When Tommy Nicol told his sister Donna Mooney about his prison sentence, she didn’t believe him. It was May 2009 and he had stolen yet another car. Nicol was a petty criminal, always nicking motors, and was rarely out of jail. “He said: ‘They’ve given me a 99-year sentence.’ I said: ‘That’s ridiculous.’ I thought he was confused.” Over the next few years, Nicol occasionally mentioned the sentence in letters to Mooney and asked her to look into it. She admits she didn’t give it much thought at the time.
In 2015, Nicol killed himself in prison. He was 37. It was only then that Mooney discovered he had been right all along. Nicol had a four-year tariff (the minimum amount of time he could serve in jail) and an indeterminate sentence, known as imprisonment for public protection. IPP is also called a 99-year sentence because people serving one can, technically, be jailed for 99 years. When they are released, it is on a 99-year licence, which means they can be recalled to prison at any time in their life for even minor breaches, such as being late for a probation appointment (although the Parole Board will consider whether to terminate the licence 10 years after first release).
