Father whose mental health crumbled while jailed on IPP jail term for stealing mobile phone faces being sent back to prison
The family of a prisoner who set himself on fire in desperation after his mental health deteriorated while serving an indefinite prison sentence are pleading with authorities to stop plans to send him back to prison.
Thomas White was moved to a medium-security hospital unit last year after a huge struggle from his family, who watched him spiral into psychosis while he languished in prison with no release date.
He was sentenced to a controversial Public Protection Prison (IPP) sentence for street mobile phone robbery in 2012. A judge told him he should serve at least two years in prison, but he has now been in prison for almost 14 years.
Last week doctors told the 43-year-old they planned to return him to prison within the next four weeks – with no release date yet – after just six months in hospital for a range of mental health issues. The move was postponed following a complaint from his family, but authorities insist he will be detained.
His devastated sister, the Reverend Clara White, fears he will be quickly returned to prison for the hopeless punishment described by the United Nations as “psychological torture”.
he said Independent He thinks that after letting him “rest his nerves” for a short time in the hospital, the authorities will send him back to be “tortured some more.”
He is calling on justice secretary David Lammy, who had to issue an arrest warrant to allow his transfer, to “do the right thing” and block the move.
Their calls were backed by Labor Lord Tony Woodley, who accused ministers of “adding cruelty to injustice” and a former high court deputy judge who said it was “disgracefully cruel”.
After hearing the news, a despondent White told his sister: “They’ll never let me go.”
White is one of approximately 233 prisoners serving IPP sentences who have been transferred to secure units, in many cases because the hopeless nature of prison sentences has hurt them deeply. But as soon as they become stable, they are back where they started: in prison with no release date.
Open-ended prison sentences were abolished in 2012, but not retroactively; thousands of already convicted prisoners were imprisoned indefinitely.
In December last year, almost 2,400 people were still sentenced to prison and at least 94 people took their own lives in prisons after losing hope of getting out.
Pastor White had long campaigned for his brother to be transferred to hospital. Independent – After enduring repeated mental health crises in prison, including setting himself on fire and slamming his face into his cell floor.
But he was dealt a fresh blow last week when clinicians said he would be sent back to prison because that was the only place he could work towards his release.
She insists that the prison system failed her brother for 13 years before he was hospitalized, adding: “He’s doing better, but from today on I think things are going to get worse. It sucks to sit there every day knowing that bus is coming to take you back to prison.”
“I told the doctor it wouldn’t be long before he was back to where he was before he left. I’ll be applying again and fighting again to get him back into the hospital.”
“The despair in him is so sad. It’s painful to see.”
Doctors at the secure unit concluded White suffered from learning disabilities, complex trauma, ADHD, personality disorder and drug-induced psychosis.
But two medical reports in 2024 revealed the impact of devastating imprisonment in the IPP on mental health and warned that “prolonged imprisonment” created “insurmountable obstacles” to his recovery.
Their mother, Margaret White, said she was praying for a miracle and that this would be her son’s 14th transfer after years of being bounced around prisons.
“I can’t visit any more prisons and watch my son disappear before my eyes again,” he said. Independent.
Calling for resentment against all IPP prisoners, Lord Woodley called on the Ministry of Justice to “show some humanity”.
“Sending Thomas back to prison, the place that caused him so much distress after six months, is just adding cruelty to injustice,” he said.
“I call on ministers to show some humanity and intervene to stop Thomas’ transfer and to take urgent action to help everyone still suffering from this cruel punishment by putting an end to it once again and with a complete rethink or re-evaluation.”
Old Bailey and high court deputy judge Nicholas Cooke KC said there was a “huge moral and humanitarian case” for over-tariff IPP prisoners with mental illness who should be treated by doctors rather than the prison system.
He added: “To use the old-fashioned phrase, they have ‘paid their debt to society’ and should now be treated like everyone else suffering from mental illness.
“Transferring them to hospital, treating them and then sending them back to prison, with the foreseeable possibility of a stress-related relapse as a result, is a shameful cruelty to them and their families.
“There is also a practical reason to end this shocking practice. It is the Mental Health Review Tribunal, not the Parole Board, that is best placed in terms of experience and management tools to rehabilitate these people and minimize the risks to themselves and others in the community.”
White’s case was brought before the UN special rapporteur on torture, Dr. It is one of eight examples of IPP injustices highlighted in a major legal complaint against Alice Gill Edwards.
The application made last month was the second application made to the UN regarding the prison sentence. A separate complaint regarding five other IPP prisoners is currently being investigated by the UN working group on arbitrary detention.
A finding of degrading treatment or arbitrary detention would be a grave indictment of the government’s handling of the scandal.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The protection of the public is our top priority and, while it is right that IPP penalties are removed, decisions about treatment and discharge from hospital are clinical matters made by healthcare providers and based on clear medical evidence.
“All IPP prisoners receiving treatment under the Mental Health Act are entitled to post-treatment care when they leave hospital, whether returning to prison or reintegrating into the community. This support prepares them to cope with life outside hospital, reducing the risk of their mental health deteriorating.”
