📢 Justice Alert: 3 FILMS HIGHLIGHTING “MONUMENTAL INJUSTICE” OF IPP SENTENCES PASS 20 MILLION VIEWS

Social media sensation Peter Stefanovic – a lawyer, campaigner & CEO of CAMPAIGN FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE is creating a media storm with three films highlighting what he calls “one of the most shocking & monumental injustices of the past half century.” These films have now passed 20 million views.

First IPP film has had 15 million views

Second film 1.3 million views

Third film 4.1 views

Click on each to view and please share with others

Below are typical comments from the public which his films are generating:

“Truly shocking”

“Absolutely horrifying”

“Unbelievable”

“Utterly awful”

“Madness”

“Inconceivable”

“Cruel”

LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR JUSTICE

Stefanovic has recently joined a coalition of 70 criminal justice experts, civil society organisations, leading activists and campaigners in signing an open letter to Sir Keir Starmer MP’s new Labour Government and the Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP, Secretary of State for Justice, calling on them to deliver crucial reforms to the Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence, which has claimed more than 100 lives since 2005 and has become a national scandal.

FILMS HIGHLIGHTING THE IPP SENTENCE

Stefanovic, whose films have been watched hundreds of millions of times, has posted a new video saying:

“I’ve just signed a letter calling on the new Justice Secretary to work at pace to end one of the most shocking, cruel, inhumane, degrading and monumental injustices of the past half-century – IPP sentences – a scandal which has a already claimed the lives of 90 people serving IPP sentences in prison and a further 31 that we know of in the community”

Stefanovic continued:

“I cannot overstate the urgency on this – in June one person serving an IPP sentence – a staggering 12 years over tariff set himself alight, another began his second hunger strike. This insanity has got to end – we must now put a stop to this inhumane and indefensible treatment which has absolutely no place in a modern Britain and political leaders – previously lacking the courage to take action – must now find the courage to do so.”

BACKGROUND

IPP sentences were introduced in England and Wales by the New Labour government with the Criminal Justice Act 2003, as it sought to prove it was tough on law and order. They were put in place to detain indefinitely serious offenders who were perceived to be a risk to the public. However, they were also used against offenders who had committed low-level crimes.

Astonishingly, this sentence has led to some people spending 18 years in jail for trying to steal a coat or imprisoned for 11 years for stealing a mobile phone. Another served 16 years in jail on a three-year IPP tariff for stealing a flower pot at the age of 17.

ABOLISHED BUT NOT RETROSPECTIVELY

In 2012, after widespread condemnation and a ruling by the European court of human rights that such sentences were, “arbitrary and therefore unlawful”, IPP terms were abolished by the Conservative government. But the measure was not retrospective, and thousands remain in prison.

Former supreme court justice Lord Brown called IPP sentences: “the greatest single stain on the justice system”. When Michael Gove was Justice Secretary, he recommended, “executive clemency” for IPP prisoners who had served terms much longer than their tariffs. But he didn’t act on it. Lord Blunkett, the Labour Home Secretary who introduced the sentences, regrets them, stating: “I got it wrong.” And more recently, Dr Alice Edwards, the UN rapporteur for torture has called IPP sentences an “egregious miscarriage of justice.” Even former Justice Secretary Alex Chalk KC has called them a stain on the justice system, despite that, the previous Conservative Government refused to implement the Justice Committees recommendation to re-sentence all prisoners subject to IPP sentences.

DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS

In a debate in the House of Lords in May Lord Ponsonby – leading for Labour on justice said

“In Government we will work at pace to bring forward an effective action plan that will allow the safe release of IPP prisoners where possible”

In their letter the campaigners “urge the new government to honour its commitment, made in opposition, to “work at pace” to resolve this injustice.

HONOUR THE COMMITMENT…

Stefanovic says “The new government must now honour the commitment it made in opposition and work at pace to end this cruel, inhumane, degrading and most monumental of injustices”