THE government has rejected MPs’ calls for thousands of prisoners detained indefinitely to be resentenced, in a move described as inhumane and indefensible.

The Commons justice committee said in a report last year that people still behind bars under the now abolished imprisonment for public protection (IPP) scheme should have their cases reviewed. 

IPP sentences were scrapped in 2012. However, this abolition was not applied retrospectively, and almost 3,000 people remain locked up in England and Wales after receiving such a sentence.