by A desperate mother has voiced her concerns after her 18-year-old son was jailed for 18 months but 18 years later he is still locked up in a cruel indefinite prison term.
Luke Ings was given a controversial public protection (IPP) prison sentence for a robbery and fight in a McDonalds when he was just 17 years old.
The prison terms were abolished in 2012 amid human rights concerns, but not retrospectively – leaving almost 3,000 people in prison with no release date.
Devastated mum Samantha, 57, said Luke, now 36, has spent his adult life trapped with “monsters” inside the maximum security HMP Wakefield, which houses some of Britain’s most serious criminals. all spent inside.
She fears that unless the government takes urgent action, it will not recover amid the high rates of suicide and self-harm among IPP prisoners.
“It’s wrong, they have to fix this,” she said The Independent. “I understand if they murdered someone or raped someone. My son was in a fight in McDonald’s and a street robbery.
“He was 17 and my mother died two weeks before. It went off the rails. I don’t know what else to do to find it out.
“There is no light at the end of the tunnel for him,” she said, adding that things would have been much worse if not for the help of her late father, who did not live to see his grandson’s release.
“I think if it wasn’t for my dad, Lucas wouldn’t be in prison now – he’d be dead. He would kill himself.”
At least 90 prisoners have taken their own lives as they lost hope of being freed. A further 30 suicides are said to have taken place in the community – where IPP prisoners are subject to strict license conditions, which mean they can be recalled to prison for minor offences.
Meanwhile, the government has begun releasing other prisoners after serving just 40 percent of their sentences to ease prison overcrowding in a move described as a “slap in the face” for IPP prisoners.
IPP sentences do not fall under the government’s SDS40 early release scheme, which is expected to see 5,500 prisoners walk free by the end of October, despite more than 700 IPP prisoners serving at least 10 years longer than their minimum sentence.
“They really need to watch this,” the mother told him. “They will hide some of their prisons [if they release IPP prisoners]. His only fear is that some of them have been in there for a long time, will they be able to deal with the outside?”
She said nearly two decades in prison had left her confident and polite son, who has autism, a nervous man who struggles to make eye contact. His younger sister Millie, now 21, was just seven months old when he was sentenced to IPP.
But Ings Ings, from Bracknell, Berkshire, said she still keeps Luke’s clothes in a drawer at home in the hope that one day he will be allowed home.
“My little girl, she was seven months old when he was imprisoned. It is so unfair that she lost 20 years of her brother,” she said.
“The way they treated them is appalling and I know it’s not just him. It’s like our family is not complete. We’re missing someone – every Christmas, every birthday, every Easter, whenever we get together – he’s missing.”
Labor peer Lord Woodley called for a free vote on a new private member’s bill in the House of Lords to ban all IPP prisoners.
He has branded the prison terms “sentences of torture” and said it “makes no sense to keep almost 3,000 prisoners locked up under a prison term of extermination in the middle of a prison overcrowding crisis”.
The bill comes next The Independent he repeatedly called for the sentences of all IPP prisoners to be reviewed.
He has already won the support of the architect of the flawed sentence, Lord Blunkett, the chairman of the Association of Prison Officers and campaigners.
In an appeal to the recently elected government earlier this summer, UN special rapporteur on torture Dr Alice Jill Edwards called for urgent action to help those serving the “inhumane” sentences.
Former justice select committee chairman Sir Bob Neill has also urged the prime minister to have the political and moral courage to “do the right thing” and stop IPP prisoners.
Under an IPP sentence, prisoners must prove to the parole board that they are not a danger to the public before they can be released under strict license conditions.
Ings Ings said that Lúcás was left devastated after the probation recommended his release last year, with a place in a pressing line-up, only for parole to be rejected at the last minute.
She said: “I can’t understand it. They are just finding reasons not to let him have parole. It’s a joke. It’s about time someone gave him a break and let him come home.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “It is right that IPP sentences should be ended. The Chancellor is committed to working with organizations and campaign groups to ensure that appropriate action is taken to support those still serving IPP sentences.
“The Prison Service continues to provide additional support to those still in custody, including improving access to rehabilitation programs and mental health support.”
