‘I have given them 21 years of my life, now they want my soul’: IPP prisoner jailed for stealing £20 could be deported in days
Exclusive: Sheldon Coore, who has lived in Britain since he was a toddler, has been moved to an immigration removal centre near Gatwick Airport ahead of his deportation to Jamaica
A father who has spent almost 20 years in prison for stealing £20 has begged the government to halt plans to deport him within days, fearing he faces homelessness in a country he does not know.
Sheldon Coore, 47, has lived in Britain since he was 16 months old, when he arrived with his mother to join his Jamaican grandparents who settled during the Windrush era.
He was handed a controversial imprisonment for public protection (IPP) jail term in 2005 after he put a man in a headlock and stole £20 from his pocket, having already racked up a string of previous convictions when he turned to crime in order to fund his drug addiction.
Despite originally being handed a minimum tariff of two years and 65 days, Coore languished in prison for two decades under the widely discredited open-ended jail term, which has since been scrapped.
But rather than releasing him into the community to rebuild his life with his five daughters in Huddersfield, the Home Office has decided to deport him to his country of birth.
In January, he told The Independent he felt he was being punished “twice and thrice and even tenfold” for his crimes after losing his last appeal against his removal.
On Friday, he was moved to Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick airport, where he is being held in segregation. He described the transfer process as “heavy handed” after officers dressed in riot protection gear put him in a body belt restraint device for the journey.
He was originally told he would be put on a flight to Kingston, Jamaica’s capital city, on Monday, but his legal team is battling to halt this and seeking a judicial review.
Coore has only ever visited the Caribbean country once in his adult life. If he is deported, he has no idea where he will stay, if he will have any money or a phone to contact his family in Britain.
In desperate messages from inside HMP Erlestoke, a category C prison in Wiltshire, before he was transferred, he revealed had not been able to eat or sleep since receiving the news of his imminent removal.
“I am scared, in fact I am petrified,” said Coore, who says he has recently been diagnosed with autism. “I do not know what my future holds, do not know if I will make it through the night of my deportation.”
He continued: “Since this news, I have not slept or eaten and just keep on having all these thoughts going through my head. It is unbearable.
“If this was to go ahead, l am worried about everything. Where am I going to sleep, eat, drink? How am I going to be able to survive without any money or job? Who is going to be there to help me as an autistic man?”
He fears he will be left destitute with no family in Jamaica to support him after spending decades in prison.
He pleaded: “I am asking the government to stop all of this once and for all and give me a break.
“I have given them 21 years of my life on this IPP, and now they want my soul. What have I done to the British government so bad that they want to act this kind of revenge on me?”
His lawyers are understood to be fighting his removal. An immigration expert told The Independent that, without friends or family to stay with, those deported will likely be directed to a homeless shelter on arrival in Kingston.
Campaigner group United Group for Reform of IPP (UNGRIPP), who have been supporting Coore in prison, compared his treatment to modern day penal transportation.
“By forcibly removing a man who has lived here since infancy, the government is reviving the colonial practice of shipping ‘undesirables’ out of sight and out of mind,” a spokesman added.
“Sheldon is a victim of the IPP sentence, a discredited, indefinite sentence abolished 14 years ago that has kept him trapped long past his original tariff. To use this failed sentence as a catalyst to deport him to a country he does not know is a cruel double punishment.
“UNGRIPP has supported Sheldon for years; it is heartbreaking to see the government discard a man they failed to rehabilitate, rather than taking responsibility for the broken system they created.”
IPP sentences were abolished in 2012, but not retrospectively. The flawed sentence has left thousands incarcerated indefinitely, with some trapped for up to 22 times longer than their original minimum term, including for some minor crimes.
Almost 2,400 were still languishing on IPP sentences in December 2025, including 924 who have never been released. The majority have served at least 10 years longer than their original minimum term.
Coore served 10 years on his IPP sentence before he was released in 2015, but was recalled indefinitely around 18 months later over allegations in respect of which he was never charged.
He was further convicted of affray and sentenced to 15 months after he ran out with a knife when police came to arrest him, but he insists he only had the weapon to take his own life. He has been in prison ever since.
Coore, who says he has always considered himself British, has only visited Jamaica once on a two-week holiday 26 years ago.
Being removed would mean leaving behind his five daughters – a nine-year-old, twins aged 10, and two in their twenties. He also has a granddaughter, aged four, and another on the way.
At an immigration tribunal hearing last August, Coore argued that deporting him would breach his human rights, but the judge ruled that – although he remains in close contact with his family – he has achieved “no realistic or effective integration” into British society because he has been in prison for so long.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “This government will not allow foreign criminals and illegal immigrants to exploit our laws, which is why we are reforming human rights laws and replacing the broken appeals system, allowing us to scale up deportations.
“All foreign national offenders who receive a prison sentence in the UK are referred for deportation at the earliest opportunity.”
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