UN experts warn UK IPP sentences continue to cause severe psychological harm – JURIST

UN human rights experts on Wednesday urged the UK government to review and resentence people still subject to Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences in England and Wales, warning that indefinite detention is causing severe psychological harm, self-harm, and an increased risk of suicide.

The experts said about 2,400 people remain under the IPP system, even though Parliament abolished the sentence in 2012. This includes prisoners who have never been released and others who were released but later recalled to prison. Nearly three-quarters of those who remain unreleased have reportedly spent more than 10 years beyond their minimum punishment.

The sentence was introduced under Sections 225 and 226 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 for offenders considered dangerous but whose crimes did not justify a life sentence. Section 123 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 abolished IPP sentences. However, the change was not retrospective, leaving earlier sentences in force.

Official data recorded 896 IPP prisoners who had never been released as of March 31, 2026. During a House of Lords debate, lawmakers said 99 percent of that group had passed their tariffs. Justice Minister Lord Timpson said the number of never-released prisoners fell by 11 percent between March 2025 and March 2026. He added that average Parole Board review times had fallen from 18 months to 14.5 months.

The UN experts referred eight individual cases to the government. They included Joseph Brady, who has served 18 years on a four-year tariff, and Kerry Parish-McCann, who has served 17 years on a three-year tariff. The experts said repeated release and recall, combined with uncertain detention, had contributed to serious mental-health problems.

The system has previously been examined under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects liberty and security. In the case of James, Wells and Lee v. United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights found an Article 5(1) violation because prisoners were detained beyond their tariffs without adequate access to rehabilitation programmes needed to show that they could safely be released.

The government has continued to rely on its IPP action plan rather than introducing a general resentencing programme. The UN experts said parole reviews cannot reconsider whether the original sentence remains justified and called for either full resentencing or an initial process based on clear eligibility criteria.