Two men serving indefinite jail sentences freed after two decades

Two men jailed with indefinite sentences for public protection (IPPs) have been freed after each serving about 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 was 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 IPPs had been “cancelled”.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.Choudhury, sitting with the 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 cases of the three men back to the crown court to review minimum terms imposed on them by judges in Wolverhampton, Reading and Leicester respectively in 2006 and 2007.Bennett and Ings, now both 38, were 17 when they committed offences that led to them being 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 appearing at East Berkshire youth court in March 2006 and admitting offences 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 sentence 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.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.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 the former justice secretary Ken Clarke saying last month that ministers should not to be too cautious.His comments came a week after the current 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.More than 2,000 prisoners remain held indefinitely under IPP sentences, with 99% past their original tariff and 80% having served 10 years or more.Additional reporting by the Press Association