Teen who stole a bike aged 17-and is still in prison nearly two decades on

WAYNE Bell was just 17 when he was locked up for robbery that was 17 years ago.

- JOHN SCHEERHOUT

He's now 34 and is still behind bars.

He is one of the most shocking victims of a now discredited sentence long since abolished by the courts, Imprisonment for Public Protection.

He's never had a partner, nor a chance to have children or a family of his own. And now he's stopped engaging with his mother and sister, who aren't sure which prison he's in and now can't visit or even write to him, according to his devastated sister.

Their father's dying wish to speak to Wayne as he struggled with cancer was unfulfilled, she revealed.

Wayne, from Burnage, was sent to prison in the first place because of a relatively minor offence - he punched another lad and took his bike in Ladybarn Park in south Manchester.

He was sentenced in March 2007 and today, more than 17 years on, he is yet to be set free.

It was his misfortune that he was among the first convicts to be handed a new type of sentence, since discredited and abolished as 'unjust.

In 2005, the then Home Secretary David Blunkett introduced Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences (IPP).

The public, press and even some judges - confronted with this new tool struggled to understand them at first. Those who got them were handed minimum terms, often only of a few years, after which they had to convince the Parole Board they were safe to be released.

If they weren't deemed safe, they remained behind bars.

The problem was IPP prisoners weren't given access to courses so they could prove they were rehabilitated.

So, as they were repeatedly turned down, they lost hope, and many of them kicked off behind bars.

Wayne Bell was one of them.