,” he added. “I have not seen any IPP getting support.
“I was contacted before I came out and asked if I wanted to attend an IPP forum. No, you can’t come to me after 18 years and offer a forum. I think it’s disrespectful. I think it’s a tick box for the prison service.”
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 additional support for IPP prisoners and changing the law to ensure those serving these sentences in the community can be considered for license termination more quickly.”
