A prisoner serving an abolished indefinite jail term claims he was stripped naked and punched by prison officers who were “starving” him before he climbed on to the roof of a maximum-security prison, a court heard.
Joe Outlaw, 39, has served almost 14 years in prison after he was handed a four-and half-year Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence for robbing a takeaway with an imitation firearm in 2011.
Jurors at Teesside Crown Court were told the open-ended jail term, which was scrapped in 2012, has been repeatedly described as a “stain” on the justice system and linked to higher rates of suicide and self-harm, with at least 90 inmates taking their own lives in prison.
Outlaw, who has ADHD, anxiety, paranoia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, told the court he began self-harming and damaging prison cells a few years into his sentence as he began to lose hope that he would be released.
“It’s just appalling, shocking, soul destroying,” said Outlaw, who believes he has been held in up to 44 different prisons since he was handed an IPP sentence.
“When you have hope you invest in that hope and when that goes away you just cut yourself off to save the hurt to avoid disappointment. That’s the truth of it.”
In total, he has been held in segregation for almost seven years of his sentence, he told the court.
Due to his worsening paranoia about people tampering with his food during the pandemic, he was moved on to a special diet of tinned tuna, pre-packaged noodles and cous cous in 2020.
But when he was transferred to HMP Frankland in May 2023, he was denied his usual diet because prison staff said a tin could be used as a weapon.
Outlaw told the court the refusal was “vindictive” and “retribution” from prison staff after he was transferred from HMP Manchester weeks earlier, following a similar rooftop protest after three IPP inmates had taken their own lives in quick succession.
“I just wanted people to know the suffering, the pain, the loss, the grief, the injustice,” he explained of the Manchester incident. “So I got up there and painted ‘FREE IPPZ’ and sat there shivering for 13 hours.”
He told the jury staff at Frankland were “just grinding me down by starving me”, adding that in other prison segregation units, officers were able to meet his dietary needs by simply opening the cans in front of him and passing him the tuna.
He is accused of 14 counts of criminal damage caused to the jail in Brasside, Durham.
Giving evidence in his own defence on Wednesday, he told the court he was forcibly extracted from his cell by prison officers on 25 May, pinned face-down on the floor and received two blows to his back as his clothes were cut off him.
He was then punched in the face and thrown in a strip search cell with only a suicide prevention smock, he said.
He told the court that while some prison officers have “hearts of gold”, some “exploit” their power.
“I just thought they were going to kill me,” he said. “I thought I have to get out of here.
“Because I had been horrendously treated. I was in an environment which was toxic and neglectful… it was horrible.
“They thought they could get away with anything and I thought I had to do something.”
Footage previously played to the court showed Outlaw, dressed only in his underwear, using a piece of heating pipe to lever roofing material and pull roof tiles off the building after he breached segregation security measures on 21 June.
He also used the pipe to try to smash cell windows as he clambered on the grated roof of the exercise yard.
After the incident at Frankland, he was held in isolation with no contact with other prisoners for a year inside HMP Belmarsh, London, before he was transferred to HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire. In the first four months, he was strip-searched 140 times.
He told the jury he had lost faith that he would ever escape his IPP jail term.
“Because there’s been a mistake and everyone admitting it’s wrong and it’s awful, you believe someone is going to do something about it surely,” he added.
“But as time has passed, you soon realise that there’s no change. No one gives a s**t. They will just let you die.”
The trial continues.
