HMP Frankland is the most northerly of England’s high security prisons and has a longstanding reputation for being the one staffed by the most racist prison officers, who in turn collaborate with racist prisoners to make the lives of Black, Asian and Muslim prisoners as hellish as possible. So bad was this in the early 2000s that prisoners dubbed one wing of the prison ‘Mississippi’. Life sentence prisoner KEVAN THAKRAR was last in Frankland in 2010 and writes here about his fears for his brother MIRAN, who was recently sent back to that prison.
In 2010 my brother Miran Thakrar was brutally attacked in Frankland segregation unit because the scum prison staff had decided to go on a spree of targeted assaults against all the Muslims located there. Being the cowards they are, they first got dressed in full riot gear, then ordered each of the prisoners to stand at the back of their cells facing away from the door. They then opened the cells and charged in with the shields, before all going into a frenzy against the victim.
I sought to report these crimes from my position within G-wing; however, a gang fronted by the senior officer came to my cell to threaten me. This escalated into them attacking me on multiple occasions before making false allegations against me when one attack did not go how they planned.
I was transferred out of Frankland but my brother remained for several days being tortured in the seg, left in the cell 24 hours a day and only given food thrown onto the floor, on the rare occasion he was given any. The decision was made to get him out for his own safety as the seg staff clearly could not be trusted not to kill him. It would not have been the first prisoner murdered in that seg. Paul Day was well known to have been killed by the scum in 2002, and they regularly boasted of it.
Neither of us returned to Frankland after that, but with the repeated promotion of some of the worst racists in the country, the management of the high security prison system now actively encourages the torture of all prisoners who are either Muslim or of colour. My brother has therefore now been deemed suitable to return to Frankland, and was immediately located in the seg. The significant threat to his life cannot be ignored.
All those who are outraged at this situation, please make your voices heard. You can write to your local MP insisting they pass your concerns to the Secretary of State for Justice for him to explain. You can write to Richard Vince Executive Director of High Security Prisons at LTHSE, 5 Love Lane, Wakefield WF2 9AG. You can write to the governor of HMP Frankland, Brasside, Durham DH1 5YD. You can contact the Independent Monitoring Board. And you can attend the prison in person to shout your objections, and let those inside know that people outside are watching.
Kevan Thakrar A4907AE, HMP BELMARSH, Western Way, Thameside, London SE28 0EB. www.justiceforkevan.org
