‘Indefensible’: Coroner blasts indefinite jail terms after prisoner’s suicide 17 years into 23 month sentence

Sentenced to 23 months in prison in 2005, Scott Rider was still in jail 17 years later, becoming one of Britain’s longest serving IPP prisoners

A coroner has blasted the “inhumane and indefensible” treatment of a prisoner who took his own life after serving 17 years for a 23-month jail term.

Scott Rider, 45, who was one of Britain’s longest-serving inmates, was given an indefinite sentence in 2005 but ended up never being released.

The controversial Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences – in which offenders were handed minimum jail terms but no maximum – were scrapped in 2012 amid human rights concerns, but not for those already sentenced, leaving thousands languishing in jail for years beyond their original prison terms.