Tommy Nicol was serving an IPP sentence for robbery and when his tariff expired and he still wasn’t released from prison, he took his own life. Tommy is just one of many: the total number of IPP serving prisoners who had taken their own lives by the end of 2022 was 81. It’s likely that IPPs are the highest prison cohort for suicides, and we know that the self-harm rate for IPP prisoners is double that of other life sentenced prisoners, and almost double that of determinately sentenced prisoners. In this episode, Sam investigates the human stories behind these stark statistics. 

Sam visits the ‘SoulsINQUEST’ exhibition in Brixton’s 198 Gallery to speak to INQUEST’s Director, Deborah Coles and look at their exhibition highlighting state violence, death, grief and resistance. It includes a tribute to Tommy, written by his sister Donna Mooney, and a photograph of a bike which signifies ‘the wheel of pain’. Every week people die of preventable deaths in mental health settings, in immigration detention, following police contact or in prisons. INQUEST was founded in 1981 by bereaved families and campaigners to provide specialist advice on contentious state related deaths and their investigation, in England and Wales.

 

After Tommy's death, Donna became involved in setting up the campaigning organisation UNGRIPP, the ‘United Group for the Reform of IPPs'. Like INQUEST it was also founded by families and campaigners, to raise the issue of the plight of IPP serving prisoners and to advocate for policy change in parliament.

Sam meets Sir Bob Neil to talk about the evidence gathered by the Justice Select Committee’s IPP report on self-harm and suicide. And we hear Labour’s John McDonnell raise the issue in parliament: they both highlight how the IPP sentence creates a sense of hopelessness, pushing many serving them over the edge. Lord David Blunkett, the architect of the IPP sentence, is posed a hard-hitting question by a former IPP prisoner.

 

This episode is dedicated to the memory of the men and women serving IPP sentences who have died whilst in prison.

 

Get in touch on Twitter, TikTok, Facebook or Instagram @Trapped_Pod

 

For more info about UNGRIPP visit: www.ungripp.com / @UNGRIPP

 

For more information about INQUEST visit: www.inquest.org.uk / @INQUEST_ORG

 

Contributors in order of appearance:

 

Donna Mooney, IPP campaigner and sister of Tommy Nicol

Deborah Coles, Director of Inquest @DebatINQUEST

Sir Bob Neil MP @neill_bob

Graham Towl @ProfGrahamTowl

Lord David Blunkett @LordBlunkett

 

Voices in archive:

John McDonnell MP

 

Reporter: Samantha Asumadu @SamanthaAsumadu

Executive Producer: Melissa FitzGerald @melissafitzg

Producer: Steve Langridge @SMLANGERS

Consultant: Hank Rossi

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Erscheinungs­datum: 1.8.2023, 06:30:18