{"id":210315,"date":"2025-06-24T12:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/210315\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T12:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:05:10","slug":"man-who-developed-psychosis-after-being-jailed-on-indefinite-term-moved-to-hospital-uk-criminal-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/210315\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who developed psychosis after being jailed on indefinite term moved to hospital | UK criminal justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

A prisoner driven to psychosis after being jailed for more than a decade<\/a> under an indeterminate sentence has been moved to a hospital for a treatment after a six-year battle by his family and supporters.<\/p>\n

Thomas White was sentenced to a minimum of two years in custody under the imprisonment for public protection (IPP) scheme in 2012 for stealing a mobile phone, but remains in prison over a decade later.<\/p>\n

His family said the undefined nature of his sentence, and spending years in prison without a release date, caused White to develop serious mental health problems, and he was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just started to get sicker and sicker \u2013 the present system is definitely psychiatric abuse,\u201d his sister, Clara White, said. \u201cWithout a doubt, he would have died in prison. He was dying. He was dying in front of us. We could see it. But now he has a chance of survival.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the family found out last Wednesday that White will be transferred to a medium secure mental health hospital, a move they have been fighting for since 2019. He is currently living in the hospital ward at HMP Manchester.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did cry. It was unbelievable. It was, oh my word, we\u2019ve achieved what we\u2019ve set out to do. I called my family, my mum, and there were tears in every family home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time that he\u2019s actually going to be cared for properly. Unfortunately he\u2019ll probably be there for many years. He\u2019s still under the IPP though. The stain of IPP has not been removed from him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clara White said her brother had no history of mental health problems before his imprisonment, but his health deteriorated drastically in 2016 after four years in prison with no end in sight.<\/p>\n

He started wearing his bedsheets as clothes, claiming he could hear voices through the air vents of the cells, and \u201cspeaking in Roman numerals\u201d down the phone. On one occasion when his mother visited him in prison, she had to ask a prison officer to identify him for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a mum to not recognise her son, that\u2019s how bad it was. He was disheveled. He\u2019d lost half of his body weight,\u201d Clara White said. \u201cHis mind had been broken. Thomas spent inhumane periods in segregation. So he was alone with no human contact with his Bible talking to himself. I think somewhere along the line, something broke in Thomas and never repaired again.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that in the 13 and a half years he had been in custody, he had been moved between 13 different prisons, with his family sometimes having to drive for many hours to visit him.<\/p>\n

White\u2019s case was previously highlighted by a UN torture expert as \u201cemblematic of the psychological harm\u201d caused by indeterminate sentences.<\/p>\n

IPP sentences were banned 12 years ago (four months after White\u2019s sentencing), but more than 2,000 people are still in prison serving an IPP sentence and at least 90 IPP prisoners have taken their own lives.<\/p>\n

The Labour peer Tony Woodley has introduced a private member\u2019s bill to resentence prisoners still under IPP sentences<\/a>, but after decades of campaigning, many have little faith it will result in change any time soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got so much respect for Lord Woodley trying to get rid of IPP sentences but do I think that will happen? No. And I\u2019m absolutely glad we went down the hospital route because my brother wouldn\u2019t have lasted much longer waiting for a bill to go through,\u201d Clara White said.<\/p>\n

She has been supported by the pastor Mick Fleming, from Church on the Street, who has highlighted White\u2019s case in his latest book, Walk In My Shoes. The pair plan to continue fighting on behalf of other IPP prisoners, and to get White\u2019s IPP sentence removed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to walk away and forget about the others, hundreds of other people need help,\u201d she said. \u201cThomas doesn\u2019t hope. He doesn\u2019t know what hope is anymore. He thinks that they\u2019re going to change their mind and keep him in prison. That\u2019s what IPP does to someone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prisoner driven to psychosis after being jailed for more than a decade under an indeterminate sentence has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[105,218,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-210315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}