Salutations once again from the circus that is the Full Sutton segregation unit trainwreck. Sadly nothing much here has changed and the saga continues with an unbelievable series of events, stranger than fiction, that shows no sign of abating. Imagine Shawshank Redemption meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets Porridge. An entertaining storyline if it weren’t so serious and happening all around me. GEORGE BLACK reports from inside Full Sutton prison.
I can hardly hear myself think as I write this because four more cells (that’s two more than yesterday) are in the process of being rearranged by guys obviously suffering from frustration and differing levels of personal mental health crisis who feel they have been left no alternative, and have decided as a last resort they will be heard at any costs. Between you and me, they might not fully appreciate how inconsiderate and out of tune their rhythms actually are, but even then they still have the full support of nearly every inmate in the seg.
More worrying is the dawning realisation that every person in this seg unit, inmates and staff alike, is being seriously desensitised to the daily ravages of war that tit-for-tat behaviours and others of an unprofessional nature are causing and are now so deeply entrenched that they are just accepted and expected and anything less than an inferno hardly gets any attention or even raises an eyebrow in response.
For example, since the Great Fire of Tuesday 14 May 2019, there have been a few others which were insignificant by comparison and forgotten about nearly as quickly as they were started and extinguished. The main participants in the Great Fire nearly died as a result of negligence: the new smoke alarm systems were turned off because they kept shorting the hot water supply; the nearest fire hose wasn’t working; nor were any of the breathing apparatus masks, and nobody was responding to cell bells or to the whole seg shouting and banging on their doors. Because of this negligence being so apparent, the two main participants were moved to wings within two days, given TVs, taken off Basic regime, given a smokers’ pack and provided with canteen that week.
‘Rather than interview and contribute positively towards any rehabilitative efforts, some staff prefer to manipulate situations with unstable prisoners to create opportunities for personal entertainment.’
All this leads me to ponder that, while some inmates may or may not be guilty of lighting fires, the same doubt as to guilt cannot be applied to the nefarious activities of certain governors who are 100% guilty and deserve to be charged, convicted and imprisoned for their role in the cruel and unusual offence of ‘psychological arson’.
The elements of this charge are providing the kindling and intentionally igniting the fuses of inmates in their care, who they know to clearly have fragile, emotional and mental health conditions. At some very vulnerable inmates’ expense, there seems to be a managerial need to stoke the fires. This mainly occurs through a mix of subtle and craftily instigated head-games, straight out provocation/intimidation and the lowest form of all authoritative abuse, the tried, tested and well-established turning a blind eye and deliberately pretending to be ignorant trick.
A different governor attends the seg almost daily, on their flying visits, to verify our existence, and very little else of any meaningful consequence. Recently I have spoken to three different governors, each one of whom – after asking me if I was ‘alive and well’, and appearing to be a little confused and disappointed to learn from me that ‘obviously I am still alive and no, I am not well’ – reluctantly promised to come back after completing the seg unit rounds. Not surprisingly, none returned to finish their responsibilities.
Full Sutton seg unit has always been one of those places where the regime encourages inmates to turn on each other verbally, mentally and physically, like scenes from Lord of the Flies. This has always served the purpose of further dividing and conquering an already subjugated people, making us even easier prey.
Rather than interview and contribute positively towards any rehabilitative efforts, some staff prefer to manipulate situations with unstable prisoners to create opportunities for personal entertainment. Then there are the Judge Dredd types who prefer to apply additional punishments according to what they consider appropriate, based on their own warped perceptions of justice, and feelings of self-importance. What makes you laugh is that you have nursing staff in care homes being secretly filmed beating the crap out of their completely innocent, disabled patients, yet the governors of this prison would have you believe that nothing like that could ever go on here, because they are working tirelessly under very difficult circumstances to manage this unprecedented level of indiscipline, blah blah blah. So we are supposed to believe that while disabled people get beaten up by care staff (fact), convicted criminals are treated fairly…
Last night a prisoner was eating his own faeces and squirting it through his smashed observation panel out of his mouth and on to the landing, up the walls and everywhere he could reach. This morning every prisoner in the seg is being punished because we won’t turn on this inmate. The only unusual thing about this situation is that he’s started to use his mouth to spray the mess around; normally he just flicks it off a spoon.
This inmate is one of the stalwarts who have been smashing up, dirty protesting, self-harming, lighting fires, climbing on the netting and crying out for help for the past four months that I have personally witnessed. On 19 June every inmate in the seg heard a mental health nurse tell this prisoner to hang himself and stop wasting officers’ time, after he and another prisoner had self-harmed.
A lot of inmates have reported to me that their ACCT files have been closed, without their knowledge or consultation. Custody Managers are falsifying the documentation to exclude prisoners from participating and preventing the closure of these files, which provide inmates with support but mean staff have to make regular checks on them up to five times an hour. This is a scandal.
- On 30 May 2019 I submitted two ‘confidential access’ complaints to the Number 1 Governor and Chairman of the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) concerning a prisoner who had self-harmed in a cell upstairs, smearing blood all over his walls. This prisoner was relocated into one of the old smashed up cells next door to me (cell 26), with no sink, toilet, furniture or bedding, and no working cell bell or observation panel in his door. He self-harmed again and was banging his cell door all night, as was the rest of the seg unit to get attention. He was also shouting out ‘Are you going to answer my cell bell? Oh you can’t, because I haven’t got one.’ I reported this incident to a governor the next morning. The governor documented on my file that I complained to him about my neighbour banging all night, when the truth is that I complained that a suicide risk prisoner was put in a cell with no working cell bell. This inmate was moved cells later the next day, self-harmed again and is now on a constant watch in the health care after another serious attempt.
- ‘Polish’, a persistent cell-smasher-upper, was refused numerous meals over a period of months. He was involved in numerous smash-ups and dirty protests, and incomprehensibly slashed himself up quite seriously 11 days before the end of his sentence. He told me that a governor had telephoned his mum in Poland and told her that her son was unable to phone her because he was being disruptive and had covered himself in excrement.
- On 3 July an inmate was refused his meal because he took too long to get off his bed. As a result he smashed his observation panel, ate some glass and, after speaking to a nurse, tried to hang himself. The noose slipped and he was left tip-toeing on the floor, shouting for his neighbours to call staff to cut him down. This prisoner could easily have died.
- An inmate who had a verbal disagreement with a female officer had a cup of urine thrown in his face by the seg cleaner the next day. When staff failed to intervene, this prisoner self-harmed in protest.
- ‘Listen’, an already manic and highly agitated inmate, did not receive his canteen and tried to hang himself. Staff intervened and relocated him into the cell next door to me. He was refused his meal and then proceeded to smash up and self-harm again.
Staff have been conducting inmates’ ACCT reviews out on the landings in open view and hearing of other prisoners (who have smashed out their observation panels in their cell doors). This is to cause the inmate on the ACCT to be distressed, embarrassed, intimidate and reluctant to take part in the review, because they are aware there is no confidentiality and that other prisoners will use any information they can to abuse them. (I have reported this situation to governors and the IMB, but I’m just met with goofy smiles and my complaint responses acknowledge this is a problem.) It is only a matter of time before someone dies and the truth is covered up with lies.
Please write letters of complaint to
- Full Sutton governor Gareth Sands, HMP Full Sutton, Moor Lane York YO41 1PS, [email protected]
- Lisa Forbes MP, House of Commons SW1A 0AA, [email protected]
And send a copy to me:
- George Black A3887AE, HMP Full Sutton, Moor Lane York YO41 1PS.
12 July 2019
For George’s previous report from inside Full Sutton seg unit, see http://www.revolutionarycommunist.org/britain/police-prisons/5598-the-brutal-inside-story-of-full-sutton-prison-segregation-unit
