A 44-year-old prisoner in the United Kingdom, Leroy Douglas, is set to be released next month after spending 20 years behind bars for stealing a friend’s mobile Nokia phone to fuel drug addiction. 

It was learnt that the incident happened in December 2005 in Cardiff, which resulted in Mr Douglas being eventually sentenced to a minimum term of two and a half years but remained behind bars despite completing the sentence. 

Until now, the UK government had used the Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence to detain Mr Douglas indefinitely. He had a string of other convictions along with his robbery offence. 

Following years of legal efforts by Mr Douglas to end his prolonged imprisonment, the parole board finally approved his release recently after two decades, meaning it is now only a matter of weeks before he is allowed to return home.

The decision by the parole board to grant the release came shortly before the United Nations, in a landmark legal opinion, ruled that the incarceration of Mr Douglas and other prisoners under the draconian IPP terms was arbitrary and unlawful under international law.

Similarly, the discharge of the convict occurred weeks before UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced plans to end IPP sentencing before the end of the current parliament, describing the policy as unfair.

“The plan will include issues like returning more foreign national offenders to their country of origin, and looking at the injustice of IPP sentences, which have led to young people, or young when they were imprisoned, being imprisoned indefinitely, and that clearly is unfair,” Mr Burnham said last month.

Meanwhile, Mr Douglas told The Independent during an interview that he had been awaiting the day of his freedom as he prepares to be transferred from His Majesty’s Prison Erlestoke to a hostel in October.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for the past 20 years. I’ve never stopped fighting for my release. Freedom should have come to me ages ago, to be honest, because I’m not dangerous; I only stole a phone, with no violence, with just the threat of force, which led to me staying in jail 20 years,” he said.

While being imprisoned, Mr Douglas was also handed a five-week sentence for money laundering in 2020 but completed rehabilitative courses behind bars to address his drug use, anger management and to increase his victim awareness.