Men with public protection sentences freed after nearly two decades
Minimum terms were just two years or less
Two men jailed in 2006 and 2007 with indefinite sentences for public protection have been freed after serving around two decades in custody, despite receiving minimum terms of two years or less.
A High Court judge and a magistrate hearing an appeal after a review by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) told Luke Ings and Liam Bennett they would be freed, and also replaced an indeterminate sentence given to a third man, James Ward.
Ward, who was freed in 2017 after serving 10 years more than his one-year minimum and later recalled to prison, was also in court, sitting in the public gallery to see his original sentence replaced.
Relatives of Ings and Bennett hugged in the public gallery at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Wednesday as Mr Justice Choudhury told them the indeterminate sentences for public protection had been “cancelled”.
Mr Justice Choudhury said Bennett would instead be sentenced to four years and 264 days, Ward to two years and Ings to 42 months with a 30-month extended licence.
All three men’s original sentences were quashed and replaced after they argued that judges had wrongly found them to be dangerous or had not considered alternative sentences.
Mr Justice Choudhury, sitting with magistrate Norma Grant, told the appellants: “You have already spent considerably longer than those (replacement) sentences in custody.
“The effect is that you, Mr Bennett, and you, Mr Ings, will be entitled to release without further supervision, and you, Mr Ward, will no longer be subject to supervision.”
The ruling came after the CCRC referred the sentences of the three men back to the Crown Court to review minimum terms imposed on them by judges in Wolverhampton, Leicester and Reading in 2006 and 2007.
Bennett and Ings, now both 38, were 17 when they committed offences which saw them classed as dangerous offenders and given indeterminate sentences with respective minimum terms of 24 months and 21 months in 2007 and 2006.
Bennett was originally sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court in May 2007 after being found guilty of reckless arson for setting fire to items in the loft space of an empty council property, and admitting criminal damage and burglary.
Ings was sentenced to detention for public protection after admitting offences at East Berkshire Youth Court in March 2006, including a robbery in an underpass and an assault on a teenager in a fast food outlet.
Ward, now 41, was 21 when he was given a one-year minimum in 2006 at Leicester Crown Court for arson and criminal damage.
He admitted arson – after setting fire to items in his prison cell while serving time for assault – and was released in 2017, but was later recalled to prison and remained in custody until August this year.
Dr Muin Boase, representing Bennett, successfully argued that the judge who sentenced him in 2007 did not give proper weight to his youth, lack of maturity and capacity to change, after a difficult childhood.
In its ruling, the appeal court said there had been no proper basis for the original finding of dangerousness.
Stephen Grattage, for Ward, submitted that it was wrong for the original court to have made a presumption of dangerousness in his case, which the appeal court agreed had been “unreasonable” in light of an arson offence at “the less serious end of the spectrum”.
Annie Fendrich, for Ings, did not challenge the original court’s finding of dangerousness, but argued that the public would have been adequately protected by an extended sentence.
Mr Justice Choudhury said a judge “not considering an extended sentence” in 2006 had been a “very serious error” and that Ings’ then age – 17 – was a critical factor to take into account.
Detention for Public Protection and Imprisonment for Public Protection (DPP and IPP) sentences were abolished in 2012, having been made available to tackle offenders considered a significant risk to the public in 2005.
The law was changed to stop courts handing out IPP sentences after warnings that they were being applied too widely, but the abolition was not retrospective, meaning many prisoners serving such sentences are still behind bars.
The Government has faced calls to take action on IPP jail terms, with former justice secretary Lord Ken Clarke of Nottingham warning last month that ministers should not to be too cautious.
The Conservative former chancellor and justice secretary was among a raft of peers to urge ministers to take action on IPP sentences as part of their plans to free up prison places.
Speaking in September, Lord Clarke said: “I was justice secretary when we abolished IPPs in 2012.
“Nobody in Parliament then would have believed that 14 years later we would have 2,000 people still indefinitely being held in prison without release.”
His comments came a week after Justice Secretary Alex Norris told MPs that the Government planned to “bring forward legislation” to end IPP sentences “once and for all – by the end of this parliament”.