A United Nations body has condemned the UK for continuing to imprison people on Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) found that five prisoners put forward in a test case had suffered arbitrary detention.
The legal opinion is the first that UNWGAD, part of the UN Human Rights Council, has published on IPP. One of the five men, Josh McRae, died in custody last year at the age of 34.
Judges in England and Wales handed down around 8,000 IPP sentences between 2005 and 2012. The sentence ended in 2012, but its abolition did not apply retrospectively. The latest data shows that 2,271 people remain in prison serving it.
The working group said the UK government had not set out compelling reasons to justify holding the five men. Nor had it shown that alternative measures could not deal with any threat they posed. On that basis, UNWGAD concluded that their imprisonment was arbitrary.
The group also highlighted the effect of the sentence itself. It said that the “psychological harm inflicted by the indeterminate sentence … generates behaviours and presentations that are relied upon as evidence of continued risk”.
UNWGAD found that the Parole Board did not give the prisoners an adequate way to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.
According to a clinical assessment, one of the five requires treatment in a psychiatric hospital. The prison held him in segregation in an ordinary closed jail instead of transferring him to a suitable facility. The working group found that this amounted to discrimination on the grounds of disability.
Together, the five men have served almost 87 years in custody under IPP. In their complaint, they argue that by depriving them of their liberty the UK Government is breaching international law.
UNWGAD called on the Government to ensure a full and independent investigation into the circumstances of the men’s detention. It also said ministers should take appropriate measures against those responsible for violating their rights.
The opinion follows earlier criticism from within the UN. Alice Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, has previously described IPP sentences as “inhuman” and “degrading”.
Shirley Debono, of the campaign group IPP Committee in Action, filed the original complaint. Her son has spent around 20 years under an IPP sentence, well beyond his tariff.
She said: “The UN’s opinion is both a huge relief and absolutely heartbreaking.” She added that it meant everything to her that an independent international body had finally recognised her son’s detention as arbitrary.
“No family should have to endure the trauma, uncertainty, and psychological harm that IPP has caused to so many people for so many years,” she said.
