When Jacqueline Ali arrived at HMP Long Lartin to see her eldest son, the sight of the man on the other side of the bars took her breath away.
Her once witty, fun-loving son, who dreamed of leaving prison and starting a floristry business, lay curled up on the floor of a cramped hospital wing cell.
After nearly sixty days of hunger strike, Yusuf Ali was emaciated and looked like “a starving dog on the ground” – a shadow of his former self.
The 50-year-old, who is serving a suspended indefinite prison sentence described as “torture” by a UN expert, is said to have starved himself twice in desperation as he loses hope of ever being freed.
Under the Public Protection Order (IPP) sentence he was given in 2008 for seriously injuring another inmate, he was told he must serve a minimum of three years. But nearly sixteen years later, after five failed paroles, he’s still inside.
After hearing about Ali’s case, former Justice Committee chairman Sir Bob Neill called on the winner of the July 4 general election to take urgent action to help IPP prisoners.
“This desperately sad case unfortunately demonstrates all the harm that Justice Commission reports show IPP sentences cause,” he said. “Any new administration must act quickly to erase this stain on our justice system.”
Ali’s heartbroken mother said he looked like a “skeleton” when she was allowed to visit him on compassionate grounds in Worcestershire’s maximum security prison last January.
A letter from the prison governor, as seen in this publication, confirms that she was allowed the special visits because he was “seriously unwell” last year.
“When I first went to see him he looked like a starving greyhound on the ground,” she said The independent. “He was lying on the ground like bones and his face was covered so you couldn’t see him.
“It was shocking and heartbreaking. It was breathtaking. I just said to Yusuf, if you can hear me, I love you and I completely understand why you did this.
With his mother’s support, he eventually agreed to medical treatment and was taken to hospital, where he was fed through a tube into his stomach. She said he had fasted for a total of 61 days.
However, on May 23, he promised to resume his strike and told his mother that this time he would continue to the end.
“He said I just can’t handle it anymore, I can’t handle this anymore,” she said, recalling her last phone call with Yusuf. “He said I’m going on a hunger strike and this time I won’t get off.”
After days of frantic attempts to contact the prison, the mother, who struggles with fibromyalgia and complex PTSD and is rarely able to make the almost 300-mile journey from Bournemouth to her son in Worcester, was told he had been persuaded to to terminate his treatment. hunger strike.
When The independent contacted the prison service for comment but they denied he was on strike for a second time. It is not known how long he refused to eat on this occasion.
His mother is calling for urgent action to help Ali and almost 3,000 other IPP prisoners held under a sentence she says has “destroyed” her son.
The controversial sentences – which gave offenders a minimum prison sentence but no maximum – were scrapped in 2012 due to human rights concerns. But the policy’s abolition did not affect those already convicted, leaving them to languish in prison for thousands of years after their original sentence.
After a very traumatic childhood – the full details of which we have not made public to respect the family’s privacy – Mr Ali turned to crime and was imprisoned for the first time at the age of just 15 for a series of betting shop robberies under teenagers, using a stick in a bag. an imitation firearm.
He later disappeared for about two years, during which time he became a father, but eventually turned himself in to authorities in 1999, at the age of 26, and was convicted of further crimes, including driving offences, theft and burglary, and given an automatic ‘ life imprisonment of two strikes, with a minimum term of five years and seven months. He has been in prison ever since.
He was being held at HMP Parkhurst, on the Isle of Wight, when he was given an IPP sentence with a three-year tariff in 2008 for seriously injuring another inmate during a fight.
The mother, who believes her son’s offending is linked to PTSD from the traumatic events of his childhood, said when he was first given the IPP sentence he was determined to serve his time and go home to go to his son.
But hope soon began to fade as he faced multiple parole hearings without legal representation as his mental health deteriorated.
Mrs. Ali told The independent: “It has devastated us. It’s been a slow death.
“I saw him go from a lively boy to a shadow of himself and there’s nothing I can do. The powerlessness has made me sick. My family is devastated.
“It’s just been terrible. The whole dream was that he would be home in time so he could be a father to his son, but he never got to see that boy and now he is twenty.”
At a hearing in September 2022, the Parole Board noted that Mr Ali had developed a stuttering and nervous tic in prison that was linked to his decline in mental health, but recommended neither his release nor a transition to open conditions.
Among the risk factors they cited in refusing his release were “the loss of hope and the feeling of having nothing to lose.”
His next parole hearing is scheduled for this fall, but once again Ali has no legal representation.
As he recovered from his hunger strike last year and was gradually reintroduced to a liquid diet, Ms. Ali tried to remind him of his hopes for the future: that his poetry would be published and that he would realize his dream of owning a Siberian husky would achieve.
She denounced the injustice of the IPP sentence and called for a review of all indefinite prison sentences and widespread reform of the prison system, with an emphasis on rehabilitation.
She added: “The system failed him. I’m devastated. I’m devastated for him.
“Just the injustice of it. Why is my son treated so badly? Why did they treat him like a monster if they let monsters come out?
On the IPP sentence, she added: “He will need support for the rest of his life. He has terrible fears and he hears voices.
“IPP is now banned. It’s against the law. So anyone doing an IPP needs to be assessed.”
The independent has called for an urgent review of all prisoners serving IPP prison sentences. Of the IPP’s 2,796 prisoners, 1,180 have never been released and 708 have served more than ten years longer than their minimum sentence.
Nearly 90 IPP prisoners have died by suicide, including Scott Rider who was given a 23-month prison sentence and killed himself in despair after serving 17 years in prison.
The architect of the flawed sentence, Lord David Blunkett, is among those who have led calls for reform after admitting he regretted introducing the punishment as Home Secretary under New Labor in 2005.
He urged the new government to expedite a series of reforms recently passed in the Victims and Prisoners Act to help prisoners like Yusuf. However, the changes fall short of a grudge exercise called for by campaigners and the Justice Committee.
A spokesperson for HM Prison and Rebation Service said: “There is no evidence to support the claim of abuse by staff and this prisoner is not on hunger strike.”