The nightmarish catch-22 at the heart of a burning injustice

Editorial: The plight of hundreds of inmates trapped in a grim loop between indefinite sentences and mental health treatment within our prison system must be resolved

The Independent has long campaigned for justice for the prisoners who are still serving the indefinite sentences that were abolished 14 years ago. Imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences were scrapped because they were an affront to the basic principles of justice – and yet those offenders serving them at the time continued to do so.

There are still 2,400 of them, given no release date, imprisoned until they can satisfy the Parole Board that it is safe to release them, and faced with a return to prison if they break the often stringent conditions imposed on them.

Governments of both parties have refused demands by prisoners’ families, retired judges including John Thomas, the former lord chief justice of England, and The Independent for IPP prisoners to be resentenced and treated in the same way as other offenders.

Their situation is bad enough, and the toll on their mental health is severe, but, for the 233 of them transferred to hospital for mental health treatment, a further injustice awaits. In a twist resembling Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, as soon as they get better they are returned to prison, where they continue to serve their indefinite sentence – the very condition that contributed to their mental health crisis in the first place.

We understand that this is not a cheerful note on which to usher in the new year, but we hope that readers, including ministers, will read our reporting of some of the cases in which offenders are trapped by this modern-day catch-22.

Thomas White, for example, now aged 42, was handed an IPP sentence for stealing a mobile phone. After 13 years, during which time he set fire to himself and smashed his face on the floor, he was transferred to hospital. He has told his sister “it’s all a lie” after learning that he will be returned to prison – without a release date – as soon as his mental health stabilises.

The Independent appreciates that the Parole Board has to err on the side of caution when considering applications for release. It does not want to be blamed for crimes committed by former IPP prisoners, many of them psychologically damaged, especially when the original intention of the legislation was to provide additional protection for the public from particularly dangerous criminals. However, more IPP sentences were imposed than was expected, and they were often handed down for relatively minor offences. Some of the worst cases are of people who have now been imprisoned for 20 years for the original offence of stealing a phone or a laptop.

It is not up to the Parole Board to change the system. That is the responsibility of ministers, including the prime minister, the justice secretary, and James Timpson, the prisons minister at the Ministry of Justice.

Lord Timpson said last month: “We cannot take any steps that would put victims or the public at risk.” But it is impossible to eliminate risk altogether, and the harm done by this injustice now greatly outweighs the danger to the public.

Franz Kafka and Joseph Heller described absurd moral universes of totalitarianism and war that seem a long way from Britain in 2026. Yet there are people in this country, this year, who are trapped in an unjust system as extreme as any in fiction.

Let us hope that 2026 is the year that Sir Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Lord Timpson find the courage to end this Kafkaesque stain on Britain’s justice system.