Prisoner's four year term became 16 year 'life sentence'

A four year jail term effectively became a life sentence for a man who went on to spend 16 years behind bars.

Raymond Wilkinson was locked up for robbery in 2005 but further offences in prison led to him being given an indefinite sentence that he was never released from.

He died of natural causes in January - eight months before an inquiry into the type of sentence that kept him behind bars was announced by the Government.

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Wilkinson, 50, died in January after being taken from Walton jail to hospital following a number of health issues.

The following month a coroner ruled he died as a result of multi-organ failure caused by a twisted bowel and bands of scar tissue. Aspiration pneumonia also contributed to his death.

The inmate died a prisoner after being handed an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence in 2006 - just a year after he was initially locked up for robbery.

Wilkinson, who had links to the Birmingham area, was made the subject of the IPP after committing arson while in prison.

The type of sentence - which has since been abolished - meant he was locked up indefinitely and so did not have a release date.

It had a minimum tariff of two years but, with Wilkinson only able to secure his release with parole board approval, that two years had become a dozen when, in May 2018, he received a further three year sentence for another arson committed while in jail.

That sentence came after his move to Walton, officially known as HMP Liverpool, in March 2017, a report into his death by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman said.

IPP sentences were abolished in 2012 after being declared "not defensible" by the then coalition Government.

But those already the subject of them remained under the same provisions.

More than 1,700 prisoners are still thought to be locked up with no release date and more than 500 people have - like Wilkinson - been held in prison for more than 10 years beyond the tariff they were initially given.

Concerns over their plight led to the government's Justice Committee announcing an inquiry into IPP sentences in September.

Chair of the Justice Committee, Sir Robert Neill MP, said: It has been almost a decade since the last IPP sentence was handed down. Despite this there are still over 1,700 people in prison who do not know when they will be released.

"The large numbers of people being recalled to prison under IPP suggests there is no end in sight to the problems created by this flawed sentence.

"Our inquiry hopes to understand the problems caused by the continued existence of these sentences as well as to explore possible solutions that Government can bring about."

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