Father has lost hope’ after hospital transfer denied during indefinite jail term

Man on now-abolished sentence has developed health issues

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

A father who has spent 13 years in prison for stealing a phone and set himself alight in desperation has “totally disengaged and lost hope” after being denied a hospital transfer, his devastated family have said. Fears are growing for Thomas White, who has developed paranoid schizophrenia and psychosis as he languishes under an abolished indefinite jail term that has been described as “psychological torture” by the UN.

Two medical reports last year laid bare the toll of the devastating Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) jail term on the 42year-old, warning that White’s “lengthy incarceration” was creating “impermeable barriers” to his recovery as his family fought for him to be moved to a hospital.

Last June, he set himself on fire in his cell as he lost hope of being freed 12 years after he was handed a two-year sentence.

Since being refused a transfer to hospital last month, he has increasingly turned to synthetic drugs and cut off contact with his loved ones. He was too unwell to even leave his cell when his local MP, Labour’s James Frith, went to Category A HMP Manchester to visit him with his sister Clara White.

Mr Frith has backed The Independent’s calls for all IPP prisoners to have their sentences reviewed after hearing of White’s plight.