Man who was wrongly given an IPP sentence is freed after 20 years

A man has been released from prison after the Court of Appeal found that he had been unlawfully detained for almost 18 years. 

Niki Haycock, 47, was jailed in 2006 under an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence after he pleaded guilty to controlling prostitution for gain and two counts of assault. IPP sentences were indeterminate sentences intended for people considered dangerous, but whose offence did not merit a life sentence. But now the Court of Appeal has quashed Mr Haycock’s IPP sentence after ruling it was “unlawful”.

In April 2006, Haycock, then 27, was given an IPP sentence, with a minimum term of two years and six months, for the offence of controlling prostitution for gain. For the two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, he was given a concurrent three-year jail sentence. 

IPP was introduced in England and Wales in 2005 under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and could be imposed only when a person aged 18 or over had been “convicted of a serious offence”. According to the Criminal Justice Act, a “serious offence” meant both a “specified offence” and one punishable by imprisonment for life or for a determinate period of 10 or more years.

IPP sentences, abolished in 2012, had a minimum term, but instead of being released automatically, offenders had to prove to a Parole Board that were no longer a threat to the public. The Recorder in Mr Haycock’s case said he had imposed an IPP sentence because he considered the offence of controlling prostitution for gain as a “serious, specified offence”. He said he believed Mr Haycock to pose “a significant risk of serious harm”.

However, the Court of Appeal said controlling prostitution for gain was not a serious offence under the 2003 Act because it carried a maximum sentence of seven years. The court further ruled that the offence of assault, which carried a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment, was also not defined as a serious offence. The Court of Appeal said: “As a matter of law, it was not open to the court to impose an IPP sentence for any of the three offences of which the appellant had been convicted.” It added: “The IPP sentence was unlawful, the appeal is unanswerable, and we therefore allow it.”

The Court of Appeal said there was “no doubt” Mr Haycock’s offending was “extremely serious and aggravated by his antecedent convictions”. It added: “A lengthy custodial sentence was inevitable.” 

The court said the appropriate sentence for the offence of controlling prostitution for gain would have been five years’ imprisonment, running concurrently with the three-year sentence for the two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. 

It meant he should have been in prison for a maximum of five years and would have been eligible for release after two and a half years – nearly 18 years fewer than the 20 he has served.

“Given the time served by the appellant to date, the effect of that order is that he will now be released from the sentence,” the Court of Appeal said. 

Lord Justice Andrew Edis, added: “This court has no means of identifying – or considering the lawfulness of – those sentences which have never been the subject of an application for leave to appeal. There is a clear and urgent need for a system to be put in place by which … those who remain subject to an IPP sentence and who have not appealed should be identified and made aware of the availability of advice.”