Prisoner on indefinite term ‘stripped naked and starved’

Robber who has served 14 years is on trial for rooftop protest

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

A prisoner serving an abolished indefinite jail term claims he was stripped naked and punched by prison officers who were “starving” him before he climbed onto the roof of a maximum-security prison, a court heard.

Joe Outlaw, 39, has served almost 14 years in prison after he was handed a four-and-a-half-year Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence for robbing a takeaway with an imitation firearm in 2011.

Jurors at Teesside Crown Court were told the open-ended jail term, which was scrapped in 2012, has been repeatedly described as a “stain” on the justice system and linked to higher rates of suicide and self-harm, and that at least 90 prisoners had taken their own lives.

Outlaw, who has ADHD, anxiety, paranoia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, told the court he began self-harming and damaging prison cells a few years into his sentence as he began to lose hope that he would be released.

“It’s just appalling, shocking, soul destroying,” said Outlaw, who believes he has been held in up to 44 different prisons since he was handed an IPP sentence. “When you have hope you invest in that hope, and when that goes away you just cut yourself off to save the hurt to avoid disappointment. That’s the truth of it.”