Jason Dunn is one of almost 2,000 people still serving Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences, despite the fact they were banned in 2012 and judged to be “arbitrary and unlawful” by the European Court of Human Rights

Jason Dunn is locked up in Gartree Prison in Leicestershire 

In 2006 Jason Dunn was thrown behind bars for stealing a mobile phone.

The then 19-year-old was not released at the end of his 24-month minimum term as might be expected, because he was serving an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence, Leicester Mercury reports.

IPPs were introduced under the New Labour government in 2003 as a way to keep dangerous criminals off the streets.

They also locked up repeat, sometimes non-violent offenders like Dunn and kept them inside, with the only means of escape passing a parole hearing.

For Dunn, who has mental health problems and is caged at HMP Gartree, where he threw a slop bucket into the face of a female guard, convincing a parole board to let him out is no mean feat.