‘He’s in the right place now’: Father jailed for 13 years for stealing phone is finally transferred to hospital
Father transferred to hospital after serving abolished IPP sentence
- Thomas White, a father serving an abolished Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence, has been transferred to a specialist mental health hospital after 13 years in prison.
- White developed paranoid schizophrenia and psychosis during his incarceration, having been jailed for stealing a phone, and previously set himself alight in his cell.
- His sister, Reverend Clara White, campaigned for his transfer, stating he told her he "would have died in prison" without it.
- IPP sentences were abolished in 2012 but not retrospectively, leaving nearly 2,500 people still incarcerated, with almost 700 serving at least 10 years beyond their minimum term.
- Despite calls from the justice committee and the UN, successive governments have refused to re-sentence IPP prisoners, with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe recently joining calls for action.