EXCLUSIVE: UK prisoners serving inhumane indefinite sentences may have lost appeals for their freedom because non-existent offences had been wrongly included in their files
It’s hard to care about prisoners in the main, but we should all care about a prison system used to effectively torture individual prisoners
Yes you read that right: UK prisoners serving inhumane indefinite sentences may have lost appeals for their freedom because non-existent offences had been wrongly included in their files
My latest investigative piece for openDemocracy was published yesterday.
Exclusive: Prisoners ‘may have been refused parole due to fake crimes on files’
On the 15th February my editor Ramzy Alwakeel asked me to do a round up of political reactions to my first exclusive at openDemocracy
This new article was meant to be a simple 800 word piece. I approached people such as former Justice Minister Kenneth Clarke who scrapped IPPs in 2012, current Shadow Justice Minister Steve Reed, Sir Tony Blair and others who never got back to me. I sent out this simple email adjusted dependant on their position/likely ego:
I've been writing about the issue of prisoners still serving IPP sentences. We published this story last week: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/families-plea-over-barbaric-indefinite-prison-sentences-for-minor-crimes/
We'd really value a comment from you on the matter as Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, as we're now working on a follow-up.
In particular, would you be able to let us know what you think personally about the fact there are still people serving sentences like these?
And could you comment on what you think should happen?
Would you, perhaps, add your voice to the calls for all prisoners serving IPPs to be freed as soon as their minimum tariffs had been served, and for their licence conditions to be reduced?
We plan to get political reactions to it from across the spectrum, including from Lord Blunkett and Lord Blair. We also want to get across that IPPs are a disability issue too.
Would you be prepared to make a statement considering IPP sentences were banned in 2012. It's left thousands of working class white, black and Asian men and women languishing in prison, many for over a decade.
Instead as I collected comments from the Ministry of Justice and the Parole Board and corresponded with family and friends of IPP prisoners a darker truth than I had even imagined emerged:
'Luton man Martin Myers, 40, has been in prison on an IPP sentence since 2006.
In 2013, he was wrongly accused of being a sex offender in a letter from the Parole Board that was seen by fellow inmates. He was savagely beaten.
Martin made a complaint to the prison service in June 2015 after he was attacked by three men who made it clear they were targeting him because of his supposed sexual offences. The Ministry of Justice admitted its mistake and offered Myers £21,000 in compensation, but no effort was made to correct either his record or his reputation with other prisoners, and he was attacked three further times in 2017 and 2018.
‘So patently wrong and unjust, it’s hard to believe that it’s real’
-Lib Dem peer, Jenny Jones
This was not the first time errors had been made in Martin’s file. In another letter seen by openDemocracy, from 2012, a senior prison officer admits that a reference to Martin being a “hostage taker” in his notes could similarly not be verified.'
Ideally this second investigative piece will lead to an enquiry and these prisoners being freed. Even the MOJ press office replied to me saying ‘Thanks Sam. Good piece.’ after it was published.
An enquiry can only happen if you make a noise about it.
There are some powerful and influential people who read this blog, editors at the Spectator, Telegraph, New York Times, Financial Times, Black Ballad, British Black List and the Guardian. Journalists at The Independent, The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Declassified, Aljazeera English, New Statesman, and Channel 4. It’s in your hands now.
My first investigation for @openDemocracy was described by George Monbiot as ‘profoundly disturbing’
It revealed something that had been guarded and hidden for years by both the Labour and Tory Ministries of Justice and the Independent England and Wales Parole Board.
My second investigation for openDemocracy however, reveals hard news. This is in the realm of calling for an enquiry. Careers should be lost and resignations abound.
Read it. And demand #JusticeForIPPs
In other news Media Diversified will be looking for investors soon to build an equitable newsroom.
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Have a great day
Sam
How do we protest against this?