Towards the end of last year, I wrote in FRFI saying that, to my surprise, The Guardian newspaper had made me its prisons correspondent. Since then, some of you may have wondered what I’ve been getting up to. Well, here’s a half-term report.
I write regularly for the paper. Some pieces have been highly critical of the Prison Service, in others I have focused on improvements. For example, I wrote a piece saying that the Scrubs was turning itself around from the cesspit that it had been. The staff there are on a charm offensive following the revelations of long-term brutality and torture, meted out by staff in the 1990s.
However, all the time, I’ve been looking out for the nasties in the system: ‘to shine a light on the cockroaches’ as a pal put it. But of course, it’s not enough to know that staff brutality, racism and constant harassment still flourish in prisons; it’s necessary to provide evidence or, failing that, enough allegations to make them take notice.
For more than 10 years, tales of brutality and oppression have been filtering out of Full Sutton. By the time you read this, The Guardian should have run a story on the place. Some of the evidence looks solid and difficult for them to explain away. The more evidence we can produce, the sooner we can stop these uniformed thugs in their tracks.
Therefore, if anyone has suffered, or witnessed suffering, at the hands of staff at Full Sutton, or any other prison, contact me and/or FRFI. Please remember the information must be accurate; the behaviour of some of these so-called officers is appalling enough, there is no need for embellishment. Please include the name of your solicitor if you have one and give your brief the authority to speak to me about the matter in hand. Finally, please state whether or not you want your name to be used.
In particular, if anybody has any information on the recent deaths of two prisoners in Full Sutton, please pass it on to me as a matter of urgency. The men were: Paul Gaye: taken on 28 January from a vulnerable prisoners’ wing to York District Hospital, where he subsequently died. Then, on 12 March, Arif Hussain collapsed in his cell in the segregation unit. He was pronounced dead at 8.45 am. He had been taken to the seg following a visit during which he was said to have received and swallowed drugs. Prisoners in the seg have given us graphic accounts of how he was kept in a cell with no water, where the bag inside him burst and he cried and screamed out for help but was ignored, ridiculed and eventually died a horrific death.
I thank these prisoners for their courage in speaking out. In cases where the men have given their permission, their names have been passed on to the Humberside coroner and to the police, who are investigating both deaths. As much as it will go against the grain for many prisoners to speak to the police, the fact is that it must be done if we are serious about stopping this treatment. (You can ask to have your solicitor present when you speak to them.) Certainly, the Prison Service will not properly investigate that which is going on under their noses.
Eric Allison
The Guardian, 164 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3GG
Eric Allison was joint author of Strangeways 1990: a serious disturbance, available from Larkin Publications at a special price of £5 plus p+p.
Scottish prisons attack rights
In February 2004, the administration at Glenochil Prison in Stirlingshire introduced card-free phones for prisoners based on a PIN number system. The system is identical to one that has operated in English prisons since the late 1990s. There is however one critical difference.
When the PIN phone system was first introduced in the English prison system, the Prison Service attempted to include a pre-recorded message at the beginning of each outgoing call. The message stated that the call was being made from a penal institution and was monitored and recorded.
An immediate legal challenge was mounted on the grounds that the pre-recorded message contravened Article 8 of The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which provides for right to respect for private and family life.
Before the legal challenge was properly heard, the English Prison Service abandoned the pre-recorded phone messages, clearly acknowledging that it was indefensible in the context of Article 8 of the ECHR.
On 9 February, the Governor of Glenochil Prison, Kate Donegan, informed prisoners that, regardless of the successful legal challenge against the pre-recorded phone message in the English Prison Service, the Scottish Prison Service had decided that it was legally empowered to use the message on phones in all Scottish prisons.
Kilmarnock Prison, operated by Premier Services, a private company, had used the pre-recorded phone message for a considerable period of time and had encountered no legal challenge, obviously encouraging the Scottish Prison Service to use the message universally throughout the Scottish system.
On 16 February in reply to an inquiry from lawyers acting for prisoners at Glenochil, Assistant Governor Brian Ironside said the pre-recorded message was justified under the Investigatory Powers (Scotland) Act and could therefore continue.
The fact is the Scottish Prison Service is currently in breach of Article 8 of The European Convention on Human Rights by its use of the pre-recorded phone message and in due course will be required to account for its actions.
In the meantime prisoners’ contact with their families and friends here in Scotland is being deliberately undermined and eroded.
John Bowden, HMP Glenochil
Death in custody at HMP Eastwood Park
Kerry Lambourne was 20 years of age when she died in HM Prison Eastwood Park. She had a mental illness that made her management within the prison service difficult. Evidence was heard at the inquest that a prison nurse tried to obtain external treatment for Kerry but none was available. A behavioural support plan which he drew up was not followed. A keyworker was appointed who had no training for the role. Kerry’s mood lowered in the weeks leading up to her discharge and on 24 September 2000 she was found with a ligature around her neck. She was placed in special accommodation, her shoelaces were removed and she was placed on 15-minute observation. A doctor visited her the following day and wrote in the records that the risk of self-harm remained high. He instructed that the 15-minute watch should continue. Later that day Kerry was transferred to the segregation unit and the 15-minute observations were stopped and she was given back her clothes, including her shoelaces. The next day she was found in her cell having hanged herself using her shoelaces attached to material that had been ripped from her duvet.
The jury found that Kerry had intentionally taken her own life, in part because the risk of her doing so was not recognised and appropriate precautions were not taken to prevent her doing so.
This is the first time that a jury has followed the approach suggested in the case of R v HM Coroner for the Western District of Somerset and Another ex parte Middleton, 11 March 2004. This provides a jury an opportunity to reflect in their verdict any failures that they feel have a clear and direct causal connection to the death.
The coroner indicated he would be writing to the Chief Inspector of Prisons with recommendations about the documentation used to identify the level of risk that a prisoner posed to him or herself and that a watch should never be eased without a suitable case conference with a senior medical officer, an officer, governor and keyworker in attendance.
Marcia Willis Stewart,
Birnberg Peirce & Partners Solicitors
Overcrowded prisons
On 19 March, the prison population of England and Wales was 75,065 – an increase of 2,198 on the previous year’s figure. The Certified Normal Accommodation (ie the number of prisoners who can be comfortably and decently held) was 66,668 and the absolute capacity was 75,291, just 126 more prisoners than actually incarcerated.
In February the number of prisoners had already reached 74,500; the Prison Service had begun talking about using police cells and the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, was discussing measures to ensure the figure did not go above 80,000 (nearly double the number in prison ten years ago). However, according to projections, his proposals are unrealistic and the prison population is likely to rise to over 87,000.
By early March, when the number passed 75,000 for the first time ever, the Prisons Minister, Paul Goggins, announced emergency measures to create an extra 800 prison places by lowering the number of places left free to allow movement between gaols by 300, and rushing through refurbishment being done on a further 500. This was followed by the announcement that everyone would be moved out of two women’s prisons to make room for more male prisoners.
New prisons being built this year will provide another 1,500 places. These will rapidly be filled. This is a crisis that is not about to go away.
Nicki Jameson
FRFI 178 April / May 2004
