Prison torture for phone thief dad still locked behind bars after 14 years

A father who has been locked up for over 14 years after drunkenly stealing a mobile phone has returned to prison. The fresh imprisonment of Thomas White comes just months after he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, following a lengthy family battle to get him medical help. The 43-year-old previously set himself alight in desperation as his mental health crumbled over the open-ended sentence, which has been condemned by the United Nations. Last October, his family won a six-year fight for him to be transferred to a medium secure hospital for treatment.

But to their dismay he has now been returned to a category B prison after receiving just nine months of care. His sister, Pastor Clara White, fears his mental health will rapidly deteriorate back in prison without a release date, adding: “So his torture starts all over again.”

White was handed a controversial Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence for street robbery of a mobile phone in 2012. The ‘indefinite’ detention sentences were brought in by New Labour in 2005 in a bid to appear “tough on crime.”

White was given an IPP sentence with a two-year tariff in 2012, just four months before the sentence was abolished due to widespread criticism of its implementation and psychological impact on inmates.

But he has now served more than seven times the length of his original tariff – the minimum period a prisoner must serve before becoming eligible for consideration by the Parole Board.

He was transferred from prison to a secure psychiatric hospital in November last year after his family campaign sparked interventions from Lord Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, and Lord Timpson, the former Prisons Minister.

He developed paranoid schizophrenia while serving his indefinite IPP sentence with no release date and an independent psychiatrist concluded that White’s’ indefinite imprisonment was the “probable cause of his illness.”

In 2024, White was finally granted permission to reunite with his son, Kayden. Because of strict prison restrictions attached to his sentence, he had been banned from seeing Kayden since the boy was just nine months old. Their emotional reunion took place when Kayden was 14 years old.

Before his transfer to hospital, White was held at HMP Manchester where reports reached his family that he was jumping onto wing safety netting, attempting to break his legs through cell bars, smashing his face against the floor and trying to set fire to himself.

His family now fear that returning him to prison risks undoing what little progress has been made during his nine months of treatment and placing him back into the environment they, and the independent psychiatrist, believe contributed to his illness.

The move comes despite Prime Minister Andy Burnham has pledged that the UK Government would be “finally grasping the nettle” to resolve the long-running injustice of IPP sentences as part of efforts to tackle prison overcrowding.

Pastor White said: “When Thomas was moved to hospital, we finally felt a small sense of hope. After years of watching him deteriorate in prison, he was finally somewhere designed to provide care rather than punishment.

“Now, after just nine months, he is being sent back into the very system that made him ill. This will be Thomas’ fifteenth prison. Fifteen prisons in fourteen years. How can anybody recover, rehabilitate or prepare for release when they are passed around like a parcel?

“My brother has served more than seven times the punishment that the court originally considered appropriate. He is a severely unwell man who needs treatment, stability and hope. Instead, he is being sent back to prison with no release date and no certainty about what his future holds.

“Andy Burnham’s pledge to resolve the IPP injustice is a welcome first step but we now need a clear timeline and plan from the government.”

James Daly, then Conservative MP for Bury North, told the House of Commons in 2023: “If Thomas had been sentenced four months later, he would not be in prison now.”

IPP sentences were abolished in 2012. However, the sentence was not abolished retrospectively, leaving more than 2,200 people trapped behind bars today.

The United Nations has described the sentence to cause severe psychological harm and recently found that the continued detention of several IPP prisoners amounted to arbitrary detention.

IPP prisoners are expected to complete rehabilitation programmes to demonstrate reduced risk and secure release. However, they are often deprioritised for places in favour of prisoners with fixed release dates.

White has now been transferred 14 times in over 14 years, so has never been given a realistic opportunity to complete the programmes required to progress his case.

In 2016, while held at HMP Norwich, he began speaking in Roman numerals during calls home. He was reportedly seen walking the prison wing wrapped in a bedsheet, presenting himself as Jesus Christ and telling fellow prisoners he could heal them.

Many other IPPs, like Thomas, committed low-level offences and have spent over a decade in UK prisons including:

Abdullahi Suleman, 42, is still in jail 20 years after he was handed an IPP for a laptop robbery, having been recalled for missing a hospital appointment

Shaun Anton Lloyd, 39, who has been recalled to prison five times and served over 12 years for two street robberies he committed when he was 18

The majority of IPP prisoners have served their original tariff. Many are now more than a decade over tariff and are held in Category C and D prisons, indicating that they are assessed as presenting a relatively low level of risk.

Since the sentence was introduced, 96 IPP prisoners have tragically taken their own lives in custody.

Campaigners estimate that more than £145million of taxpayers’ money was spent detaining IPP prisoners in 2024 alone, with the total cost since abolition exceeding £1.6billion.

A growing number of politicians, legal experts, campaigners and former ministers have called for a resentencing exercise to bring an end to what many describe as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in the British justice system.