Shirley Debono has been fighting against a little known piece of legislation that she says leaves families of prisoners in limbo.
Shirley Debono has been protesting against the legislation for more than a decade. However, the 62-year-old continues to campaign at present, as the legislation is still in existence and is affecting prisoners and their families.
Her son, Shaun Lloyd, was sentenced to two years and nine months of prison time but ended up staying in for eight years. This was due to the Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentence (IPP), which Shaun was sentenced to.
Being a campaigner is not an easy job for Shirley. “It causes so much anxiety, trauma, sleepless nights, tiredness, overthinking,” says Shirley. After Shaun was released, however, he was recalled to prison twice under the IPP.
“As a campaigner and as a mum of an IPP prisoner, sometimes I think it makes me more ill than it does on Shaun. Shaun lives in it ‘cause he has to. And I am fighting it, it’s horrible,” says Shirley.
In 2007, Shirley quit her job to focus on campaigning full-time. She couldn’t concentrate on her work at the time. “I just had a breakdown after breakdown, after breakdown. I was at work, I had to go to the bathroom there to dry my tears and tidy myself, and then go back to the job again,” says Shirley.
IPP doesn’t affect only the prisoners themselves, but their families. Shaun already had two children when he was recalled to prison for the second time in 2019. “The children are too young to understand, and we tend to keep them from anything that might be negative,” says Shirley.
“They’re gonna understand one day. And then you have to explain to them,” says Shirley. She hopes that at that time, IPP will be abolished and the children will not be affected by it.
IPP prisoners can apply for their release after serving the initial sentence period. However, a parole board can keep prisoners inside if they see fit. IPP prisoners may also be recalled into prison. This is the reason that Shaun was recalled to prison twice, in 2016 and 2019 respectively, for breaking licence conditions.
IPP was introduced in England and Wales in 2005, intended for people considered dangerous but whose offence did not merit a life sentence. In 2012, the IPP was abolished but there was no reprieve for those already serving sentences, meaning they still had to apply to the parole board for release.
“So after 2012, these prisoners were seeing people coming into prison, having committed the same crime as them or worse, being sentenced to getting out. And they’re still stuck inside languishing, don’t know when they’re gonna get out of prison. No light at the end of the tunnel – no hope,” said Shirley.
During the seven years life-span of IPP, over 8,000 IPP sentences were imposed. As of the end of 2022, there were 1,602 unreleased IPP prisoners. The majority of them had been held for more than eight years beyond their original sentence, according to the Ministry of Justice.
Being a campaigner for more than a decade, Shirley is not going to stop helping IPP prisoners. Her phone suddenly rang. she said it was an IPP prisoner who constantly calls her for help.
Shirley has started a petition on the UK Government and Parliament website which calls for preventing IPP prisoners from being imprisoned or recalled unless found guilty. “All IPP prisoners should be resentenced. So those who committed the lower-level crimes like street robbery with no violence or you know the lower-level crimes to be resentenced but released on the licence more suited to the crimes they committed,” says Shirley.
The petition is due next month and short of more than 7,000 signatures to trigger a government response.
Although the abolishment of IPP has been a decade, a spokesperson for UNGRIPP, an IPP prisoner concern group, said, “I don’t think there’s any changes at all.”
The UK government is due to publish a new IPP action plan this spring. UNGRIPP said they’re not sure there would be concrete changes for people who were sentenced to IPP.
Shirley has planned a protest outside Downing Street calling for resentencing IPP prisoners next month.
“It’s a long route. I never had the line on my face when it started. Look at me now!” says Shirley.
(Updated 16 Apr 2022)