Latest news with #JoeOutlaw
The Independent
13 hours ago
- The Independent
Prisoner on indefinite jail term ‘stripped naked and starved' before he launched rooftop protest
A prisoner serving an abolished indefinite jail term claims he was stripped naked and punched by prison officers who were 'starving' him before he climbed on to the roof of a maximum-security prison, a court heard. Joe Outlaw, 39, has served almost 14 years in prison after he was handed a four-and half-year Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence for robbing a takeaway with an imitation firearm in 2011. Jurors at Teesside Crown Court were told the open-ended jail term, which was scrapped in 2012, has been repeatedly described as a 'stain' on the justice system and linked to higher rates of suicide and self-harm, with at least 90 inmates taking their own lives in prison. Outlaw, who has ADHD, anxiety, paranoia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, told the court he began self-harming and damaging prison cells a few years into his sentence as he began to lose hope that he would be released. 'It's just appalling, shocking, soul destroying,' said Outlaw, who believes he has been held in up to 44 different prisons since he was handed an IPP sentence. 'When you have hope you invest in that hope and when that goes away you just cut yourself off to save the hurt to avoid disappointment. That's the truth of it.' In total, he has been held in segregation for almost seven years of his sentence, he told the court. Due to his worsening paranoia about people tampering with his food during the pandemic, he was moved on to a special diet of tinned tuna, pre-packaged noodles and cous cous in 2020. But when he was transferred to HMP Frankland in May 2023, he was denied his usual diet because prison staff said a tin could be used as a weapon. Outlaw told the court the refusal was 'vindictive' and 'retribution' from prison staff after he was transferred from HMP Manchester weeks earlier, following a similar rooftop protest after three IPP inmates had taken their own lives in quick succession. 'I just wanted people to know the suffering, the pain, the loss, the grief, the injustice,' he explained of the Manchester incident. 'So I got up there and painted 'FREE IPPZ' and sat there shivering for 13 hours.' He told the jury staff at Frankland were 'just grinding me down by starving me', adding that in other prison segregation units, officers were able to meet his dietary needs by simply opening the cans in front of him and passing him the tuna. He is accused of 14 counts of criminal damage caused to the jail in Brasside, Durham. Giving evidence in his own defence on Wednesday, he told the court he was forcibly extracted from his cell by prison officers on 25 May, pinned face-down on the floor and received two blows to his back as his clothes were cut off him. He was then punched in the face and thrown in a strip search cell with only a suicide prevention smock, he said. He told the court that while some prison officers have 'hearts of gold', some 'exploit' their power. 'I just thought they were going to kill me,' he said. 'I thought I have to get out of here. 'Because I had been horrendously treated. I was in an environment which was toxic and neglectful… it was horrible. 'They thought they could get away with anything and I thought I had to do something.' Footage previously played to the court showed Outlaw, dressed only in his underwear, using a piece of heating pipe to lever roofing material and pull roof tiles off the building after he breached segregation security measures on 21 June. He also used the pipe to try to smash cell windows as he clambered on the grated roof of the exercise yard. After the incident at Frankland, he was held in isolation with no contact with other prisoners for a year inside HMP Belmarsh, London, before he was transferred to HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire. In the first four months, he was strip-searched 140 times. He told the jury he had lost faith that he would ever escape his IPP jail term. 'Because there's been a mistake and everyone admitting it's wrong and it's awful, you believe someone is going to do something about it surely,' he added. 'But as time has passed, you soon realise that there's no change. No one gives a s**t. They will just let you die.' The trial continues.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
UK jail escape trial reignites debate over indefinite sentences
The trial of an alleged escapee who spent hours on the roof of a high-security prison in his underpants is set to be the first time the stress caused by indeterminate sentences can be used as a legal defence. Joe Outlaw is due to stand trial on Monday for climbing on to the roof of HMP Frankland in Durham in June 2023 in protest at the imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence he and others are serving. The 38-year-old has been in jail for 13 years, much of that in isolation, after receiving an IPP sentence for robbing a takeaway at gunpoint in 2011. He says he does not remember the crime because he was drunk and high on drugs. Two months before his Durham protest, Outlaw staged a 12-hour sit-in on the roof of Strangeways, HMP Manchester, where he wrote 'FREE IPPZ' in paint. He is due to be tried later for 'escape from lawful custody' in allegedly damaging the roof of Strangeways and for starting a fire in his cell as part of a suicide attempt. The case raises once again the issue of IPPs, which 2,544 prisoners were still serving in March despite the sentences being abolished in 2012. The legislation that ended what campaigners describe as a cruel system was not retrospective. A spokesperson for Reform and Rebuild, a prison advocacy group which is set to give evidence in the trial, said it was 'well overdue' for courts to take into account the stress caused by IPPs. 'This sentence has led to a lot of destructive behaviour among prisoners,' the organisation said. Cherrie Nichol, a campaigner whose brother is serving an IPP, said that under the previous Conservative government many prisoners grew 'absolutely desperate' when they were told they would not be able to be resentenced. 'There were a few of the IPP prisoners who then took their lives because they decided that they were never going to get out,' she said. 'Nobody's been resentenced yet, but we are looking at human rights. That's another battle but we will get it. We'll definitely get it because it's cruel and inhumane. I think if we don't keep fighting and jumping up and down, then it'll just be forgotten.' Campaigners have made some progress over the years, for example in shortening the licences of those released from IPPs from 10 years to three years. Nichol said this 'meant some people could go on holiday with their families and have a life again, because 10 years is a long time after you've suffered'. But she added: 'The government won't admit they're wrong. So we have to go around, trample around things delicately.'
