Wayne stole a bike when he was 17 now he's 34 and still in prison
manchestereveningnews.co.ukWayne Bell was just 17 when he was locked up for robbery - that was 17 years ago. He's now 34 and is still behind bars, one of the most shocking victims of a now discredited sentence long since abolished by the courts - Imprisonment for Public Protection.
He's never had a partner or a chance to have children or a family of his own. And now he's stopped engaging with his mother and sister who aren't sure which prison he's in and now can't visit or even write to him, according to his devastated sister.
Their father's dying wish to speak to Wayne as he struggled with cancer was unfulfilled, she revealed. Wayne, from Burnage, was sent to prison in the first place because of a relatively minor offence - he punched another lad and took his bike in Ladybarn Park in south Manchester.
He was sentenced in March 2007 and today, more than 17 years on, he is yet to be set free. READ MORE: Everything heard in the King's Speech: Key points and all 40 laws Labour want to pass It was his misfortune that he was among the first convicts to be handed a new type of sentence - since discredited and abolished as 'unjust'.
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