'I've spent half my life in prison for stealing a phone'

Leroy Douglas begs for freedom, describing his indefinite term as 'cripplingly cruel' as he nears 20 years behind bars

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

A father who stole a mobile phone when he was in the grips of a drug addiction is still languishing in prison almost 20 years later under an “inhumane” indefinite jail term.

Leroy Douglas, 43, was told he must serve a minimum of two years and six months for robbing a man of his phone to feed his habit in 2005. Despite getting clean inside and completing 36 prison courses, he has served his sentence almost eight times over and still has no release date as he remains trapped on a now abolished Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) jail term.

In an appeal from prison, he begged: “This IPP sentence is cripplingly cruel. My detention has become inhumane and degrading and they ought to intervene now.”

His appeal comes after the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Dr Alice Edwards, warned the government is “very likely” breaching some IPP prisoners’ human rights as she issued fresh calls for the government to resentence those neglected under the jail term.

Dr Edwards told The Independent: “Keeping them locked up indefinitely, without a clear path to release, is simply inhumane. Some of the IPP prisoners are very likely being detained arbitrarily, by international standards. Notably, those who have been incarcerated for longer than they would have been on the ordinary definite sentencing system.”

The open-ended sentence was abolished in 2012 due to human rights concerns, but not retrospectively, leaving thousands trapped until a Parole Board deems them safe for release. Of 2,614 people still incarcerated on an IPP jail term, 127 prisoners like Douglas have served at least 15 years longer than their original minimum term. He is understood to be one of 186 people who have served at least five times longer than their original sentence.