A UN expert on torture has called on the UK Government to conduct an urgent review of sentences imposed on prisoners who are being held indefinitely under the discredited Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentencing scheme.

As of the end of 2022, close to 2,900 people were still being held under the scheme.

Unresolved legacy

Between 2005 and 2012, English and Welsh courts used the IPP legislation to issue indeterminate sentences to those deemed likely to cause serious public harm, 'until they no longer represented such a risk', said a press release issued by the UN human rights office OHCHR on behalf of the UN torture expert, Alice Jill Edwards.