So a guy has been in prison for 11 years and counting for stealing a phone but Michelle Mone has millions of stolen taxpayers money?

[Crapsummer2023]

And she was last seen posing on a yacht spending our money. Nadhim Zahawi was also accused of dodgy dealings but is about to become Chair of Telegraph newspapers.

This guy stole a phone over a decade ago and still has no release date. How can anyone convince themselves we don’t live in a corrupt country?

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2023/sep/03/un-highlights-psychological-harm-to-uk-man-jailed-since-2012-for-phone-theft

Absolutely corrupt, all set up perfectly for self-serving rich people. I can’t stand Michelle Mone, she’s awful.

This is life under a corrupt tory government. Apparently it's what we voted for.
I despair.

You're not wrong but I feel certain people are focusing on Michelle Mone precisely because she is on a yacht and out of the country. If only there was as much effort put into holding to account the other people who benefitted from Covid - starting with the MPs and Ministers who siphoned off billions to their friends. We know where they all are.

Given that, according to the article, IPP sentences were introduced in 2005 and abolished in 2012, I'm not entirely sure you're putting the blame in the right place here.

Which government introduced indeterminate sentences?

Corrupt government...

It is likely they are just trying to sweep this under the carpet because to arrest her would expose some of their dodgy contracts/dealings.

@Greenwitchhorse you are spot on there.

Stealing a phone isn't usually a prison sentence? Seems something has gone very wrong here.

@110APiccadilly . I don't deny that but it's just another fraudulent case our government will not follow up on in case their own misdeeds are uncovered too. Its been one scandal after another. Too many for anyone on the public to actually pin down and chase up .We are being deliberately overwhelmed to ensure we cannot do anything about the continuous corruption of this government. Mone is just the tip of the iceberg.

But what’s the point in keeping him in prison? I don’t understand. It must have cost and be costing hundreds of thousands to be guarding someone who stole a phone and is now severely unwell. Is it like the immigration process where they are so understaffed it takes forever to process a single person?

And they say life ain't fair.

There must be more to it. No one gets 12 years for stealing a phone. Even rapist and murderers rarely get 12 years

Well he obviously wouldn't have been jailed for just stealing a phone, there will be a lot more to it that that - which the Guardian will have conveniently left out.

You need to read up in IPPs. Even David Blunkett, their principal architect has admitted they area disaster.

I haven’t read the details of this case, but I can tell you there is nothing more to it.

Perhaps you could read this and retract the ‘obviously’

https://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/legislation/bills-acts/legal-aid-sentencing/ipp-factsheet.pdf

I think your title is a bit sensationalist - from reading the article it doesn’t sound like he’s being kept in prison because of the phone theft, but because the parole board has agreed he poses a risk if he is released which may in part be linked to his psychosis. If he gets released he’s unlikely to receive the intensive mental health support he needs for the severity of his condition. There are no winners in this.

Michelle mone is a fraudster and should have no place in the house of lords. No way of recovering the money she fraudulently obtained as it is distributed very carefully.
Congrats to the bank staff who spotted this

The Tories have done so many dodgy deals. So much corruption. PP is correct that we’re being overwhelmed to the point of being de-sensitised.

That doesn't say what he's done, it's a statement about the IPP. There would have been a violent aspect to his crime.

He potentially didn't deserve to be locked up for so long, but who knows if a paper only reports a small percentage of the facts.

Yanbu. There has been a lot of blatant fraud and corruption under this government and its horrifying that they aren't held to account.

I know judges who resent sentencing petty criminals when they know the big ones are jetting around with Boris & chums' blessing

Of course. But the broader point that large scale fraud /theft /corruption took place not just under the nose of the Tory ministers but with their blessing and encouragement still needs to be made.

Two very separate cases

The thing is, IPPs are the sort of thing that makes me worried about a potential Labour government.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want fraud and misuse of public money. But frankly if I had to choose between that, and the sort of megalomaniacs who think that introducing Kafkaesque indeterminate sentences is a good idea, I think I'd rather have the misuse of public money.

So why didn’t the Tories get round to changing IPPs in their 13 years so far? Oh, I know why. They were too busy with stealing and corruption to give a fig about anything else.

If you read the article, they were ended in 2012. The problem is those who were already in prison on them. I imagine that it's legally very difficult to change someone's sentence due to a change in the law (due to stuff like the law not applying retrospectively, which is generally a good thing), but I think surely in this case arrangements should have been made to commute the sentences to ordinary ones.