‘Our prayers have been answered’: Sister of man jailed indefinitely speaks as he is set to meet son for first time in 12 years

Published

1 year ago

April 11, 2024

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A man who has been serving a controversial indefinite prison sentence is set to reunite with his son after 12 years apart.

Thomas White, who was handed an IPP (Imprisonment for Public Protection) sentence in 2012 for stealing a mobile phone, has not seen his son, Kayden, since he was nine months old.

White, 40, was handed a two-year minimum jail sentence under IPP, four months before the sentences were abolished – but remains in prison 12 years later.

However, following an intervention from Lord Blunkett – who introduced IPPs when he was home secretary back in 2003 – Mr White has been granted permission to see his son later this month.

Mr White’s sister, Clara White, said the meeting was a “victory” for her family – but they had to “take the law into their own hands” to see change.

“Our prayers have been answered,” she told Sky News.

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“Campaigning on IPP – I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. I don’t think anyone would want to walk in our shoes, it’s been a tireless job.

“Although I am happy, I still feel bitterness about what was allowed to happen and that no legal team would help us. We took the law into our own hands to see the man who was the architect of this sentence to help us. I had no other choice.”

IPP is a prison sentence with no release date that was intended for serious violent and sexual offenders who posed a significant risk of serious harm to the public but whose crimes did not warrant a life term.

Although the government’s stated aim was public protection, concerns quickly grew that IPP sentences were being applied too broadly and catching more minor offenders – with many serving time in prison much longer than their initial term.

In 2012 they were abolished, but the change was not applied retrospectively, leaving 2,852 IPP prisoners behind bars, including 1,227 who have never been released.

Last month, Ms White travelled to London with her nephew to meet Lord Blunkett, the architect of IPP who has expressed “deep regret” over how they were implemented.

Ms White thanked Lord Blunkett and said he was “very sympathetic” adding: “He listened with great compassion.”

“What’s happened now doesn’t make it right,” she said. “Kayden and Thomas can’t recapture those years – they have to pick up now and start their relationship now.”

Lord Blunkett’s intervention in Mr White’s case comes as the House of Lords is set to vote on a series of amendments to the government’s Victims and Prisoners Bill later this month.

One amendment, tabled by Baroness Fox of Buckley, is calling for a resentencing of the remaining IPP population.

The government has so far resisted calls to resentence the remaining IPP prisoners, citing fears over public safety.

However, data obtained by Sky News through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request shows only 83 IPP prisoners who have been released since 2012 have been convicted of a serious further offence (SFO) upon or after their release, including those who may have been released, recalled back to custody and rereleased.

Ms White urged peers in the House of Lords to back Baroness Buckley’s amendment, saying: “IPP has not just had an effect on prisoners mentally, it has had an effect on the families and we have all been punished and served a sentence.

“It’s a wreckage and they should help us clear it up now.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We have reduced the number of unreleased IPP prisoners by three-quarters since we scrapped the sentence in 2012, with a 12% fall in the last year alone where the Parole Board deemed prisoners safe to release.

“We have also taken decisive action to curtail licence periods and continue to help those still in custody to progress towards release including improving access to rehabilitation programmes and mental health support.”

Politics

Crypto lobby group says SEC should back off regulating most DAOs

Published

4 hours ago

May 29, 2025

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Crypto lobby group says SEC should back off regulating most DAOs

Crypto lobby group the DeFi Education Fund and the Uniswap Foundation have said the Securities and Exchange Commission should be hands-off on regulating decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

The May 27 letter to SEC Crypto Task Force lead Hester Peirce argued that the agency should not treat DAOs under the purview of the securities-defining Howey test if they’re “sufficiently decentralized,” as they are not identifiable and are not a coordinated group.

Instead, the pair said DAOs should be treated as individuals or a group of persons unless proved otherwise.

“If a DAO has a dispersed collection of tokenholders who have the opportunity to actively participate in and govern the DAO and the network, it is sufficiently decentralized such that neither the network token for that DAO, nor transactions in which that network token are the object, should be considered a security.” the letter read.

The letter was issued in response to Peirce’s Feb. 21 statement, which invited comments on crypto.

Favorable regulatory environment

The SEC has flipped on its crypto enforcement actions under the Trump administration, which successfully installed the former crypto lobbyist Paul Atkins to lead the agency.

Atkins has stated that blockchain technology could usher in new forms of market activity.

The following week, Atkins said that the regulator would not stifle innovation and lambasted the Biden administration’s approach to crypto.

In a May 20 SEC oversight hearing, Atkins confirmed that the Crypto Task Force’s first report will be released in the next few months, the group is also holding a series of crypto-related roundtable discussions with industry players.

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Politics

Nigel Farage’s ‘fantasy’ policies will lead to Liz Truss-style economic meltdown, Sir Keir Starmer to warn

Published

4 hours ago

May 29, 2025

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Nigel Farage's 'fantasy' policies will lead to Liz Truss-style economic meltdown, Sir Keir Starmer to warn

Nigel Farage’s “fantasy” policies will lead to a Liz Truss-style economic meltdown, the prime minister will warn today.

Sir Keir Starmer is set to argue that Reform UK’s pledges would cause mortgages, bills and rent payments across the country to surge.

On Tuesday, Mr Farage vowed to reverse cuts to winter fuel payments and scrap the two-child benefit cap, with an ambition to slash income tax.

But new analysis from the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggest that his party’s aim of hiking the personal allowance to £20,000 a year could cost between £50bn to £80bn a year.

Visiting manufacturing workers in the North West, Sir Keir will describe Reform’s economic agenda as a “mad experiment”.

He is expected to say: “In opposition we said Liz Truss would crash the economy and leave you to pick up the bill. We were right – and we were elected to fix that mess.

“Now in government, we are once again fighting the same fantasy.”

Labour is criticising Mr Farage for betting “that you can spend tens of billions on tax cuts without a proper way of paying for it”.

The prime minister will add: “Just like Truss, he is using your family finances, your mortgage, your bills as a gambling chip. The result will be the same. Liz Truss bet the house and lost.”

Sir Keir is referring to the former prime minister’s mini-budget in 2022, which had proposed abolishing the top 45% rate of income tax.

But this policy, among others, spooked financial markets and led to economic turmoil in the UK – with a dramatic spike in the cost of government borrowing feeding through into interest rates.

Mr Farage has argued that his measures can be paid for by scrapping net zero commitments and ending the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers.

Recent polls have put Labour second behind Reform UK, while the local election results earlier this month saw Mr Farage’s party win a parliamentary by-election, control of 10 councils and two mayoralties, while Labour lost almost 200 seats.

Sir Keir has been under pressure from his backbenchers to regain the initiative, leading to the party’s U-turn on winter fuel payments last week.

Plans to scrap the two-child benefit cap have also not been ruled out by ministers, in what would be a second reversal of current Labour policy.

Dominic Cummings, the former top aide to Boris Johnson, exclusively told Sky News he believes Mr Farage could “definitely” become the next prime minister, with the right strategy.

Politics

Elon Musk leaves DOGE as job was ‘uphill battle’

Published

5 hours ago

May 29, 2025

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Elon Musk leaves DOGE as job was ‘uphill battle’

Elon Musk confirmed that he’s quitting as the White House’s government cost-cutting czar after admitting it was an “uphill battle” trying to slash federal jobs and programs.

Musk’s status as a Special Government Employee leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) meant that by law, he could only serve for a maximum of 130 days, which was set to finish on May 30.

Musk confirmed his exit in a May 29 X post, thanking President Donald Trump “for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.” Reuters reported that a White House official said his “off-boarding will begin tonight.”

Musk told The Washington Post for a May 27 report that the “federal bureaucracy situation is much worse” than he expected, and it was “an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC, to say the least.”

In separate comments to CBS, Musk criticized the multi-trillion-dollar tax break package that House Republicans approved on May 22, claiming it would increase the budget deficit and undermine the work that DOGE is doing.

DOGE, which is named after the cryptocurrency, claims to have saved taxpayers $175 billion since Trump’s Jan. 20 return to the White House, a figure heavily disputed by multiple news outlets, which report the figures are overstated, have multiple errors and are inaccurate.

The project’s claimed savings are only 8.5% of Musk’s initial ambition to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, which he later revised down to $150 billion.

According to the Reuters report, DOGE has cut almost 12%, or 260,000, of the 2.3 million federal workforce through layoffs, buyouts and early retirement offers.

Despite the criticisms, Musk said on X that DOGE’s mission will “only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

It comes as a federal judge allowed a lawsuit to proceed that accuses Musk and DOGE of illegally exerting power over government operations.

The lawsuit, filed by 14 states, alleged that Musk and DOGE violated the Constitution by illegally accessing government data systems, terminating federal employees and canceling contracts at federal agencies.

Musk admits he spent too much time in politics

In a May 28 interview with Ars Technica, Musk, the CEO of EV maker Tesla, admitted that he spent “a bit too much time” in politics, which some critics claim has impacted Tesla’s performance.

“I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,” Musk said. However, he added that the time he spent on DOGE wasn’t as significant as many believed, and he blamed media coverage for overrepresenting his involvement.

“It’s not like I left the companies. It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I’ve reduced that significantly in recent weeks.”

When Musk announced in Tesla’s first quarter report that his time spent on DOGE would drop significantly in May, Tesla (TSLA) shares rose over 5% in after-hours trading, despite the company reporting an 80% drop in net income.

As of March 31, Tesla still held 11,509 Bitcoin (BTC), currently valued at about $1.24 billion.

Tesla shares are still down 5.9% year to date, in part due to Musk diverting his attention away from the company and Tesla’s sales falling considerably in the first quarter.

However, the fall is in line with other Big Tech firms, including Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG), which are also in the red in 2025.

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