Ministers will have 'blood on their hands' over IPP

Ex-top judge rails against 'unjust' indefinite jail terms

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN CRIME CORRESPONDENT

Britain’s former top judge has warned that ministers will have blood on their hands if they refuse to take action to help prisoners trapped in abolished indefinite jail terms.

John Thomas, a crossbench peer who served as head of the judiciary as lord chief justice from 2013 to 2017, told the prisons minister the government is failing those still trapped under “simply unjust” imprisonment for public protection (IPP) jail terms.

In a passionate speech in the House of Lords as peers debated a string of amendments to help IPP prisoners - which the government refused to support - he warned that more people would take their lives or die in prison while serving these sentences. At least 94 prisoners have died by suicide after losing hope of getting out.

The Independent has repeatedly called for all IPP prisoners to have their sentences - which have been branded “psychological torture” by the UN - reviewed.

Lord Thomas said: “If we don’t act now, we will have, and I use this word deliberately, blood on our hands. We cannot shirk the responsibility for rectifying an injustice. And what an injustice this is.”

The open-ended sentences were abolished in 2012, but not retrospectively. This has left thousands already sentenced incarcerated without a release date until they can convince the Parole Board they are safe to be released.

Victims of the scandal whose tragic cases have been highlighted by