Following the acquittal of Kevan Thakrar in August 2011 on charges of attempting to murder prison officers at Frankland prison, the Prison Officers Association (POA) is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to get the verdict overturned. The POA has threatened to launch a private prosecution (unlikely to happen and even more unlikely to succeed) and launched an online petition to the Ministry of Justice and has even suggested the jury were nobbled.
Predictably, the POA suggests that the verdict will ‘open the floodgates’, for other prisoners to attack officers en masse. The allegation of jury-tampering is an insult to the 12 men and women who cleared Kevan at Newcastle Crown Court. These people – all white, seemingly middle-class – heard all the evidence and decided that Thakrar was indeed suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder when he attacked the three members of staff. They were no doubt helped to that conclusion by the evidence of a consultant psychologist, originally a witness for the prosecution, but called by the defence after his report corroborated Kevan’s testimony about his state of mind. He said he would ‘be flabbergasted’ if Kevan’s behaviour – in wounding the officers – was not caused by his prison experiences. The jury also heard from more than 20 prison staff and a number of prisoners, who all spoke of the brutal regime in place at Frankland. In finding for the defence, the jury clearly rejected the evidence of staff and believed instead the testimony of Kevan and his prisoner witnesses, all, of course, of proven bad character.
The POA’s reaction is hardly surprising. Its members are not used to having their evidence rejected by tribunals. Familiar as they are with appearing before governors at prison adjudications, they expect their word to be always taken against that of prisoners. However, this is not the first time a tribunal has refused to accept the word of Frankland prison officers. In 2002 Paul Day was found hanged in the segregation unit: at his inquest in 2005 prisoner after prisoner testified to the appalling conditions and daily abuse and the Durham Coroner said he did not accept some of the staff evidence.
The POA clearly regards the verdict in Kevan Thakrar’s trial as a slight on all its members. It was not. But the reports of abuse from Frankland are too regular and consistent to ignore. In clearing Kevan, the 12 good and true jurors delivered their verdict on the regime at Frankland. They found it guilty as charged and their verdict should – and will – stand.
Eric Allison
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 225 February/March 2012
