Dame Vera Baird is a doughty champion in the fight against injustice. As chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, she has asked the appeal courts to look at the cases of five men who are serving indefinite sentences for offences committed up to 20 years ago.
All five were under the age of 21 when they were originally sentenced; three of them were teenagers. They were sentenced under the law on imprisonment for public protection – IPP – which was abolished in 2012, although those already serving IPP sentences continued to do so.
