“...the last two visits we have been told to stand on the line with our hands behind our backs and to let the dogs jump up on us” Kerry - a prisoner’s wife
Time to take politics out of prisons the National Newspaper for Prisoners & Detainees
Mailbag // page 7
Erwin James talks to Lord Woolf as he steps down as chair of the Prison Reform Trust Comment // page 15
a voice for prisoners since 1990 April 2016 / Issue No. 202 / www.insidetime.org / A ‘not for profit’ publication / ISSN 1743-7342 An average of 60,000 copies distributed monthly Independently verified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations
“the planning and carrying out of the job were Premiership, the afters and getaway plan were strictly Sunday pub league” Noel Smith
Comment // page 24
Prisons: A New Direction Slash and burn policy will place education and work skills at the heart of the Justice Secretary’s vision for a more effective and humane prison system
l More time out of cell l Increased use of ROTL l Governor’s discretion to design IEP scheme l IPP prisoners to have ‘clear paths to exit’ l Fewer Recalls In this exclusive and historic interview Michael Gove MP reveals how he was ‘shocked’ by everything he saw during one prison visit and explains that among the fundamental changes he intends to introduce are autonomy for Governors and prison league tables. An avid reader of Inside Time, he also tells of his high regard for “the unvarnished truth” he reads each month in our universally popular Mailbag section. Rachel Billington
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Justice Secretary Michael Gove MP speaking at the Howard League AGM in November 2015
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library was, shocked also by the fact that the group of prisoners I was talking to had some very articulate young men who clearly had a potential who no-one had ever especially cared about beforehand and their biggest frustration now was that they didn’t have the chance to learn.’
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It was while visiting Wormwood Scrubs prison in London that Justice Secretary Michael Gove learned firsthand about the needs of many of the people in our prisons. At that time he was still Education Secretary. ‘I was shocked by everything about it. I was shocked by the dirt and the squalor. I was shocked at how poor the facilities were, shocked how empty the
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a voice for prisoners since 1990 the national newspaper for prisoners published by Inside Time Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of The New Bridge Foundation, founded in 1956 to create links between the offender and the community. A not for profit publication. Inside Time is wholly responsible for its editorial content. Comments or complaints should be directed to the publisher and not to New Bridge.
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Anonymous - HMP Isis
I was reading an article regarding the recently released Guantanamo Bay detainee Shaker Aamer and his allegations of torture in the presence of a British MI5 agent. I was intrigued to read the official British response, which was that they do not agree with or condone, and I quote ‘cruel, inhumane or degrading’ treatment or behaviour. Since 2010 my brother has been held as a CSC prisoner, excluding 14 months at Broadmoor Hospital, to date it has been 54 months in complete isolation. In this time he has been unable to integrate with a single person and for the vast majority of this time he has been escorted for his daily 30 minutes exercise, 10 minute shower and 10 minute phone call surrounded by 8-10 officers dressed in full riot gear including shields. All this while handcuffed. My brother has had no access to any meaningful activities whatsoever. He has had his legal paperwork tampered with, much of his personal property deliberately broken or ‘go missing’ and been assaulted by officers many, many times.
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Whilst at Broadmoor Hospital he was diagnosed with severe mental health issues such as paranoid psychosis, paranoid delusional disorder and Asperger’s syndrome. Nobody should have to spend 4 years 6 months in segregation, let alone someone with extreme mental health issues. Is this not ‘cruel, inhumane and degrading’?
‘Staff using physical violence’ Ryan Humpage - HMP Preston I would like to know if it’s acceptable for prison staff to punch us in the face and kick us in the stomach several times when they restrain us. When I got restrained I was punched in the face and kicked while on the floor and I think this is wrong. Why do they think they can violently assault us and beat us up in the segregation unit? I was told by a member of staff - ‘We can do what the fuck we like to you, nobody comes down here’. I want to know why they think they can do this? Are they breaking the law and what can we possibly do about this without suffering further violence in retaliation? It is disgraceful that prison staff can get away with this. Editorial note Prison staff should have a video camera to record all restraints and ‘removals’. The problem is always providing evidence of what happened. If a prisoner believes he/she has been assaulted they should immediately report it to the police and ask for a Crime Number. All prisons have a Police Liaison Officer who must pass on such a complaint; alternatively friends or family can contact the police. All information such as dates and times, and names of staff should be recorded and a request made for any injuries to be photographed.
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Peter South HMP Stafford Having spent time in 3 Category B prisons, managed by 3 different providers, I was recently given my Category C and subsequently moved here to HMP Stafford. I was under the impression, or should that be under the illusion, that life in a Category C prison might be a little more comfortable than in Category B. How wrong I was. Whilst I fully understand that many of the privileges we have are just that, and can be taken away at any time, should we not have more privileges in Category C than in Category B? Here at Stafford I have not found one single aspect of the regime that is not actually worse than a Category B prison. We have less association, less days in the week available for visits, shorter visit times, less visits available. We have to wear jeans on a visit, we can’t use the courtesy locks on cell doors, we don’t have a key, the showers are the communal type, no cubicles so no privacy, less access to telephones, the TVs are old fashioned with poor quality picture and fewer channels. I could go on. Could NOMS please explain to me how I am better off in a Category C prison? And please don’t tell me its part of my prison ‘journey’ as my release date won’t change whether I am Category B or Category C, unless I do something silly. Answers please.
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Wonderful Prisoners Advice Service Ian Suter - HMP Hatfield In September 2013, I was sentenced to 6 years Extended Determinate Sentence (EDS), for offences of Section 18 wounding, affray and possession of an offensive weapon, at Leeds Crown Court. I was sentenced to 6 years custodial with 4 years extended license, in all a sentence of 10 years. In September 2015, I had my first Cat D review, which was unsuccessful. On my appeal OMU upheld the original decision of the board, stating ‘You are currently just under 4 years off your release date. PSI 40/2011 states that the maximum period you should be in open prison is 2 years.’ In October 2015 I instructed a solicitor to assist me with my Cat D refusal. I was instructed to appeal against my earliest possible release date which was September 2017. Having spent 2 years at HMP Wealstun adhering to the prison regime and using my time in a purposeful manner, I remained adjudication free and as an enhanced prisoner. Furthermore, I have a proven track record of trustworthiness. However, I was still unsuccessful. I was entitled to re-categorisation according to PSI 11.2, 11.21-226A or 226B, so why was there no progression? I had taken my application to OMU, personal officer, legal system, Probation and the prison system. So who could help me? As it turns out I found all my luck in one day. I was fortunate enough to meet a prisoner who works for St Giles Trust who agreed that I should be re-categorised. Within a month I was successfully re-categorised and now I am at HMP Hatfield Category D open prison. The prisoner I met asked Niki Rensten, of the Prisoners Advice Service, to help. She emailed Keith Roberts, the author of the PSI, who emailed the prison and told them that I had a right to re-categorisation under his PSI. It was that simple. I now have access to resettlement and outside paid employment. So I write this letter hoping that it may help others in the same situation.
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Insidetime April 2016
Writes
Reply to open letter Justin Hawkins - Head of Communication, CCRC Last month’s issue of Inside Time contained an open letter to the Chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission from Ashleigh Towers whose brother Jordan is serving a life sentence for murder. Because there is a limit to the amount of detail that the Commission can and should put in a public letter about an individual case, we have responded in private to Ms Towers. It is up to her whether she wishes to make public our letter which contains details about her brother’s case. What the Commission can say here in Inside Time about Jordan Towers’ murder conviction is that we have conducted detailed and determined reviews of the case so it is not for want of trying that we have been unable to find suitable grounds on which to refer it back to the Court of Appeal.
“The fact is that belief alone will not persuade the Court of Appeal to overturn a conviction” Ms Towers’ frustration on her brother’s behalf is entirely understandable. She clearly believes strongly that he has been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. However, the fact is that belief alone will not persuade the Court of Appeal to overturn a conviction. For us to be able to refer a case for appeal we have to be able to identify some new evidence or new legal argument that is capable of raising a real possibility that the Court will quash the conviction. In this case, so far at least, and in spite of our best efforts, we have not been able to do that. Ms Towers disagreed with our most recent decision not to refer the case and sought a judicial review. The Admin Court said that attempt at judicial review was “totally without merit” and found that “the Commission properly examined the claimants contention and reached a fully reasoned decision.” As Ms Towers says in her letter, we are now considering the case for a third time looking again for valid grounds on which a fresh appeal could be based. This time that process will include consideration of whether or not Mr Towers’ case may be one of those affected by the very specific issues raised in the recent and well-known joint enterprise case of Ameen Jogee.
Discrimination against the disabled Craig Halliday - HMP Wymott I have been in prison for 4 years and in that time have been in 5 different prisons and received numerous visits from my wife. She is a permanent wheelchair-user and we have had no major issues until I came to this prison. I came here in September and on my second visit we were told that my wife would have to leave the visit 20 minutes earlier than everyone else due to her being a wheelchair-user (and that the lift was slow). We disagreed and eventually my wife had to leave 5 minutes before everyone else. My wife was very upset as she had travelled for 4 hours to get to the visit, only to be told that because of her disability the visit would be cut short.
“We were told that my wife would have to leave the visit 20 minutes earlier than everyone else due to her being a wheelchair-user” I complained about this using the DIRF process and my complaint was not upheld. The prison stated that she had been asked to leave early but this was not discrimination, but more for health & safety reasons. They refused to see the issue, even though the able-bodied visitors were allowed a stress-free final 20 minutes of their visits. This is clearly discrimination. I appealed against the decision and in the reply I received from one of the governors, he referred to wheelchair-users as ‘items’ - ‘As you can imagine, this lift will not transport items such as wheelchair-users at a fast pace due to safety regulations.’ For someone who is meant to be a professional and the governor of a prison I feel his wording is incredibly crass and insulting. Is my wife an ‘item’, or a thing? No, she is a human being just like me or you. This is the most unsafe and insecure environment I have ever been in and the governors think it is ok to discriminate. This place should be renamed HMP Shambles.
Defamation of character Web Comment - Anonymous I visited HMP Oakwood with my grandson on 9th January 2016. The ‘drug dog’ sniffed my clothes, my shoes and up my skirt (embarrassing). The male officer told me I was only allowed a closed visit with my son. Myself and my grandson could only see him through a glass window. I asked why this was so, the male officer told me the dog had picked up a strong indication that I was carrying something in to my son. I protested my innocence and suggested my partner should go in with my grandson while I stayed outside. This was refused and I was not further searched. We left the prison having travelled all the way from Manchester with an excited little boy wanting to see his dad. The following day, I learned that the officer had contacted social services and reported the matter to them. This resulted in me not being able to see my grandson, I still cannot until the relevant checks have been carried out about my character. My current job requires me to have an enhanced CRB on a regular basis (every 2 years) I have never been convicted of any offence ever, and my medical records are clear also. I’m disgusted at this miscarriage of justice and defamation to my character. I will now be taking this much further as no response to any letter I have sent has been given.
‘Hunger striker not receiving help or concern’ Mr Ault - HMP Oakwood I am writing to you regarding Mr Newey who had a letter in your March issue, headlined ‘Hunger strike against G4s’. Inside Time asked for an update on Mr Newey’s situation and I can confirm that he is still on hunger strike. I am his next door neighbour and I can tell you that he has lost a lot of weight and we are all concerned for his health. For weeks I have not witnessed him receiving any help or concern from staff. I don’t think he is doing too well, he looks so thin and he sleeps a lot, although he does go to work and education every day. I must commend him as I don’t think I would have lasted this long. Anyway, just thought I’d update you on his situation. Editorial note The IMB have been alerted to the situation and are looking into the matter.
Contributing to Mailbag If you would like to contribute to Mailbag, please send your letters (concise and clearly marked) to ‘Mailbag’, Inside Time, Botley Mills, Botley, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 2GB. Please note letters for publication may be edited. ‘Mailbag’, Inside Time, Botley Mills, Botley, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 2GB.
To avoid any possible misunderstanding, if you have a query and for whatever reason do not wish your letter to be published in Inside Time or appear on the website, or yourself to be identified, please make this clear. We advise that wherever possible, when sending original documents such as legal papers, you send photocopies as we are unable to accept liability if they are lost. We may need to forward your letter and/or documents to Prison Service HQ or another appropriate body for comment or advice, therefore only send information you are willing to have forwarded on your behalf.
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Mailbag
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Page 4
“Whatever happened to catch it, bin it, kill it?” Darryl Cookhorn - HMP Wakefield
Newsround
Page 12
Four year old boy jailed for life for ‘murder, destruction of property and inciting riots’ 14-26
Comment
Page 20
Here’s another box I want banned… The Secret Criminologist
Information
Page 32 Legal
Page 39
10-13
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“We don’t want anyone to be suffering in silence” Rachael Doeg Alzheimer’s Society 38-43 Supreme Court allows 2 appeals against joint enterprise Julian Purdon
Jailbreak
44-56
Page 44
“From then on I decided to make earwigging a hobby” Prison Widow
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‘Mailbag’, Inside Time, Botley Mills, Botley, Southampton SO30 2GB.
Insidetime April 2016
‘Lies and false promises’
Mailbites
Ben Barnes - HMP Frankland
Rats
I was aghast upon hearing Prime Minister David Cameron spout on about the ‘rehabilitation revolution’ yet again. How can someone in such a position of power appear on national television and feed the media and public such claptrap and be believed? Come on, wake up and smell the coffee. Anyone who is, or has been, in prison will know all too well what absolute nonsense David Cameron is talking. If he thinks for one minute that educational courses of basic level, that are not fit for purpose, are going to make model citizens of prisoners, then he is in for a shock and disappointment. Futile offender programmes have, time and again, been proven not to work and will never make any prisoner rehabilitated, regardless of what the dangerous psychology despots claim. The one thing that I noticed in Cameron’s rhetoric is that he avoided the issue of prison numbers and how to reduce them, this tells me that he doesn’t have a clue how to do this. Any fool can stand up and waffle on about prisoners and prison, but having the balls to do something about it is what Cameron needs. Instead of telling the media what they want to hear, Cameron should tell them what they NEED to hear, and that would be about reducing the prison population, providing decent accommodation, employment and supporting prisoners and their families. This is REAL rehabilitation. If Cameron is serious about sorting the prison system out then the best place to start is with the thousands of prisoners who are stuck in limbo from the now defunct IPP fiasco. A vile piece of uniquely British ‘justice’. Finally he should look at the recall rates. Thousands of prisoners are recalled to prison, sometimes for the most absurd reasons. I know of one prisoner who was recalled for smoking in his hostel! And another for ‘smelling of alcohol’! Not for committing more crimes but because the Probation Service has this power and will always abuse it. These recalls and the reasons given are usually vindictive and spiteful. Probation staff who through their callous behaviour make a mockery of British justice which it seems is a policy of vengeance. Many people will leave prison angry, bitter and resentful. Usually homeless, unemployed and with no money - bar the pittance of less than £50 given on release to last for the first 6 weeks or so of freedom. In short, I can see that David Cameron’s speech on rehabilitation is lies and false promises, he’s talking absolute nonsense. Editorial note Currently over 20,000 prisoners are either remand, IPP or on recall.
Lack of staff George Seeby HMP Manchester Here at HMP Manchester we are rarely going to work or getting any social activity/ exercise due to ‘lack of staff’. This has been going on for months now, but since the new year it has become a real problem. I have been told that it is due to government cuts, however I believe it may be poor organisation. Are any other prisons suffering from ‘lack of staff’ or is it just us at Manchester? Editorial note Prison Officer numbers have been cut by over 40% which is affecting all prisons with many now on limited regime. MoJ figures showed that in December last year there were just 16,720 officer grades; four years ago there were nearly 25,000 officers.
Smoking ban time bomb at HMP Parc A prisoner’s mother It has just been on the news that smoking in public areas does not apply to prisons but at HMP Parc the governor has stopped smoking on the sex offenders unit and is stopping it in the main block in April. There are prisoners cutting themselves up because they can’t smoke, the biggest commodity in there is not drugs but tobacco which is going for £100 an ounce!
“There are prisoners cutting themselves up because they can’t smoke, the biggest commodity in there is not drugs but tobacco which is going for £100 an ounce!” My son is on the sex offenders unit, he’s 45 year’s old and has been smoking since he was 12, so it is already taking a toll on him not being able to smoke. This doesn’t help his mental issues as he has Asperger’s and paranoia and a personality disorder. The governor seems to think its ok to do this to the prisoners as well as staff. It’s inhumane and she is putting her staff at risk. She cleared the punishment block in case of trouble. It’s a time bomb waiting to go off.
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‘Thanks for the bugs, guv’ Darryl Cookhorn - HMP Wakefield Has anyone else been in a situation where a member of staff comes to work when they have colds, flu or viruses, and just spread it throughout the prison? Whatever happened to catch it, bin it, kill it? And furthermore, why aren’t prisoners with low immune systems allowed to wear masks? There is a real problem with staff spreading their bugs throughout prisons. If you are ill then stay at home and don’t be coming in here affecting everybody. It’s not rocket science. Thanks for the bugs, guv.
Peeing in the sink
Not playing the game
Name withheld HMP Greenock
I am a prisoner who has maintained innocence for nearly 12 years now. I received a 6 year 56 day tariff for attempted murder. I have never previously been convicted of any violent crime, and my stance on innocence will never change, because if you are really innocent then you shouldn’t change your mind, and I never will.
I am a life sentenced prisoner in the ‘top end’ in Greenock. In Scotland, lifers at the end of their sentences have to do two years in the ‘top end’, then two years in ‘open’. But instead of letting us do the two years top end in the modern prisons where we have served our life, the SPS send us here or Barlinnie. In here there are no toilets in the cells, just sinks. Most of the prisoners are older and they don’t like walking to the toilets all through the night, so they piss in the sinks. This makes the whole wing smell of piss. This has been a problem at Greenock for many years, but it is 2016 so why are the SPS moving us out of modern prisons and locking us in a human zoo? Barlinnie top end is another wing with no toilets in the cells, so why are the SPS doing it? A lot of us work on outside placements and it becomes embarrassing when your clothes smell of piss from the wing. All of us have had years to rehabilitate and have done all the courses. Many of us have no discipline reports for 10 years, so why are the SPS treating us like this at the end of our sentences?
Del Patterson - HMP Frankland
I have told my Probation Officer, OMU Department and the Parole Board that I will not be signing documents which require me to admit guilt, i.e. license papers. As I did not commit any crime in the first place I do not need any kind of license.
“I have done all education courses, plus a lot of vocational courses, but I will not do any offending behaviour courses as I am not an ‘offender’” While I have been in prison I have gone above and beyond to prove I am no risk to anyone, in or out of prison, and never will be. I have done all education courses, plus a lot of vocational courses, but I will not do any offending behaviour courses as I am not an ‘offender’. As for offending behaviour courses, in my time in prison I have seen hundreds of prisoners coming back to prison after completing these courses and being released, so that proves these courses do not work, in fact, they could be making people worse. I will not go to any more dispersal or Category B training prisons, as I have already done the rounds of the closed estate. I will not be accepting any more reports any official writes on me as most of the things in them are just made up. On the whole, official reports are false and negative in order to justify keeping me in. I have done almost double my tariff and the system has done nothing for me just because I maintain my innocence. What a disgrace.
Clive Henderson’s letter in the February issue described how he was bitten by a rat. He asked if other prisons have the same rat problem. My answer is YES, I’ve been in prison for over 20 years and been to over a dozen jails and rats are everywhere. Rats thrive in prison, just like pigeons, and I’m not sure that prisons can get rid of them completely. The prison system has an obligation to protect people from these hazards. If I was him I would seek legal representation. Gary Chester-Nash HMP Whitemoor
Prison left me traumatised I was jailed for 7 years in 1976. The prison staff were among the worst human beings I ever met. One assistant governor recommended I not be paroled because I didn’t take up education classes. One probation officer was so idle and uncaring he made up excuse after excuse why I couldn’t see my dying mother. Another probation officer (a female over 70 years old) recommended no parole as I had not addressed my crime, even now 40 years later I don’t understand what she meant. If I had not met a very understanding woman shortly after release I would have spent the last 35 years in a nursing home or psychiatric institution. YES, prison left me THAT traumatised. John C - ex prisoner
Big thanks I would like to thank Prisons Pastor Susan Cuthbert for her piece in the March issue of Inside Time. I don’t normally trust anyone who works in the prison system as I realise that I am only a commodity to most of them. But when I see someone from any church or religion I drop my guard and trust them. That 2 minute break is like a breath of fresh air to me. Susan Cuthbert’s contribution made me smile. I’m not religious but I have seen the chaplaincy help a lot of people in prison. D Barraclough HMP The Mount
Women-hating, brain-dead layabouts? Colin Campbell - HMP Woodhill I write regarding a piece in the January issue under the heading ‘The things people say’. The misogynist responsible for this is conservative MP, Philip Davies; how this man managed to get enough people to vote for him is beyond understanding. I can only imagine that his constituency is full of women-hating, brain-dead layabouts whose idea of a relationship with a woman is to keep her barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.
“ More women should be sent to prison in order to make them equal to men...Somehow the fact that hardly any women are in prison in the first place seems to be a problem. If there is to be true equality ” Philip Davies MP (Inside Time Jan 2016) The last paragraph in the piece written by Mr Davies makes complete sense. The House of Commons Justice Select Committee appear to have got it absolutely right - the vast majority of female offenders could be dealt with by the simple expedient of sifting out the women who do not represent a significant risk to public safety, and that appears to be over 80% of the women in prison.
Repatriation of Pakistani prisoners Babar Shah - HMP Whitemoor I would like to clarify to all Pakistani prisoners and the British public that the UK and Pakistan did indeed have a contract in which Pakistani nationals who were serving a sentence here in the UK could be transferred to Pakistan. However, this contract is now in deadlock. The reason for this deadlock is very interesting indeed. It seems the Pakistani and British governments are in dispute, and the nature of this dispute raises some disconcerting questions. The Pakistani government are demanding a number of political leaders who are themselves suspects in terrorist activities within Pakistan, and are now living freely in the UK, to be extradited back to Pakistan in order to face charges for their criminal activities. One of these leaders was, in fact, arrested in London as there was information linking him to the murder of Imran Farooq, and during the investigation he was found to have £150,000 in cash stored at his office. Charges of money-laundering were also brought against this political leader and despite all of the evidence being supplied by the Pakistani government, the UK government are handling this case within the UK. I don’t know why.
Everything possible should be done to get these women back to their families and out of prison. Most of these women will probably need some kind of intervention and support to help them change their lives and that is where a comprehensive network of women’s centres would be the perfect solution. Not a prison cell.
It is apparent that the British government are operating with double standards. If there were any suspects wanted in connection with terrorist activities in the USA, the British government would not hesitate to extradite them, regardless of their human rights or if they were destined for the notorious torture chamber of Guantanamo Bay. Yet when the Pakistani government request the return of terrorist suspects from the UK, the UK government is a little less forthcoming. Is the British government supporting suspects in terrorist activity and protecting them from prosecution in Pakistan? This is a question I would like answered.
Simply placing people back with their families without addressing the reasons for them having offended in the first place is always going to be a waste of both time and money. These ladies need help with whatever caused them to offend in the first place, not the caustic observations of a self-opiniated individual who clearly sees himself as above the constituents he is supposed to be representing.
Nevertheless, whilst the British government and Pakistan are in dispute over this, repatriation to Pakistan will remain in deadlock. This affects all Pakistani prisoners serving sentences here in the UK, who want to serve out their sentences nearer their loved ones. I am aware of some prisoners who have been waiting for more than 7 years for repatriation, so I urge you to write to your local MP and ask them to raise this issue in Parliament.
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Hostels - a balanced view Terry Hatcher - HMP Bure I have recently read with interest the negative experiences of people released into Approved Premises. However, in order to provide a balanced view I would like to share my experiences. Upon arrival I was shown to my room. Once I’d filled out some paperwork I was told I could go out until 10pm should I wish to. The room was comfortable, with Freeview TV, a sink, wardrobe and bed. I paid £52 per fortnight which included meals cooked by an outside chef. This left me around £90 out of my fortnightly benefits. There was no signing in or out and, provided I kept to my curfew, I was free to go shopping, to the gym or meet up with family and friends. I was not forced to sign on with a doctor, in fact the local surgery put aside a
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whole morning of appointments every Monday to enable hostel residents to get regular appointments. There were no chores to be done, as there were 2 cleaners. I chose to work in the garden and was encouraged to do the Better Lives group for an hour every Saturday, but this was voluntary and there were no threats made if I didn’t attend. I had to sign on every week and the Job Club were quite strict about me applying for jobs, despite me explaining my circumstances. But this was not too much of an issue. Between the hours of 11pm and 8am we were expected to be in our rooms and checks were carried out, and for smokers there was access to the rear garden. As for associating with others outside the hostel, well, I
had spent 8 years of being forced to associate with other inmates in prison so I was quite happy to go along with this rule. As for residents being ‘dragged from their beds and thrown into a police van’, I never saw this happen. What I did see was several residents recalled because they were too stupid to follow a few simple rules for a couple of months. Anyone with a genuine reason for missing an appointment or for being a little late for their curfew would not be recalled as long as they could explain what happened. In my opinion, a hostel is a good place to make the transition from prison to freedom. Yes, there are a few rules, but that’s life. There is also a lot of support. As for people’s comments about hostels being 100 times worse than prison - can anything really be 100 times worse than prison?
Corrections and Clarifications The policy of Inside Time is to correct significant errors as soon as possible. Corrections will appear in the mailbag section of each issue and on the relevant web page. If you notice an error please feel free to write to us at the usual address providing the date and page number from the newspaper, alternatively have a friend or family member call or email us (see below). In the March issue of Inside Time we attributed the names below the photograph of the Birmingham Six in the wrong order. Don’t forget the innocent page 18. We apologise to the men and to our readers for this error. The order should have been, from left to right: Johnny Walker, Paddy Hill, Hugh Callaghan, Chris Mullin MP, Richard McIlkenny, Gerry Hunter and Billy Power. Inside Time, Botley Mills, Botley, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 2GB.
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Information for those who do not know
These are:
Details Withheld
2. Crucially, if you are 45 or more minutes late after your booked visit they will not allow you in, even though it could still be possible to have a 2 hour visit (this is because they have a 3 hour visiting window);
I visited HMP Dovegate, having booked by email, but got turned away on the basis of policies not mentioned in the confirmation email.
© prisonimage.org
Rules on exercise? Mr Hirst - HMP Haverigg Can someone clarify the current rules about open-air exercise in the prison system? I understood that exercise round the yard has to be provided once a day, yet, as an inmate at Haverigg on full-time education I am told that my 5 minute daily walk to and from education counts as my daily open-air exercise. How can this be right? The education block is a no-smoking building and officially we are not allowed to smoke whilst walking to classes, so where is my chance for some fresh air and a smoke break during the day? What obligations does the jail have to provide breaks and exercise? Editorial note The last Prison Service Instruction (PSI) which mentioned time in the open air was PSI 2011-10 which expired in March 2014 and as far as we
can see has not been superseded. This PSI states that, in replacing PSO 4275 a minimum period in the open air is specified for all prisoners and prisoners must be afforded time in the open air in accordance with this PSI. The mandatory minimum is 30 minutes subject to weather conditions; any cancellations must be recorded by an authorised manager. However, it says: • ‘Time in the open air’ means time spent in a situation where the prisoner is able to benefit from fresh air and natural light; • Time spent outdoors as part of a formal activity, for example outdoor work or watching or participating in sport, counts as meeting this requirement; • The time in the open air does not have to be spent in a single period, but must be in no more than two periods, which can include time in the open air moving between activities. If prisoners are on a restricted regime the PSI says governors must provide a minimum of 60 minutes of activities of which 30 minutes must be in the open air.
Insidetime April 2016
As part of the visiting regime, there are three policies that everyone should know about, but will not be told despite everyone needing to know them.
1. You must arrive at the prison 30 minutes before your booked visiting time;
3. Visits are routinely booked for 13:00, but, if you have booked by email, you are able to change this by emailing / phoning the
prison. If you are booking by phone, and are lucky enough to get through, then do ask them if you can be given a later time slot if that helps you. My visit was scheduled for 13:00, but since I got there at 14:00 and visits finish at 16:00 I was still expecting my 2 hour visit to go ahead, given the fact that I had NEVER been made aware of any ‘turn up late for a visit’ policy. The intention of this letter is to share rather than shame, so other readers don’t have a similar vexation.
Not public protection but job protection Jon Waldron - HMP Kirklevington Grange When prisoners are deemed ‘high risk’ due to offences committed and sentenced to a period in custody, you would expect a period of rehabilitation and Offending Behaviour Courses to reduce their risk to medium. But it is impossible as the National Probation Service has stated to me that ‘no matter how many OBCs I do, how many RoRs or home leaves I will still have to be released as high risk and will have to go to a hostel. This high risk scam is deliberate discrimination, telling prisoners that these courses reduce your risk of harm when they know full well that these courses have no effect. Not being able to address your risk and leaving you labelled as ‘high risk’ affects ROTLs, RoRs, home leave, job training opportunities in the open estate. High risk prisoners should be told the truth, because if none of these courses, like Resolve, TSP, etc. do not go towards lowering your risk then they are not worth the time and money they take up. So we will continue to be released as ‘high risk’ or potential risk due to being starved of access to any resettlement. NPS is maintaining thousands of prisoners as high risk, not for public protection but for job protection. This practise needs reviewing as it is having a detrimental effect on prisoners and their families.
YOU’RE MEANT TO BE DOING TIME… ...NOT PERSONAL INJURY You’ve committed the offence, been found guilty and now you’re doing time at Her Majesties pleasure…….and time is all you should be doing. You may not have your freedom but you do have your rights. A wet floor, loose stair, trip in the gym, attack by a fellow inmate or even intimidation from prison staff. If you think you have suffered personal injury
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Mailbites HMP Thamesmead? I am trying to get back to a prison in London as this place is too far for my family to visit, and I have heard good things about HMP Thamesmead. I have looked through the pages of recent issues of Inside Time and cannot see any information or mailbags from there. Can any Thamesmead inmates let me know what the prison is like and whether it is worth putting in for a transfer to the jail?
Free certificates anyone?
Wayne M Sowerby - HMP North Sea Camp
Name Withheld - HMP Moorland
I would like to announce the forming of a new organisation aimed at giving all prisoners a voice in the Rehabilitation Revolution currently being promoted so passionately by Central Government. This organisation is to be called the National Prisoners Council.
In October of last year me and a group of others were signed up to an Industrial Cleaning Course run by Manchester College (Novus). Over a 9 day period our tutor turned up daily and then without warning she stopped. Four weeks passed and we heard nothing, so I put in an app to ask what was going on. The tutor came and told us that she had been put elsewhere and would not be able to complete our training course. I complained.
It is my belief, based on many years of experience, that without the support and validation of prisoners any reforms will not work, just as they have not worked before. The National Prisoners Council is committed to lobbying and petitioning Central Government directly and is firmly of the belief that prisoners should not only take ownership of their crimes but ownership of rehabilitation. I invite all prisoners to support the NPC by writing letters of support to me here at North Sea Camp. I look forward to hearing from you all and working hard on your behalf.
“...the last two visits we have been told to stand on the line with our hands behind our backs and to let the dogs jump up on us”
Editorial note Send your letters to Inside Time and we will pass them on to Mr Smith.
Drones Dear readers, this is a quick rant at the big deal being made over ‘drones’ and using them to transport drugs and other contraband. There are always going to be new ways these articles will find their way into prisons but at the end of the day drugs are thrown over walls and brought in on visits but the biggest corrupt greedy criminals are in-house. There are more and more officers being caught smuggling stuff in but there’s never a big fuss like there is over drones. Stop blaming ways of getting these things into prisons and start thinking of better ways to stop your own supplying us.
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Is this legal? Kerry - a prisoner’s wife I have been visiting my husband for 6 years on and off and have got used to various prison regimes and search procedures. However, HMP Birmingham have recently changed the way they operate the prison dogs. I have been visiting my husband in Birmingham for the past 18 months and always had a sniffer dog. On the last two visits we have been told to stand on the line with our hands behind our backs and to let the dogs jump up on us.
Mc. IVOR . FARRELL
Northern Irish Solicitors • • • • • • • • • •
7
National Prisoners Council
M Smith - HMP Manchester
Dean Worthington HMP Peterborough
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I fully understand the need for sniffer dogs and have no objection to it walking around my legs and doing its job. There are people on the visits that have phobias of dogs and they are told if the dog can’t jump up on them the visit will be cancelled. Both times I have let the dog jump up as it takes me three hours to get to Birmingham.
Over the next few months the tutor came and brought our folders, which contained our course records. We were asked to sign several forms and when I enquired as to what I was actually signing for it turned out that I was signing to say that I had completed various aspects of the course that I had not done! Including, handling chemicals and bio-hazard materials. Also the reports were saying that I had been ‘witnessed’ doing the work and was given a pass on every inspection. This is pure fiction, the truth is that I was never witnessed doing this work, or as they call it ‘evidenced’. At this point I decided to put in a request for a copy of my learner plan, which is recorded on the HM Government database and shows all courses and qualifications completed whilst in custody. When it arrived I saw that there were courses on there, which it said I had completed, that I knew nothing about. I then put in a request for the certificates that Novus said I achieved. To my surprise the certificates rolled in - Level 1 Customer Service, Level 2 Customer Service, Industrial Cleaning, Bio-Hazard, Level 1 and 2 in English - all without me doing any work!
My mother in law will be coming on the next visit and she is elderly with a heart problem. I WILL NOT let the dog jump up on her. Am I within my rights to refuse?
These certificates come from Edexcel, City & Guilds, RSA, Pearson Education Ltd, etc., and these people have all been duped by what I can only describe as a scam. These companies claim vast amounts of taxpayer’s money off our backs and they are cheats, liars and fraudsters. They should be in prison!
Editorial note Our understanding is that dogs should not jump up at visitors but are trained to walk quietly past and, if they think they can smell something, just sit down by the visitor. Jumping dogs might knock over the elderly, terrify children and would be objectionable to some religious faiths.
I have written to the HMCIP to report this and I have also written to every awarding body to reject these certificates in my name and explaining why. Under PSI 06/2010 Conduct & Discipline, this amounts to misconduct/ misfeasance in public office - a criminal offence. Both NOMS and Novus need to be asked the question ‘Is it common practise to operate in this way?’ What if I go and get a job working with bio-hazards and end up hurting someone because, even Blackfords new ad 24.1.14:Layout 1 24/1/14 12:59 Page 1 though I have a certificate, I am not trained? This is a disgrace.
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Joint Enterprise hostages
Insidetime April 2016
Positive things about Frankland...
Steve Kidd - HMP Lowdham Grange
other prisoners, opinion that around 95% of officer grades at Frankland do not agree with the governor’s approach and principles. As prisoners we now see more of our governor around the prison than we do of our own wing managers. He has also appointed a Deputy Governor from a nearby establishment to clean up the stigma that surrounds Frankland and to help make this prison a good example for others to follow.
Following the (Jogee) Supreme Court ruling re; secondary parties in Joint Enterprise, the belief is that we prisoners held on the ridiculous joint enterprise doctrine will all be freed fairly quickly. My message to all is one of caution and reality. Like Ashleigh Towers writes, her brother has been to the Criminally Corrupt Reluctance Committee (CCRC) three times already! I have also been to them three times and they are fully aware that I am not the murderer as he has written a full confession. Both he and the police have stated that I tried to help. A DC in the case states that I am not the one who struck the fatal blow and a DCI admits that I only fled the scene, police forensics prove that I wasn’t even in the room when the crime was committed. The CCRC know all of this, yet have still refused me a hearing. They recently stated ‘We’re not saying that we don’t believe you’ - so what are they saying? The ‘Very Real Possibility’ test meted out by the CCRC is now redundant in cases like ours. We can prove beyond doubt that we have not participated in murder, yet hundreds of us are serving life sentences. So many of us have served several years away from our children and loved ones. I have lost my family and child contact via my bullshit charge. I suffered a stroke and heart failure a year ago this week and I am wheelchair-bound but remain strong. I’ve now issued a Judicial Review case v CCRC @ Birmingham Civil Justice Centre. I am awaiting the single judge’s decision and I am unrepresented due to Legal Aid cuts. As Paul Hill says, never ever give up because that’s what the system wants. To all on JE make your voices heard. JENGBA can’t do it all for us, so keep going. Much love to Gloria Morrison and all at JENGBA, you are the pride of Britain. I am not a risk, I am innocent.
Where is the justice?
Forced into unemployment
Mark Wightwick HMP Parkhurst
I would like to bring my situation to your readers’ attention. I am a prolific offender, having done 17 prison sentences in the last 26 years - all for burglary and theft. I have now been in Channings Wood since April 2015 and due for release in March 2016. Since I have been here I have done 3 NVQ Level 2 courses, plus I have gained my forklift driver’s certificate. I am currently finishing off my NVQ Level 2 in recycling and working closely with N.ergy, the employment agency that works with the prison to get prisoners into work once released. A total of £6,700 has been spent getting me through these courses.
I have been in touch with a local solicitor to help me start an appeal against conviction. The solicitor has put in for legal aid, to get funding so they could carry out work on my appeal. The Legal Aid Agency have refused funding and the reason given for rejecting me is that my wife, who gets paid the minimum wage has ‘too much disposable income’. We do not have any savings, no property we can sell, or even a car! Where is the justice in this country? Because I do not have any money and no legal aid pending I am not allowed a chance of appeal. How can this be right? Is that what we do in this country now? Only give justice to those who can afford to pay? Be aware - there is no justice in this country unless you are rich enough to buy it.
Richard Geary - HMP Channings Wood
It has recently come to light that my outside Offender Manager is going to make it a condition of my license that I go into a hostel/halfway house. Whilst held at this hostel I will not be able to work for a minimum period of 6 months. This is because the government pay the hostel £360 per week per person so that they can put on courses that most of us have already done in prison. Once we’ve entered the hostel we must then go to the Job Centre and claim Job Seekers Allowance. Even though we are not allowed to seek a job. My bosses on the recycling course have gone out of their way to help me into work on release as they see I am a dedicated worker. Hostels do not cater for people who want to work because it is not cost effective for them. So it looks like, once again, the Probation and Prolific Offender team are setting me up for failure. I would like to know whether I legally have to sign my license and what happens if I refuse?
Parole Board Hearing? IPP, Lifer, Standard, Licence Recalls. Independent Adjudication? Sentence Wrongly Calculated? Oral Hearing? - Tariff Reduction? Appeal against Sentence or Conviction? Second Appeal through the CCRC? The above issues are still covered under Legal Aid! So if you need help get it from dedicated London based Prison Lawyers, helping prisoners fight for their rights throughout England and Wales.
Write to Manoj Sharda, Office 226, 4 Spring Road, Ealing, London W5 2AA
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ADJUDICATION & PAROLE SPECIALISTS
T Phillips HMP Frankland
governor that every HMP establishment needs. He has been at this prison for just over 12 months but the change he has generated has been excellent.
Let me begin this letter by congratulating the governing Governor of HMP Frankland, on behalf of the majority of inmates here. I have been at Frankland for some time now and have seen several governing governors come and go, but not until now has the prison received a number one
In the short time that the governor has been here more than 15 prisoners have been re-categorised from A to B, and High Risk prisoners have also been downgraded to Category A or B, something I have never witnessed before during my years in the Dispersal regime. It is my, and many
Thumbs up for the Governor
The Governor is very visible in his role, unlike previous recluses who came before him. Hopefully the majority of staff are now getting the message that prisoners are not here to be punished, loss of liberty is our punishment, but to be rehabilitated. The governor still has a mountain to climb in order to get his staff to see sense and to drag them away from the bullying mentality they seem to share. We prisoners will do all we can to support him.
Good for me
Fair and decent
John Burns - HMP Frankland
Name Withheld - HMP Frankland
I write in response to the ‘anything positive about Frankland’ comment in your last issue. So, here is a personal perspective on a few examples.
I have been in Frankland for many years and, although it is not the perfect environment for us to lead our lives, what prison is? We all know that the British prison system is of late a victim of austerity, funding cutbacks, benchmarking and significant overcrowding, all of which we have no control over. I personally thank my lucky stars to have been fortunate enough to have served a period of my sentence in Frankland. At least we are not overcrowded, I get served daily meals that are varied, healthy and sufficient. I am able to cook my own meals on the wing. I get ample opportunities for gym sessions with good facilities, I have access to good visiting facilities and periodical family day events.
The basics Having a toilet and sink in the cell is absolute bliss after years without either. Wages earned here are significantly higher than any other nick I’ve been in. We have all been issued with brand new TVs in the last year and have more channel availability than other nicks. Staff Staff here are no different to any others in jails I’ve served time in. Contrary to popular consensus a few are educated to graduate level and beyond. Then there is the usual mix who’ve been to the University of Life, which means their bullshit detectors are finely tuned. Personally I’m grateful to the staff as I want to feel safe and secure. Fellow Prisoners For the few mad enough to share mutual humanity I appreciate you. A select minority helped me more than you realise. Library An oasis of calm that meets my needs and is close to utopia. Orderlies and staff are exemplary in finding a request. It is my view that the biggest enemy to my sentence is not the prison I’m in, the staff, my fellow prisoners or even the ailing system, but the idiot I look at in the mirror most mornings. Boy is he ugly!
I also have access to varied and beneficial educational and vocational training, whilst having a multitude of prison employment opportunities that are purposeful and financially remunerated above that of many prisons. I find Frankland a safe, civilised and decent environment in which to serve my sentence. The governors strike me as usually fair and wing-staff that are, on the whole, professional and helpful. Editorial note May we thank the author of this letter for extolling the virtues of HMP Frankland with such unbridled enthusiasm, erudition and eloquence? We applaud his courage in writing and sharing the benefits gained from such a deeply satisfying prison experience, although we note his failure to provide us with a name or a prison number. NB Inside Time will always withhold names and numbers when requested. But all letters to mailbag must include a real name and prison address.
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‘Mailbag’, Inside Time, Botley Mills, Botley, Southampton SO30 2GB.
Insidetime April 2016
Alleged abuse at Kirklevington Detention Centre
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Mailbites
Name withheld - HMP Durham Finally, after years of torment, Cleveland police are investigating the abuse at Kirklevington Detention Centre run by HM Prison Service. Most of the abusers are probably dead by now but there should not be any peace for the sadists who are still alive and living off their cushy prison pensions. I hope they are shaking in their shiny boots because the police will be bringing them all to justice for what they done to us as young boys. Over 75 ex inmates have made complaints to Cleveland police for abuse dating from 1963 to 1991. That place wasn’t a juvenile prison it was a concentration camp for so-called prison officers to take liberties with young boys. Good on the lads who have unlocked the door and allowed the police to get these monsters arrested and put before the courts.
Power corrupts…
absolute power corrupts absolutely’.
Dave E Ferguson - HMP Wakefield
Sir David Ramsbottom, probably the most honest and effective Chief Inspector of Prisons ever to sit in office, has voiced his concerns of Cameron’s latest poorly-planned ‘revolution’ in a similar vein. Quite simply, prison management cannot be trusted to act autonomously. They need guidance and limitations to prevent abuse of power. What does need to occur is a separation of prison policies from vote-hungry governmental intimidation. Independent studies must be conducted as to the true effectiveness of Offending Behaviour Programmes in reducing reoffending and the value for money that they provide the public.
David Cameron has announced yet another ‘rehabilitation revolution’, namely giving prison governors more autonomy over budgets and how to deliver ‘services’ - though how this is related to ‘rehabilitation’ I do not know. Whilst this action should allow prisons to opt out of procurement contracts that are fleecing the system whilst delivering very little, such a move is fraught with pitfalls. All of which are likely to create more problems than are solved. Most Court actions pursued against the MoJ and NOMS are the result of prison governors and ‘managers’ making autonomous decisions that ride roughshod over cold hard rules, regulations and laws set in place to protect basic rights and needs. If these governors and managers are left to their own devices with the belief that they have absolute freedom of choice, only disaster can ensue. As the saying goes: ‘Power corrupts,
Education and training needs to be delivered to provide qualifications and workplace skills valued and recognised by employers. Most of all, prisoners need to know that just because they’ve been locked up they are not going to be vilified and written-off for the rest of their lives by the general public and a vindictive, spiteful, British red banner press group. Mr Cameron still has much to grasp about the ‘rehabilitation revolution’.
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No help for gamblers I am currently serving an 11 month license recall and have asked for help with my gambling addiction repeatedly from governors to senior officers to my case manager, but I am met with the same reply - go away, there is nothing for you. There is absolutely no help offered to prisoners who have this addiction, but yet drug and alcohol courses are readily available. This goes against everything prison is meant to stand for, how is it possible to change or rehabilitate if there are no services to guide you? Do gamblers have the same trouble accessing help in English prisons or do they have help offered to them? Michael Smyth HMP Magilligan
More visit information needed As an 87 year-old I am wondering how many people might not have computers to book a visit? What should/ could they do? After a three hour car journey my first visit was unfortunately rather spoilt due to not having any idea of the procedure. A printed form with instructions would have been very useful for newcomers. Just to be handed a piece of paper with a number on it without being told what it was for and when it would be needed was not helpful. Frustrating enough first visit by a mature, competent adult, but how much more stressful for those with young children or nervous folk!
Anonymous
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Europe - we have no vote James Poplett - HMP Whatton I am currently serving a sentence in prison and have lost my right to vote in any local or general elections. As I am serving this sentence far from where I live this has not been much of an issue, but the upcoming referendum on Europe is a huge issue and many prisoners are outraged that they have no say in it. The European Court of Human Rights passed legislation making David Cameron fall in line with the rest of Europe in relation to prisoners’ basic human rights. They also ordered that a percentage of prisoners should be allowed to vote in any and all elections. The Conservative Government have ignored this ruling and due to this, prisoners are not having any say in the future of the UK. This referendum is the most important piece of political action this country has seen since the end of the Second World War and it is shocking that we have absolutely no say in the direction our country is heading. In light of this, I ask the question - are all prisoners in the UK no longer members of Europe? I would also like to ask that as David Cameron has failed to comply with the European Court of Human Rights in relation to prisoners having the vote, would this make the referendum null and void? As it stands, no prisoner in the UK will have the power to vote and this is not only unfair but illegal as well. There is the matter of IPP prisoners still in prison long after serving more than double their tariffs, who should be out of the prison system. These people should be home and able to vote but because they are political prisoners serving an illegal sentence they have no voice and no say in the future of our country. I believe very strongly that prisoners should have a say in the future of the UK, it is our country too. Although we have committed crimes we are still citizens of the UK and have not stopped caring about the futures of our families and ultimately of our country. The system that Cameron has in place treats prisoners like sub-humans and this needs to stop or the dream of reforming prisoners and making them better people will become an even greater nightmare than it already is. Editorial note Inside Time will include an EU REF/Prisoner Vote special feature in our May issue.
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Newsbites
COMPENSATION FOR VICTIMS OF CHILD ABUSE
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Our specialist team are committed to helping victims of abuse and are experts in bringing action against local authorities, such as social services, and residential institutions, such as children’s homes. Our dedicated team of male and female lawyers have a proven track record with sexual, physical and emotional abuse claims. The Ministry Justice refusing to time publish of April contempt Childofabuse canis take a long to comestart to terms with they and itmay canbe beindifficult for of a reportvictims whichtodetails of passive court. WhenRegardless asked whyofthey speakthe out dangers about their traumatic experiences. howhave long not ago smoking in prisons. in five domay still published reporta an MoJ spokesperson theOne abuse tookprisoners place, you be ablethe to make claim. not smoke and have often been forced to said; “We have long been committed to a Anything yousmokers. say to us will be handled withsmoke-free the utmostprison levels estate. of professionalism, share tiny cells with Implementation sensitivity and understanding. will be phased over a long period in order to The report, said toclaims have come to ‘devastatthese funding andchanges Jordanssafely.” are recognised by Child abuse are often eligible for pubicmake ing’ conclusions over the health risks, is the legal services commission as one of the few specialist providers of legal aid for being kept secret by the MoJ despite threats The MoJ fears a large number of compensation this type in the from UK. prisoners for damage caused of high court action to get it published. It isof workclaims
Devastating report on passive smoking in prisons kept secret by MoJ
not only prisoners forced to share cells with smokers who may have been affected as the report shows air particle levels way above World Health organisation levels for half the time they were monitored.
through passive smoking, to which they said; “We will continue to robustly defend claims made against the Prison Service, and have successfully defended two thirds of prisoner claims over the last three years.”
Call Christine Sands and the team on 01924 868911
The Information Commissioner says that the Email
[email protected] ‘A prison problem that we all have to MoJ isWrite breaking the law in not publishing the to Neil Jordan House, Wellington Road, Dewsbury, WF13 1HL solve’ page 23 report in full and if this is not done by the
COMPENSATION FOR VICTIMS OF CHILD ABUSE Helping victims plan for the future and achieve justice
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If you have suffered sexual abuse in any institution or whilst in the care of your local authority we may be able to help.
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l Lord Thomas the Lord Chief Justice has agreed with suggestions that trials could be held in pubs and hotels to save money. With 20% of courts being closed, town halls and university buildings have also been suggested. The 86 court closures will save £700million. Lord Thomas said the issues of IT access and security would have to be addressed, but recently retired police officers could be given part time contracts to help with security. l A Littlehey prison chapel minister has lost an unfair dismissal claim for telling prisoners; “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor coveters, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the Kingdom of God.” He was dismissed for making homophobic remarks despite telling a tribunal; “I felt inspired by God to quote from the Bible or to say something else that God had put on my heart.” l In the past 5 years G4S has been fined a total of £3,772,291 for 224 separate incidents and failure to comply with procedures or regimes at Altcourse, Birmingham, Oakwood, Parc & Rye Hill. The worst was Rye Hill with 38 penalties. l Prison Service staff are to get a pay rise of 1.36% this year (compared to NHS 1%), which, the Treasury say “is intended to recognise the particular circumstances this year of introducing highly ambitious prison reform.” MPs will say that the rise is the same as they are getting but in July last year they awarded themselves a 10% pay rise.
Television presenter Dan Snow joins The Clink
Historian and television presenter Dan Snow has joined The Clink Charity as Group Communications Ambassador, having been an avid supporter since the first restaurant opened in 2009. Mr Snow commented; “The history of crime and punishment is sometimes a murky one. To bear witness to how far we have come with training initiatives such as The Clink Charity and Restaurants shows how
much we have progressed as a society. Focusing on rehabilitation rather than punishment has real potential to reduce the constant spiral of crime for the benefit of society as a whole and The Clink demonstrates this every day.” Clink in Numbers 2009 The year the first Clink Restaurant opened. 4,000 Number of diners served each month. 28 Number of industry awards won by The Clink Restaurants. 10 Number of new projects planned by the end of 2017. 500 Number of prisoners trained since launching. 73% Reoffending rate reduced by since launching.
Call to ban paid McKenzie Friends The Bar Council has backed proposals from the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary to ban payment to McKenzie Friends in courts. Chairman of the Bar, Chantal-Aimée Doerries QC said; “One of the impacts of LASPO is that hundreds of thousands of people who previously qualified for legal aid are no longer eligible, and for many people this means they must represent themselves in court. Appearing as a litigant in person is often daunting and challenging, and having support from a friend or colleague acting voluntarily as a McKenzie Friend can be an important source of support. “An unfortunate consequence of legal aid cuts is that paid McKenzie Friends, who are not regulated or insured and are rarely legally qualified, have been charging up to £90 an hour to represent people in court. We have already seen one McKenzie Friend banned from court for intimidating witnesses and legal representatives, and another jailed for defrauding his clients.”
McKenzie Friend noun A person who attends a trial as a non-professional helper or adviser to a litigant who does not have legal representation in court. Origin: from the names of Leveine McKenzie and Maizie McKenzie, litigants in the case of McKenzie v. McKenzie (1970), in which the Court of Appeal ruled that any party in a trial is entitled to non-professional assistance in court.
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Inspection Round-Up
Faint Hope: What to do about long sentences Research by The Howard League shows more people are serving indeterminate prison sentences in England and Wales than in the other 46 countries in the Council of Europe combined. As the number of people serving open-ended sentences has increased, so too has the length of time they spend in prison. Tariffs are getting longer and longer (average tariffs for mandatory and non-mandatory life sentences have increased by 32 per cent and 75 per cent respectively in under a decade). Most people spend many years in prison beyond the minimum tariff length set by the court. They have published a briefing paper ‘Faint Hope: What to do about long sentences’ which shows lessons to be learned from the way other countries approach long-term imprisonment. In particular, it examines prison systems in Canada, Portugal and the Netherlands. The paper calls for an overhaul of recall policy and the reversal of sentence inflation. It also recommends the introduction of a ‘faint hope’ law that would enable people sentenced to an indeterminate term, who had made an exceptional effort, to apply for earlier parole eligibility.
The briefing paper can be downloaded at: tinyurl.com/gu5f7s8
Newsbites l Despite private prisons housing only 18 per cent of British prisoners, they accounted for more than one-third of all self-harm incidents, drug seizures and hunger strikes last year. They also took up nearly a quarter of the prisons budget. l According to the Essex Chronical, a judge at Chelmsford Crown Court allowed a 72 year old defendant to have his cat, Taylor, with him in the dock for emotional support. There is no general rule about animals in courts but normally only assistance dogs are allowed.
Doncaster ‘a very poor prison’
Priti Patel
Take on former prisoners Employment minister Priti Patel has told companies to employ former prisoners to help the Government achieve its rehabilitation programme. She said it was vital for former prisoners to “leave their past behind bars” and told employers that they had a responsibility to help. Her ‘See Potential’ initiative is backed by people such as Richard Branson and Simon Cowell and is intended to build on David Cameron’s pledge that former prisoners should not have to disclose their criminal convictions on job applications. Some companies such as James Timpson’s high street chain of cobblers and key cutting shops make a point of training and employing former prisoners. Timpson describes the people he recruits from prison ‘Superstars’ - once in the company they become ‘valued Timpson foundation colleagues.’
l A new survey has shown that prisoners’ self-reported drug use has risen for the first time since 2007. Statistics from the latest Scottish Prisoner Survey showed that illegal drug use in Scottish prisons rose 5% to 43% between 2013 and 2015. l A new group in Scotland, Justice for Women, campaigning for reform in the way the justice system treats women is to send teams into courts to monitor the way women are treated. They will visit courts across Scotland and following last month’s report that branded female cells at Glasgow Sheriff’s Court ‘degrading and inhumane’ they will also
check out the facilities for women held at the courts. l Young people in prison are increasingly placing themselves in danger by climbing onto railings and ‘suicide netting’ to protest. Figures given to Parliament show that there were 250 ‘at height’ incidents involving children aged 15 to 18 in 2014/15, and 314 incidents in YOIs holding 18 to 24 year olds. These represent a five-fold increase over the previous year. Prisons Minister, Andrew Selous, responding to a question from Labour MP Andrew Slaughter described the incidents as ‘minor in nature and quickly resolved’.
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The latest Inspection of Serco run HMP Doncaster has Inspectors describing it as “A very poor prison”. They say environmental conditions throughout the prison were very poor, with filth, vermin, graffiti, missing windows and inadequate furniture in many cells. Too few staff meant wing staff were ‘overwhelmed’. There is a high level of self-harm with three self-inflicted deaths in 18 months.
filth, vermin, graffiti, missing windows and inadequate furniture in many cells The Howard League’s Frances Crook told Inside Time: “Doncaster is a big, new, private prison, opened in 1994, but it is already infested with vermin and has fallen into disrepair. Prisons with too many prisoners and too few staff will fail, no matter how old they are.” Download report: justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons
Staffing levels: ‘highly dangerous and possibly life-threatening’ In their latest report the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) at HMP Manchester express concerns at the shortage of staff which, they say, is limiting the amount of exercise high risk prisoners in the healthcare unit can get; limiting prisoners’ access to the library which, they say is often completely ‘devoid of customers’.
They say; “The number of staff available on the Segregation Unit is in our opinion far from sufficient to ensure a safe and stable environment. We have witnessed staff being unable to unlock high risk prisoners due to the lack of available staff, we contend that in a state of emergency this situation could be highly dangerous and possibly life-threatening. “Reductions in staffing levels on Residential Wings have created a number of tensions and unease, not least of which is the lack of confidence in being “safe” expressed by members of the Independent Monitoring Board. Prisoner’s access to association time has also been affected by the reductions in staffing levels.
The report can be downloaded from: tinyurl.com/zwy8d5x
Concerns over violence and suicides at HMP Woodhill In their latest inspection report on Woodhill prison, published March 2016, inspectors expressed concern at the high levels of violence and self-harm at the prison. Martin Lomas, Deputy Chief Inspector of Prisons said; “Recommendations by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman following previous deaths in custody had not been implemented with sufficient rigour, there were not enough Listeners, and mental health services had been hit by staff shortages and only 18% of residential staff had received mental health awareness training in the past three years.’ The full report can be downloaded at: tinyurl.com/j3qxt3t
Maghaberry: Report says prison improves but ‘still only 4 out of 10’ A special announced inspection of HMP Maghaberry was carried out in January following an inspection report published in November last year that was heavily critical of the prison, describing it as unsafe for prisoners and staff. After that inspection the rare decision was made to tell the prison that inspectors would return this January. Following the latest inspection the prison is described as ‘stabilised’. Brendan McGuigan, the Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice in Northern Ireland said; “While some progress had been made in addressing our concerns and the nine recommendations made in the November 2015 report, this progress was fragile. In my view, a significant amount of work remains outstanding to make Maghaberry safer for prisoners and staff and for this to reflect more positively in the outcomes for prisoners and their experience. Urgent action had been taken to strengthen leadership within the prison with a new governor and transformed senior management team in place who were focused on stabilising the prison. In May 2015 standing outside the gates of Maghaberry, we had a real sense of despair,” he explained. In January of this year we were given a sense of hope.” Maghaberry is a modern high security prison housing around 850 adult male long term sentenced and remand prisoners, in both separated and integrated conditions.
November 2015 report: tinyurl.com/z547ht5 January 2016 report: tinyurl.com/hq8hk5o Inspector Calls page 37
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Prison chaplains’ pay under court scrutiny A Muslim prison chaplain had his claim of discrimination over pay thrown out by courts. He claimed that the fact average pay for a Muslim chaplain was just £31,847 compared to £33,811 for Christian chaplains amounted to discrimination. However, the Prison Service won on the basis that pay is paid according to length of service and HMP has only been employing full time Muslim chaplains since 2002 because there weren’t enough Muslim prisoners before that. Between 2004 and 2014 the number of Muslim prisoners doubled to around 12,000 (around 14% of prisoners) but in some prisons such as Whitemoor the ratio has been 50% or higher. Mizanur Rahman, a spokesman for the organisation Muslim Prisoners, speaking in 2014, blamed the increase on Islamophobia and racism among police officers.
Prisoners to be offered test for hepatitis C All prisoners in England and Wales are to be offered a BBV (Blood Borne Virus) test. It is part of a programme to eliminate Hepatitis C from the UK by 2030. Nearly a third of people in prison have injected drugs and almost half of people who inject drugs in England have hepatitis C. Yet historically very few people entering prison or serving sentences have been offered tests and hardly any have received treatment. Public Health England, NHS England and the National Offender Management Service have committed to ensuring that everyone in prison is offered a BBV test. More information from the Hepatitis Trust tinyurl.com/jae8ot5 or write to: The Hepatitis C Trust, 27 Crosby Row, London SE1 3YD.
Insidetime April 2016
World prison review
Greece The Council of Europe, Europe’s leading human rights body has slammed conditions in Greek prisons and criticized the handling of police abuse allegations. In a report published in February they say conditions in the country’s prisons have deteriorated further citing: severe overcrowding, with some prisons at double their capacity; a lack of health care and major staff shortages as well as often appalling hygienic conditions. The report says; “Currently, many prisons in Greece are merely acting as warehouses in which to hold people until they are eligible to be released back into the community,”
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Droning on the up Statistics released by the Ministry of Justice show that the number of drones detected around prisons in England and Wales has gone from none in 2013, two in 2014 to thirty three in 2015. They have been used to smuggle drugs and mobile phones; the biggest find was at HMP Oakwood in December 2015 when a drone with drugs, mobile phone, charger and SIM cards was recovered. Nineteen drones have been recovered. The POA maintain that additional staff are needed to tackle the issue of drones. The MoJ say they have introduced new legislation to make it illegal to land a drone in a prison.
Newsbites l In order to cover low staffing levels the Northern Ireland Prison Service has paid out £9.4million in overtime payments. There are around 1,100 officers between Magilligan (276), Maghaberry (623) and Hydebank Wood (175). Hundreds of experienced staff have left through voluntary redundancy and there is a large turnover amongst new recruits. l Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research in Glasgow has argued that Scottish prisoners who can prove they are drug free should be offered a reward scheme including a reduction in their sentence. In 2015 15% of drug tests on Scottish prisoners were positive for illegal drugs. The Scottish Prison Service does not carry out random testing so tests are done as part of treatment programmes or to test inmates
considered for progression. Out of 12,423 tests 1,912 were positive in 2015. l A £23,000,000 contract awarded by ex-Justice Secretary Chris Grayling two years ago, bypassing normal competition rules, to develop a GPS prisoner tracking scheme, has been dumped after long delays and a possible increase in cost to £76,000,000. The MoJ will now buy cheaper off-theshelf devices. Labour Shadow Justice Minister Jo Stevens has demanded to know the full amount of money wasted. It is a further humiliation for Mr Grayling after his successor, Michael Gove, has reversed his book ban, criminal court charges, legal aid cuts and his prison deal with Saudi Arabia. l The Scottish Prison Service has been given a Special Recognition Award by Stonewall Scotland for their progressive policy on the treatment of transgender people in custody. The SPS
told Inside Time; “We are delighted to receive this award for our policy. Its person-centred approach reflects our desire to ensure that we take the necessary steps to understand and meet the needs of all transgender prisoners, and that at all times whilst in custody trans people are treated with dignity and respect.” l Former prisoners have paid tribute to Liz Hopkinson, who founded the Restore and Resettle drop in centres, who died in February, aged 59, after battling throat cancer. Along with her husband Gerry they helped 500 former prisoners one of who said; “Liz helped me with getting somewhere to live and lots of other things. She will be greatly missed by all the lads here. We all feel a bit lost without her.” Gerry said; “Liz really listened to people and talked to them to help them through their problems … Even if the ex-offenders slip up, they know they can always come back here.”
Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands have a prison with a capacity of ten. Currently there are four prisoners; alcohol being the main cause of problems and the most serious crimes the 25 island police have to deal with from the law abiding 3,000 population are speeding, and driving without seat belts although Police Chief Barry Marsden says that historical sexual abuse is now rearing its ugly head on the island. In 2015 there were 124 reported crimes, a 17% drop on 2014, with an 82.7% clear-up rate.
America Albert Woodfox, America’s longest serving solitary confinement prisoner, has been released after 43 years in a six by nine foot cell. He has been kept in solitary since a prison riot in 1972 in which a prison guard was killed. He always denied the killing and two trials overturned his convictions. For background to this case see: http://www.theguardian. com/society/2010/mar/10/ erwin-james-angola-three
Egypt According to the ‘Middle East Monitor’ an Egyptian military court has jailed a four year old boy for life after he was convicted of ‘murder, destruction of property and inciting riots and demonstrations’. The boy, Ahmed Mansour Qarni was apparently born in 2012 and would have been 18 months old in January 2014, the date of the alleged offence. According to his defence lawyers the court refused to accept documents proving his age.
Canada Prisoners at the high security Regina Correctional Centre in Saskatchewan have been on hunger strike in protest at being locked in their cells for 21 hours a day. Many of the prisoners are on remand and one commented; “You know it’s like we’re in a super-max correctional facility, and it’s like we’re guilty until proven innocent. You know a lot of us never had our day in court.” Among their other complaints is only having 12 TV channels, canteen price increases and the quality of meals. Drew Wilby, director of corporate affairs with the Ministry of Justice, has refused to discuss the problems until the prisoners start eating again. Belgium All 11,000 prisoners across Belgium will soon be able to make calls, watch digital TV, rent movies and play video games from their cells. All prisons will eventually be connected to a secure digital platform known as the Prison Cloud. The technology will also allow prisoners the opportunity to take online courses and check their judicial records.
Guyana 16 prisoners at Camp Street Prison in Guyana were killed when prisoners set fire to their mattresses in a protest against conditions at the prison including overcrowding and long delays for prisoners awaiting trial. Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan said a new facility would soon be completed giving prisoners more room. Camp Street was built to accommodate 775 prisoners, currently the population is over 1,000. India Prison medical officers from five Indian states have taken part in a three-day orientation course to help them understand the medical needs of prisoners better. The course aims to inform them about the significance of healthcare in prison settings and inform them of prison specific medical and health challenges.
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Isle of Man prisoners read the news for the blind
Newsbites
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Magilligan go Skype Many prisoners at HMP Magilligan can now use Skype to keep in contact with their families. The scheme was introduced following an earlier trial. It is hoped that it will allow for increased contact between imprisoned parents and their children with a greater degree of interaction between children and parents than is provided by traditional telephone calls. The Skype calls are conducted in soundproof booths and are monitored. Magilligan Governor David Eagleson told the BBC: “The uptake among the prison population was slow to start but it is being used by more and more prisoners, including foreign nationals, who are husbands and fathers and those who wish to maintain a good relationship with their families. We are now also planning to roll it out to more prisoners in the future.”
Isis prisoners cook up a new future A new project at HMP Isis is teaching young men kitchen skills to help them into a career. The prisoners are supported by trained mentors for two months before release and then keep the same mentor after release. It is part of a scheme called ‘Switchback’ and shows a reoffending rate of only 12% compared with around 50% nationally and some of the prisoners have gone on to work in Michelin starred restaurants including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage and top London tapas restaurant Dehesa, Roast in Borough Market. Switchback mentors 40 trainees a year at £10,000 a head against prison which costs upwards of £30,000.
Austerity what austerity? The Government has spent £595,092 revamping Torquay Magistrates’ Court in the last five years, including £121,204 on a new roof and £111,746 for new windows last year. They are now closing it to save money. This follows news that the Healthcare centre at HMP Northallerton was completely revamped with new equipment including a new dental suite which was all abandoned there when it closed a short while afterwards.
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l HMP Drake Hall’s focus on extending Employer Based Training was praised by the IMB in their latest report. Several ‘Academies’ now operate within the prison including the Greggs bakery chain and Halfords have chosen Drake Hall to be the location for its second ‘Halford’s Academy.’ The aim is to facilitate a seamless move to employment upon release. The latest IMB report should be available in the prison library or can be downloaded from tinyurl.com/jctjhsp l Prison staff at HMP Elmley recovered 130 mobile phones and 40 SIM cards last year. The admission comes as there are more and more stories in the press of prisoners filming themselves inside prisons and posting to social media. The Prison Service plans to work with mobile network operators to try to block signals. l A man who tried to smuggle two mobile phones and chargers plus five SIM cards into HMP Onley has been sentenced to 20 months prison. Staff saw the man swap his shoes with a prisoner whilst visiting at the prison and carried out a search. The sentencing judge said; “Putting mobile phones into prisons can disrupt the good order as it allows prisoners to communicate with their criminal associates.” l An inquest has just opened into the 10th prisoner to die at Woodhill since 2013. The prisoner was found hanging in his cell on 11th March . Recently prisoners were found hanged at the prison on 31 January and 29 December last year.
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Rosie Kane and Jenni Gunn at the protest outside Cornton Vale prison
Protests at Cornton Vale There was a demonstration outside Cornton Vale last month protesting at the ‘humiliating conditions’ suffered by women in the prison which included women being told to use their sinks as lavatories. One of the organisers, Jenni Gunn said that conditions at the prison were ‘an affront to an inmate’s sense of human dignity.’ Rosie Kane, former Scottish Socialist Party MSP who was sentenced to two weeks in 2006 for taking part in an anti-Trident protest at Faslane, said: “I had to pee in the sink in my cell twice at night time. It was very humiliating.” Women are about to be moved from the prison to Polmont whilst the site is redeveloped. A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said that because the women would be moved the night sanitation system was no longer a problem; “the women who remain at Cornton Vale will be held in the best conditions available on the site.”
Prisoners at Jurby Prison on the Isle of Man have been volunteering to record news updates for the blind and partially sighted on the island. A group of ten prisoners have successfully completed training and select news items which are recorded and distributed free. The project is a joint effort by the prison and the Manx Blind Welfare Society. Debbie Thomson, volunteer co-ordinator at the society, said; “The prisoners have done a commendable job and we’ve had no hesitation in asking them to work with us again in the future.” Manx Home Affairs Minister Juan Watterson said; “It is always encouraging to see prisoners making a positive contribution to the local community. The individuals involved have taken great pride in the planning and delivery of this project and have acquired some useful skills.”
New prison for short term sentences After expert evidence that prison sentences shorter than a year are counter-productive and Scotland moves to cut short sentences, moves are afoot to build a new prison in Manchester to house just prisoners serving 12 months or less. Inside Time understands that the MoJ has asked local authorities to identify a site where the new prison could be built. It is part of a move to hand over the running of local prisons, probation and youth services to large metropolitan authorities such as Greater Manchester.
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Lack of continuity works against success Rachel Billington with Michael Gove MP Continued from front page When Prime Minister David Cameron asked him to become Minister for Justice, it was his encounter in the ‘Scrubs’ that convinced him there was a real job for him to do. ‘I could see that the children we were failing most badly in schools were most likely to end up in the criminal justice system,’ he says. ‘In the back of my mind there were two things: one was related to justice overall and the other was prisons and youth justice. I thought if there is some way in which we can apply some of the lessons elsewhere, not just from this country but abroad, to turn the lives of prisoners around, then it would be an amazing thing to accomplish.’ Blighted lives Chatting with Michael Gove is a bit like listening to a contestant in the radio show, ‘Just a minute’. He talks without hesitation, deviation or repetition. In well under an hour as we sat in his office in the House of Commons we covered a dozen topics. But it’s clear that he believes in what he is saying and wears the robes of a missionary to prison reform with great conviction. He says he is determined to do something about improving the situation of the almost eighty-six thousand men, women and children behind bars. ‘The majority of people in prison are those whose lives have been blighted by things that have gone wrong, whether in their family life, through education, in the mental health area or with other problems. So now we have a group of people who are some of the biggest challenges in our society but the differences we can make if we turn their lives round are great.’ Time out of cell He may have high ambitions but he is also a realist whose ideas don’t always coincide with prison reform thinking. When I asked him about the issue of time out of cells, which is usually attributed to overcrowding, he admitted that staffing plays an important part in whether a prisoner is unlocked but suggested that the quality of leadership within the prison is also important. ‘We’re preparing prison league tables and one of the things we want to put at the heart of it is a measure of the amount of time spent out of cells and time spent on purposeful activity. There
are some things I do bang on about and this is one of them.’ He added that the more time people are stuck in cells the more likely they are to turn to drugs or other ways of killing time whereas those out of their cells a r e m o r e l i k e l y to g e t w o r k qualifications. New prisons Recently, Mr. Gove has been impressed by a newly designed prison in Germany which allows men to spend twelve hours a day outside their cells which is made possible by ‘sophisticated design’ and ‘good industrial relations.’ He admits you can’t do this sort of thing overnight but states firmly ‘That’s the direction we want to go.’ It is clear he is an ideas man, but he is also practical. Aside from the nine new prisons, there will be six prisons, announced soon, that will be run autonomously by their governors - ‘enlightened and capable governors’, as he describes them - based on the Academy schools model. ‘Governors will be given far more freedom, freedom to design their own IEP scheme, freedom to negotiate different ways of working with staff, freedom to keep the money they might make from prison enterprises and invest that money in education. Each department will be free to forge relationships with people outside prison.’
This is in fact the first time that a serving Minister of Justice has spoken to Inside Time in the 25 years of its existence If the rumours are to be believed, the governor of Wandsworth prison might be one of the ‘enlightened and capable’ but the minister wouldn’t be drawn beyond saying he was indeed the right sort and an announcement would be made soon, probably in the next couple of months. His office is rather like a small sitting-room. Also present was his PA and a representative f rom the Ministry of Justice press office who asked me just before I went in how many Justice Ministers we had interviewed. ‘Didn’t you talk to Tony Blair?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘for our first issue in 1990 but he was Shadow Home Secretary.’ This is in fact the first time that a serving Minister of Justice has spoken to Inside Time in the 25 years of its existence.
IPP It isn’t easy to set up an interview with a senior minister in today’s media obsessed and sound-bite world, but Michael Gove encouraged me to rattle through some questions that preoccupy Inside Time’s readers. What about IPP prisoners, for example? I point out that of the 4,289 serving IPP sentences, 3,391 are over tariff. What can he do about that? His answer was interesting. ‘I’ve asked Nick Hardwick, the new chair of the Parole B o a rd (u nt i l re ce nt ly P r i s on s Inspector) and he’s agreed to make one of his priorities that we deal with these cases more quickly.’ Gove believes there are those who still pose a safety risk but that there are ‘far too many IPPs’ and the principle should be that an IPP sentenced prisoner ‘should have expectation of a clear path to exit.’ He acknowledges the problems of offending behaviour courses often not being available but hopes, he says, that under the charge of Nick Hardwick, the system will ‘operate more rationally.’ Work and Families We tackle two gritty subjects next: opportunities for work and keeping contact with families. On both he is resolute. ‘I want more people in work. My ideal is that people in prison work for a company that could employ them on the outside and also that people in prison earn money which is kept for them in an account so that it can be handed over when they leave or three months afterwards.’ On families, I point out that new build prisons are more likely to be outside towns making visiting harder. He counters by saying it was the only way to provide ‘humane accommodation, less crowding and more facilities.’ On the other hand, he says, ‘You must make sure you have appropriate subsidised transport and that you have in new prisons facilities that allow families to spend time in a constructive way.’ He also believes that temporary licence for visits to the family can make a positive contribution. He’s been impressed by a military prison where the commander may allow a prisoner out to spend Saturday afternoon with family and friends, if he has earned that right. Education Unsurprisingly, given his background, education is an area in which Mr. Gove shows particular interest. He instigated the Dame Sally Coates review of prison education and her report which will be published this month. Sally Coates, as a teacher, had seen for herself the problems when one of her brightest students landed up in YOI Feltham and, through no
fault of his own, was unable to take his GCSEs as she’d arranged and came out with no qualifications at all.
There tends to be a diet in prison of relatively low level qualifications and no easy way to progress Representatives from the Prison Reform Trust and Longford Trust are included in her review. Gove told me, somewhat despairingly, that there tends to be a diet in prison of relatively low level qualifications and no easy way to progress. He also suggested that colleges don’t put their best teachers into prisons and to make the system work at all as a prisoner you have to be ‘amazingly persistent.’ He obviously hopes that the Coates report will be a big step towards improving matters. Probation I ask him about the probation service. Did he think it is operating as it should? After impressing on me that he thinks there are many excellent people in the service, he admits that there are problems. The biggest, he believes, is the lack of continuity in the people who, for example, prepare the initial report, the sentence plan, the probation worker inside prison and the probation worker outside. ‘Lack of continuity,’ he says ‘and lack of deep knowledge, works against success.’ He also thinks the system of recall needs looking at. ‘We need to make sure that it is not simply there for administrative breach of the terms of the licence.’ He is counting on the new Chief Inspector of Probation Glenys Stacey, who he worked with before and admires, to help make the system work more positively. Shorter sentences I try to draw him out on the subject of shorter sentences. The Howard Leag ue have proposed that Magistrates should be banned from prison sentencing for six months but his answer is circumspect. Although agreeing that short sentences do little good, he plans to study this area more carefully before intervening in any way. He is more at home with his plans for new build prisons. Categorisation This takes us into the subject of categorisation in prisons. He talks worryingly of local prisons that have to deal with ‘a jumble of different types of people’ and feels that far too many people are in prisons that are ‘not
really right for them.’ His dream is of prisons with single cells where prisoners can find ‘decency and rehabilitation.’ The future There is a refreshing tendency in his t h i n k i ng to sl a sh a nd b u r n . Underlying everything seems to be a belief that without real alteration to both the physical prison and the way it is run, nothing much can be improved. But will he stay in post long enough to see his programme through? He replies without hesitation. ‘I want to stay’ ... before slightly qualifying his answer with, ‘You can never be certain of anything in politics. I’d like to be able to spend as much time of this parliament as possible doing this job. Then I’d be a very happy person.’
You can never be certain of anything in politics. I’d like to be able to spend as much time of this parliament as possible doing this job. Then I’d be a very happy person Your letters It is also cheering to report that he (and his assistants) is an avid reader of Inside Time. He says he finds the letters’ pages most compelling because they present ‘the unvarnished truth’. He adds that he’ll sometimes pick out a letter and pass it on to his PA or to Michael Spurr (Head of NOMS) asking ‘Is this really true? Can this be happening? Is there someone with a genuine complaint we can address now?’ So when you write your letters to Inside Time, bear in mind they may well reach the eyes of the Minister of State for Justice. By now I’m far past my allotted interview slot and he has to rush off for another appointment. As I make my w ay out of t he Pa lace of Westminster, it strikes me that it has been a very long time, if ever, that a forceful, clever minister has seriously turned his attention to the prison estate. The climate has probably never been worse but perhaps Michael Gove is the man to turn the prison ship from the rocks and head it towards brighter waters.
Inside Time will be analysing and explaining Dame Sally’s Report in our May issue.
Comment // Interview 15
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It’s time to take politics out of prisons As Lord Woolf steps down as chair of the Prison Reform Trust he calls for change in the way the prison system in the UK is administered public means letting people out of prison in better shape than they were when they went in.”
Erwin James The first time I encountered Lord Woolf was in the library of Long Lartin high security prison in South Littleton, near Evesham in Worcestershire. Woolf was undertaking his inquiry into prison conditions following the riot in Strangeways prison in Manchester and I was seven years into a life sentence.
It’s always said that there are no votes in prisons. My view is that I think if the public knew the truth about prisons, there would indeed be votes in prisons that work well and make society safer. Prison reform is not just to give prisoners an easier time, but to make the prison experience more meaningful so that we all benefit in the long term surely? “I entirely endorse that,” he says. “I strongly endorse that. What we have to do is start getting improvement and then show the public the benefits of those improvements. That is the way to ensure politicians are able to sustain a reform agenda.”
In the weeks and months following that seminal riot in April 1990 there were numerous other riots and disturbances in prisons up and down the country. In the course of his inquiry Woolf was charged with visiting prisons and speaking to prisoners about their experience of prison life. The riot I was in on Long Lartin’s B Wing was a scary fifteen hours. Barricades, fires, sparks from ripped electric cables, floods from smashed water pipes and prisoners serving long long sentences running around wearing masks and wielding spears created a seriously dangerous situation. “Let’s burn the nonces!” chanted one of my neighbours, a troubled man in for killing five people. IRA prisoners on the wing helped to calm him down. In the end nobody was killed. Nobody was seriously injured. We were lucky that night. My troubled neighbour hanged himself in Full Sutton prison six months later. In the prison library Woolf, sharply dressed in pin stripes and white cuffs, wanted to know what it was like to live in these places. Hands went up and confident sounding prisoners expressed their grievances. I sat at the back, desperate to say something, but lacking the confidence to think that Lord Woolf would take seriously anything I might have to say. So I kept quiet. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that one day, twenty one years later to be exact, Lord Woolf and I would become colleagues. I was released from prison in 2004 after serving 20 years and became a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust a year or so later. Lord Woolf was appointed chairman of the PRT in 2011. Since then I have met with him regularly at trustee meetings and interviewed him twice for the Guardian. Shortly after he handed over his chairmanship of the PRT last month to James
© Prison Reform Trust
Lord Woolf speaking at the Inner Temple in London on the 25th Anniversary of the Strangeways Riot.
Timpson, of the Timpson shoe repair empire, he shared his thoughts with me again. A giant in legal circles and bigger still in the criminal justice arena Woolf is yet a modest man, and perhaps the archetypal model of a fine gentleman.
Again and again we’ve seen the dawn of prison reform approaching only to disappear in the fog of confusion Given the new prison reform agenda of the government I asked him why he thought the United Kingdom had such a preoccupation with putting people in prison? We have the biggest prisoner population in Europe and more life and indeterminate sentenced prisoners than all the other western European countries put together. “As someone who has sentenced many people to prison, I think that if the
downside of prison and the upside of alternatives and what is needed was explained properly to the public they would take a different view to that which is often reported as their view. It’s not about tougher and tough sentences. I think they want a justice system and a prison system that works. They want a system that has fewer people going back once they have served their sentences.” How confident is he that the government’s new prison reform agenda will be sustained? Prime Minister David Cameron has said he wants people in prison to be looked upon as ‘potential assets’ rather than ‘liabilities.’ “That it should be sustained is critical,” he says. “Again and again we’ve seen the dawn of prison reform approaching only to disappear in the fog of confusion. We need to have consistency and most importantly we have to have politics taken out of prisons. Then if there is a change of government, as there will be sooner or later, that doesn’t affect the prison situation. Whatever your views politically, the result you want is always going to be the same. Protection of the
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What does he think of James Timpson’s appointment as his replacement chair at PRT? “I think the Prison Reform Trust has done great things and I’m sure under James’ chairmanship it will continue to do so. And I think he will be a huge stimulus to the board. He is the ideal person to carry it on, not least because he has practical insights. He knows a great deal about it. It’s something in his blood, inherited from his parents and I wish him every success.” So post Prison Reform Trust, what are his plans? Is it time to go fishing? “I’ve only caught one fish in my life,” he says, “and that was my wife.” He laughs and I shake his hand and thank him warmly for our conversation. When I was asked to sign a card to mark Lord Woolf’s stepping down as chair for PRT I wrote, “Dear Harry, you and I becoming colleagues is one of my life’s greatest achievements.” I hope he understood how much I meant it. Harry Kenneth Woolf, Baron Woolf CH PC FBA Fmed Sci (born 2 May 1933), was Master of the Rolls from 1996 until 2000 and Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 2000 until 2005. The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 made him the first Lord Chief Justice to be President of the Courts of England and Wales. He has been a non-permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong since 2003. He was appointed Chairman of the Prison Reform Trust in April 2011.
16 Comment // Butler Trust Awards
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Promoting excellence in our prisons Some wonderful people working in and around our prison system were recognised for their work at this year’s Butler Trust Award ceremony at St James Palace on March 10th. Here we profile three commendees - a coffee queen, a fly master and an LGBT champion
© Paul Clarke
Lynda Elliott Lynda Elliott, Learning and Skills Activity Manager at HMP Durham, was Commended for her outstanding work in, among other achievements, creating the charmingly named ‘Judge & Barista’ coffee shop at the prison, in addition to her normal role in the prison. The shop, in the gate area, is open to staff and the general public, and is run by long term unemployed people, including reformed offenders.
Remarkable and worthy of praise Nominator Tony Brown, Head of Reducing Offending at the prison, praised Lynda’s “tireless effort, work and foresight” in developing this initiative, noting that her “enthusiasm, compassion and continued care for the new staff given jobs thorough this scheme has been quite remarkable and worthy of praise.” Michelle McCarthy, North East Regional Learning and Skills
© Paul Clarke
Phil Forder
Gary Pearson Manager, agreed, describing how Lynda “also engaged staff through providing an opportunity to name the coffee shop through a voting system”, and adding that the, “initial feedback from staff and partners has been overwhelming.” One worker at the coffee shop, David said, “Lynda has really achieved something here. I really love working here and having been given this opportunity that is really down to her. It’s a great environment…I’m totally amazed by it, a total credit to her.” Adding, “I’m really getting something from it for the first time in a long time, I’m really surprised and happy about this great opportunity.” Another worker, Charles, said, “Lynda is a real diamond. She checks in on us and makes sure we’re supported. Her dedication is brilliant… we really enjoy the job as it’s a lovely place to work. Lynda has been an angel and we really appreciate this new start here.”
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Gary Pearson, an Officer Instructor who has worked at HMP Exeter since 1988, was Commended for developing a remarkable - and commercially successful - fly-tying unit. Lead nominator, Alexander Squire of Workshop Industries, says Gary exercises “his full dedication to HMPS, his understanding of the prisoner population and reducing re-offending and also his passion and skills in helping others” in his work. He noted that, having invested “an extraordinary amount of his personal time and efforts, Gary successfully started his own pilot workshop, making fishing flies. Having knowledge of the market area and being a keen fisherman himself, Gary was ideally placed to make this pilot work, and work well.”
Created, ‘a viable, locally sourced and developed workshop achieving a financial turnover and teaching prisoners real, skilled and creative work’ From the outset, Gary wanted to create “a viable, locally sourced and developed workshop achieving a financial turnover and teaching prisoners real, skilled and creative work.” The result is highly
© Paul Clarke
innovative, offering prisoners “rewarding, paid work benefitting them upon release whilst providing a positive contribution to the Reducing Re-offending function as a whole.” The workshop has generated many benefits, which, as Alexander explains, “HMP Exeter is beginning to realise. There has already been a beneficial effect on both prisoners and staff who have displayed positive reactions and comments regarding the fresh, creative and innovative steer of the workshop.” These positive sentiments have been widely echoed, including by Phil Copple, Director of Public Sector Prisons at the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), Andy Rogers, Deputy Director for Custody at NOMS as well as South-West Industries Lead, Paul Wiltshire. Gary, an impressive fisherman in his own right, set out to make the workshop commercially viable. Using his links to the sport, he began communicating with two well-known fishing supply companies who, on receiving a sample from the workshop, “deemed them to be of a quality comparable to their existing private suppliers - a considerable achievement for a workshop in relative infancy.” The workshop has now received large orders from these companies, as well as from internal and external customers.
Phil Forder is the Community Inclusion Manager (and Arts & Community Lead) at HMP/ YOI Parc and was Commended for his remarkable contribution to promoting a more inclusive LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) environment at Parc and across the sector - including creating the world’s first LGBT prisoner football team. His lead nominator was Janet Wallsgrove, Director at Parc. “I would like to nominate Phil Forder for his work in challenging homophobia at HMP/ YOI Parc (1,700 prisoners) thus making it one of the safest prisons in the UK for LGBT prisoners. As Director, I have received many letters from prisoners that are very moving and sincere and that show his level of working” she said.
How can I expect others to do this if I can’t myself? Janet described how “Phil has set up a thriving LGBT community in a place that many considered impossible. He supports prisoners both individually and in groups, with one saying that before talking to Phil, he contemplated suicide. He tackles homophobia by any means and set up the UK’s first gay prisoner football team. It secured plaudits from across Wales and the Chair of Sports Wales, Professor Laura McAllister, said the ground breaking team was ‘truly a
moment in history’. Phil recently published a book of LGBT writing from prisoners and staff. In his foreword, gay rights champion Peter Tatchell commended the pioneering initiative and said that ‘where Parc goes may others follow’. Phil has championed LGBT rights by being a positive role model with a vision for how prisons can become inclusive places. His work has changed Parc and the whole prison estate for the better. His work has been to mentor LGBT individuals in order to feel safe and to work with the community at large to become more inclusive and challenge entrenched prejudices. This has involved working with different departments in creative ways to change attitudes. The result has been a number of innovative projects that have proved themselves over and again. His own decision to be ‘out’ himself to prisoners and staff alike was brave and paramount in beginning this work.” Janet quoted Phil’s remark “How can I expect others to do this if I can’t myself?” Phil Forder established ‘Hay in the Parc’, a collaboration of seven years standing between the world renowned Hay Literary Festival and Parc prison. He has also brought many LGBT authors, including writers Val McDermid and John Sam Jones, Welsh International Rugby referee Nigel Owens, and campaigner Peter Tatchell, as well as facilitated workshops with Pride Sport on tackling homophobia.
Inspectorate of Prisons. These inspections are objective evaluations of the state of each prison and often offer salutatory reading for both the staff of the prison service and indeed society as a whole. What is needed is a shift in the group think of both staff and prisoners and indeed society as a whole. We use terms like resettlement for prisoners - 15% of whom were homeless before custody and almost 70% were unemployed - hardly indicators that they were settled before custody. We offer citizenship classes for pupils in our schools - maybe we need these in prisons?
© Fotolia.com
Tales of Wisdom Our man on the inside tells it like it is Sid Arter
Group think Over time we all hear a good deal and a good deal of it goes over our heads; however, some things stick and help us make sense or indeed make sense. These reflections have helped me make sense and I hope they help you. I recall hearing about an interesting psychological experience where a number of associates of the researcher give the obviously wrong answer to a question and then watch as the subject of the experiment agrees with this answer rather than give the obviously correct answer and challenge the group think. The impact of group
think is strong in all sectors of society. It is inevitable that both prison officers and prisoners have a group think and it is likely that these two group thinks will be different in terms of their values and ideas however, each will have a powerful impact upon individuals, each other and the system as a whole. If however, there is a pervasive group think from staff that sees prisoners as disruptive, devious, dangerous and dishonest; this will influence all staff, especially new members who will strive to conform to the group think. Equally if prisoners group think is that they are intrinsically bad, worthy of exclusion from society and destined to have to exploit their circumstances we can maybe see why the prison service is subject to such levels of criticism as are revealed in inspections by Her Majesty’s
Your Rights Our Responsibility
In the January 2016 issue of Inside Time the mailbag contained a splendid observation “Rebuild the prison system, not the prisons”! Indeed the buildings will have a significant impact especially as there is currently a great deal of overcrowding - despite the (mis)understanding of Philip Davies MP, that the average number of prisons per cell is one! In the same issue of Inside Time he is corrected; 22% of the total prison population is doubled up in a cell designed for one! If prison is there to help reduce offending maybe systems are needed that build a group think that is collective. In our daughter’s school they emphasise that staff and pupils need to work together with parents to help bring about success - success for the individual pupils, the school and society. Maybe prisons need to have collective goals and group think that is about success for prisoners, staff and society - at present I sense the staff group think and the prisoners group think are very different and much less focussed on constructive ways! Although I also sense there is an interesting challenge to group think - it is not universal - there are staff that strive to challenge the group think and work hard to improve the prisons as there are prisoners who strive to make the most of the opportunities that are available. Maybe like school we need to concentrate more on rewarding good conduct amongst staff and prisoners and not, as often happens, concentrate activity on those that do not cooperate.
I’m new here... Is this your first time in prison? If it is then you are going to have to learn a few things... 1) Never, ever, borrow anything from another prisoner. Not everyone in prison is a predator, but they do exist in our prisons and one of the ways they hook new prisoners is to appear to be friendly and then offer to lend you tobacco, toiletries or food until you get paid. It is only when you go to return the item or items that you find there will be ‘interest’ on the loan. Usually what prisoners call ‘double-bubble’, meaning you pay back twice what you have borrowed. This can lead you into debt, which in turn can lead to violence. 2) Never let other prisoners know your outside address or details, nor those of your family and friends. When I first went to prison this was the first piece of advice given by the staff and it still holds true today. Your information should remain private. Once again, there are many predators in prison who could make use of such information. 3) Always search a new cell thoroughly. The search is to make sure there are no illicit items left in the cell by a previous occupant that could get you into trouble if found by staff. Ignorance is no defence. 4) Do take advantage of education, library and gym. These activities will get you some time out of cell and are good for both mind and body. 5) Try and attain a new skill that might be useful in the outside world. Take advantage of anything that is on offer as work, training and vocational training if it is available. Noel Smith
Do you have any tips for new prisoners?
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How to prevent prisoners from attempting suicide Dr Tammi Walker Suicide is a serious public health problem for people in prison. Recent figures published by the Ministry of Justice show there were 257 deaths in prison custody in England and Wales in 2015, an increase of 14 compared to 2014. A total of 89 people took their own lives in prison last year - one every four days. The total number of reported incidents of selfharm in prison also increased by 24% between 2014 and 2015. Male prisoners’ reported selfharm incidents went up by 29% while imprisoned women’s reported incidents rose by 11% over the period. Women in prison are still self-harming much more than men. The prisoner population in England and Wales is rising. It has more than doubled over the past 20 years and stood at at 85,634 in early February. At the same time, the number of prison officers has significantly decreased.
89
People took their own lives in prison last year
1 every 4 days
That’s
People in prison are prompted to injure themselves by a range of different circumstances. Research has shown that being white, relatively young and having a history of previous
self-injury can increase the risk of suicide in prison. Prisoners who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and those who serve longer sentences are also at higher risk, as are those who have experienced or witnessed some form of emotional, physical or sexual abuse and have a history of psychiatric disorder. Other factors relating to the prisoner’s situation can also increase their risk. For example, whether they are in the early stages of imprisonment, what kind of cell they are held in and with how many people, and how low prison staffing levels are. When it comes to support, research has also found that those prisoners who maintain their social and family ties, who feel safe and protected from bullying, have access to mental health support or routes and opportunities to discuss problems, are at a reduced risk of suicide. These are no means exhaustive, but they do demonstrate that understanding the causes and reasons why prisoners engage in suicide and self-injury is very complex. First days are crucial Since the early 1980s, the Prison Service has tried to develop strategies to reduce self-injury and suicide risk in prisoners. These have mainly focused on the identification and observation of prisoners at an inflated risk of suicide. One successful policy has been a focus on helping prisoners in the early days of their incarceration.
Research has found that the percentage of those taking their own lives in the early days of imprisonment has decreased over recent years. But the overall strategy had serious significant flaws - for example, it is difficult to determine risk among already “risky populations”. Since 2000, other strategic initiatives have focused on the importance of “prevention” over “awareness”, including a clearer outline of the precise roles, duties and responsibilities of staff.
24%
Increase of reported incidents of self-harm in prison 2014 - 2015
Women in prison are still selfharming much more than men There is currently a review going on of the case management system for prisoners at risk, which has been in place since 2004. Prisoners deemed at risk are observed, monitored and supported under the current system, which also introduced safer cells (with fewer hanging points) which in theory reduces the chances of prisoners completing suicide. Prevent, don’t predict My research argues that prevention of suicides and self-injury can be more important than prediction. While many individuals arriving at the prison may be identified or predicted as having the
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risk factors for both self-injury and suicide, only a small number will actually engage in these acts. Screening and assessing the prisoner population can produce a large number of “false positives” - prisoners who are identified as having the factors connected with a higher risk but do not actually go on to harm themselves. So, as predicting those most at risk has its own problems, I believe prevention is the most useful way of addressing the issue. Prisons should maintain their focus and resources on the earliest stages of incarceration for all prisoners - not just those deemed at risk - to allow staff to get to know prisoners better and to tailor responses accordingly. Once a prisoner reports suicidal thoughts or feelings another level of assessment and intervention should then kick in. Agencies, such as the prison service and health service, need to collaborate so that the assessment and protection of individuals vulnerable to self-injury and suicide is a product of effective teamwork rather than reliance upon a single profession. Prison staff should also receive mandatory training on how to identify, manage and prevent suicidal and self-injurious behaviour by prisoners. Staff also need training in how to look after their own well-being, to ensure that they are confident and knowledgeable in working in such a challenging area. Dr Tammi Walker, Principal Lecturer in Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University
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20 Comment
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www.insidetime.org the crooks make their escape plans. You and the police have to be on high alert to catch the crooks sliding through the sewer to the getaway boat!’
The Secret Criminologist Injecting a large measure of humanity into the criminological perspective
Here’s another box I want banned… I trudged wearily past the front desk at Toys ‘R’ Us. The girl behind the till gave me a wry smile. It was the third time I’d been round the shop that morning, desperate for inspiration for my nephew’s birthday present. As I scanned the shelves in the Lego® aisle, something I hadn’t seen before caught my eye ‘Lego ® City: Prison Island -Where the Police Keep the Crooks!’ the box proudly proclaimed. Excuse me?? I grabbed it down. The picture on the front of the box depicted ‘Prison Island’ as a tall grey structure which boasted an imposing guard tower and office. At the bottom of the tower stood a small cell with barred windows. And a sewer. A sewer?! Incredulous, I turned the box over in my hands. Small figures wearing the distinctive black and white of the broad arrows grimaced back at me (‘3 male crooks and a female crook’, the box helpfully informed me). Tiny police officers sat in their helicopter and patrol boats, while a shark lurked just offshore... ‘Help the police lock up the bad guys!’ the box recommended. ‘Watch the crooks work out in the prison yard and open up the prison to see
‘Jump in the helicopter and stop them from making an aerial escape in the hot air balloon!’ I mean, of course. That is a common place occurrence in our prisons, right? When I am doing research in prisons, I’m practically tripping over hot air balloons. Can’t move for the bloody things. And as if all that weren’t excitement enough, the box enthused, you might also like to ‘lift some weights with the crooks in the prison yard’. Now. You might well be forgiven for asking, ‘Why, with all of the world’s problems to choose to write about here, write about this? After all, it’s just a kid’s toy, right?’ Well, strictly speaking yes; it is a plaything, designed for young children, depicting the classic battle between the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’. But my problem is exactly this fact - that Lego’s® ‘Prison Island’, and the example storylines they have ‘helpfully’ created, carries with it implicit - hell, fairly explicit - messages about prisons, and those who live and work within their walls, all of which will inevitably be absorbed by impressionable young minds. Chief among these is that the only people in prison are ‘crooks’ and ‘bad guys’. And that the police and prison officers are always the ‘good guys’. Yup. No shades of grey here in the justice system - just plain ol’ black and white. And while the Shawshankesque escapes ‘Prison Island’ conjures up are almost unheard of these days, escaping through the front door is equally problematic, in its own ways. Being released doesn’t mean that the stigmatising label of ‘crook’ or ‘bad guy’ goes away. On the contrary, it can endure - no matter how many weeks, months, or years of hard graft and change someone might have put into trying to make sure they never return to prison. And toys like ‘Prison Island’ subversively help to create and reinforce (false) social distinctions between
‘us’ (i.e. wider society) and ‘them’ (in this case, ‘the crooks’). Prison Island teaches t he next generat ion t hat women and men in prison are the dangerous other. I couldn’t help but think about ‘Prison Island’ in relation to the Prime Minister’s recent speech on Prison Reform. He argued that people in prison are ‘potential assets to be harnessed’ not ‘liabilities to be managed’. To me, the very concept of the ‘Prison Island’ toy is symbolic of a society which believes the inverse of that statement to be true. I am not a fan of the Prime Minister. I took issue with much of what was said in that speech (a discussion for another day, perhaps). But even he now seems to understand that it is not simply what goes on within a prison itself that matters, but “what happens outside them too”. And it is often how a person is received back into the community that often makes or breaks plans for ‘desistance’ (the study of how and why people move away from offending, and break free from cycles of rec o n v i c t i o n a n d reincarceration). The Prime Minister’s intention to “ban the box”, and remove the declaration of unspent convictions on job application forms, is certainly welcome in this respect.
To my mind, ‘Prison Island’ is not just a toy. It is a symbol of those “old ways” of thinking which Cameron identified as having kept prisons “stuck in the dark ages”, and held
prison reform at bay for so many decades. Ways of thinking ingrained into the very core of societal consciousness. It is time for a change. So while the Prime Minister is
in such a generous mood - or if the head of Lego® happens to read this - perhaps this is another box that could be consigned to the annals of history.
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Comment 21
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SCPO crime prevention or stealth sentencing Jason Place
The SCPO (Serious Crime Prevention Order) was introduced in 2007 under The Serious Crime Act 2007. Parliament made certain provisions to protect those offenders it might affect. If you breach an SCPO you face a further criminal charge in the Crown Court and can get up to a maximum of 5 years imprisonment. There are some civil servants (including police officers and offender managers) who have not got a clue about these orders and what Parliament’s intentions were when the act was drafted. There are also devious manipulative police officers especially within the Met police LOMU (Lifetime Offender Management Unit) who use the SCPO to stoke up an ex-offenders sentence so that it is virtually impossible for them to resettle back into the community with their family. An SCPO can contain many conditions and clauses which any normal member of the public would think nothing of. Example: Only allowed one registered email, one computer, one sim card, one website (UK only) and in my case, not to use a public payphone. Once you receive an SCPO unless the police force or agency when issued is honourable and has some integrity, it can be used to really screw up your life continually sending you back to GO without a ‘get out of jail free card’. I know the danger of an SCPO because recently
I received a 60 month consecutive sentence to my 18 month confiscation default sentence. What was my crime? Ten breaches of an SCPO that led to the creation and publishing of a website Cowboysolicitors.com and rental of a private home using a non SCPO registered email address with a non-registered laptop which, incidentally, belonged to my wife and daughter; that doesn’t matter though if the restricted SCPO items are on your property, according to the courts you are guilty. I started by telling you Parliament’s intention of the SCPO which has so blatantly been ignored by those agencies employed to enforce conditions. It was specifically introduced to prevent and disrupt serious organised crime, so when a judge makes an order they really need to decide whether a website which sells payslips or a person who commits commercial burglary falls within the description of a serious organised criminal! The SCPO was not to be used as an additional punishment and restrictions, quote from Baroness Scotland who drafted the bill: ‘Prosecutors should bear in mind the policy of the law once a man has served the imprisonment which is passed upon him as a punishment he should be given every help and consideration in re-establishing himself in an honest life and particularly in earning a living. Conditions should not therefore seriously inhibit the offender from rehabilitating himself in society, having served his sentence of
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imprisonment, by returning to his previous type of employment unless doing so is seen as the only way of preventing further involvement in serious crime’. (R V Surbjeet Singh Davegun (1985) 7 cr App R (S) 110).
Section 4 harassment for say causing someone alarm and distress by accusing them of bribery and corruption even if you have no previous bad character which created the SCPO. In other words you haven’t a hope in hell of a fair trial.
A powerful statement which, in my case, and God only knows how many others, has fallen on deaf ears, by judges, police and prosecutors.
When does harassment become serious organised crime? Exactly, and that’s the danger of SCPOs, they allow the police to create a Pandora’s Box of problems for you if the orders are abused and not used for the purpose Parliament intended.
I am disabled, wheelchair bound with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) so my only way to earn a living is by using a computer to design websites. That or become a spoon whittler! Here’s the danger if the police have it in for you and let’s face it for most of us they are never happy with the sentence passed so the SCPO becomes a stealth lethal weapon to snare and entrap you. Breach of an SCPO, i.e. just being arrested creates a FTR (Fixed Term 28 Day recall) that’s just for starters; a second breach of an SCPO creates a standard end of sentence recall even though Parliament intended that recall to custody be treated as an alternative remedy to that of ordering an SCPO, para 18.9 CPS SCPO guidelines found at www.cps.gov. uk/legal/s_to_u/serious_crime_prevention_ orders_(SCPO)_guidance An SCPO is supposed to be reasonable and proportionate, however when you throw in a breach charge with a new offence charge, it opens up a gateway for prosecutors to introduce your bad character at Crown Court trial for the offence which created the SCPO; this basically means if you are charged and indicted for a
I have found out the hard way, don’t ever accuse a barrister or QC of being corrupt after being commissioned by a third party to create a website to do so, because if there is an SCPO on you the restrictions will be intertwined with a new offence to give you more stealth time. It’s an abuse of power really and I hope Parliament learn of this abuse and safeguard the Serious Crime Act 2007/2011 so that SCPO breaches are tried separately to any newly alleged offences and that a breach never triggers a recall to custody. The good news is that you can appeal an SCPO using form NG-SCPO. The High Court doesn’t like them and if your grounds are good enough they will quash the order. My grounds are that the order is oppressive and unworkable and sets up an ex-offender to fail, so fingers crossed. If you have an SCPO that’s been used to stoke up more time, drop me a line. Jason Place is currently resident at HMP Thameside
Are you Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Questioning your gender or sexuality (LGBTQ)? If so, I want to hear from you! I am a PhD student at Oxford University and my name is Mia Harris. My research explores how people who identify as LGBTQ experience being in prison. If you are an LGBTQ person in prison then I’d be interested to hear about your experiences, good and bad. In your letter, please include some basic information about yourself, such as your age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and religion. It would also be helpful to know how long you have spent in prison. Feel free to write as much as you would like to. Please send your letter to me at Mia Harris, Centre for Criminology, Manor Road Building, Manor Road, Oxford, OX1 3UQ. If you would like me to reply to you then please provide a return address. I will enclose a stamped envelope in my reply so that you can respond if you would like to. Please note: I will store your letter securely, and nobody else will have access to it. I might quote your letter in academic publications or presentations, however if I do this then I will make sure that you remain anonymous. Everything you tell me is confidential, however if I believe that you are going to harm yourself or others then I am required to tell the prison.
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Plenty to chew on in ‘Joined-up thinking’ PM’s prison speech Donald Allister
An honest reaction to David Cameron’s speech on prison reform? Well, more meat than might have been expected - and a really welcome rabbit out of the hat in “banning the box” for all civil service appointments, allowing ex offenders to compete on fair terms for several hundred thousand jobs. The Prime Minister robustly dismissed the myths both that prison is too soft, and that mass imprisonment might reduce crime. But some very big questions remain for Justice Secretary Michael Gove to answer over the next few months. First, what does autonomy for six public sector “reform prisons” really mean? The Prime Minister said the governors of those six prisons would have their own budget and “total discretion over how to spend it.” A promise to allow them to decide who to commission education from is specific. But 80% of the budget is spent on staff. Will governors decide who to hire and fire, and what to pay them? Will they be able to build up reserves or, more probably, borrow in order to invest? And will they be able to charge more if they’re told sorry, “asked” - to take more prisoners or change what they deliver? Second, we got the answer we expected about controlling prison numbers. The Prime Minister said it is a matter solely for the courts, even though it is political intervention which has consistently pushed numbers up for two decades. But even if that is put to one side for a moment, what about overcrowding? The Prime Minister was explicit that new, properly designed prisons had a key role to play in changing outcomes: prisons on the template of academy schools. But does an academy put 45 pupils in a classroom designed for 30? In 2000, a young man, Zahid Mubarek, was killed by his racist cellmate at Feltham and part of the Government’s response to that, published ten years ago, was to say that it had a “strategic objective” to end overcrowding. Overcrowding plainly represents a serious, maybe the most serious, obstacle to prison reform - now would be a good time for the PM to set a transparent performance indicator in the form of a date to end it. Third, a sceptic would say that it won’t be that hard to find 6 prisons that can deliver a decent regime and impressive outcomes. Plenty of prisons still get good inspection reports, and protecting six places with a promise of secure funding and good staff can be done with ease. But delivering results consistently across 121 prisons is what has always defeated a national prison service. So what will the commissioning and leadership for dozens of autonomous prisons look like? How will regulation and inspection work? If there is a need for someone to “step in” when a prison is failing, who will be competent to
make that assessment? And how will reform prisons be made accountable to the communities they serve? Finally, while the Prime Minister asserted that there was no link between a rise in prison suicides and a decline in resources, the truth is that every important indicator of a healthy prison system has got worse over the last three years when resources have been slashed. The plans to build new prisons barely even match the projected increase in the prison population over the life of this Parliament, and the best existing prisons can hope for is to continue to make do with what they have. Whatever the PM says, resources are part of the equation. There was much in the speech to work with problem solving courts, more sophisticated electronic monitoring and satellite tracking both as an alternative to custody and as a way to bring forward release, a promise to find alternative solutions for the seriously mentally ill, and a recognition of the damage caused by the unnecessary imprisonment of mothers. There is an immediate opportunity to design meaningful indicators which will focus energy on the prison’s rehabilitative task. But in an age of austerity, the resources circle cannot be squared unless we do succeed in using prison less. So in addition to these welcome innovations, there must be confidently used alternatives to custody at the lower end of seriousness, and shorter, more intense sentences at the upper end. There is no need to spend more - in fact, a more rational approach saves money in the medium term. But just as successive governments have made conscious choices which have caused the prison population to rise, so this government needs to adopt policies that cause it to fall. It may well be best described as the means to a sensible end, rather than an objective in itself, but Mr Cameron’s ambition to be the champion of progressive prison reform depends upon it.
Peter Dawson is Deputy Director of the Prison Reform Trust and a former Prison Governor. This article was first published in the Justice Gap
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Even though this first example comes from a visit I made to a prison before the last election, I am sure that it is still relevant today. The same sort of thing is almost certainly still going on. I visited a very impressive unit which trained female prisoners in catering. They were being taught a wide range of skills that they could use in the catering industry once they had left prison. I
My second example relates to the importance of all-inclusive education. We need to see better connections between all the different parts of the system. Work done to help prisoners change wrong behaviour patterns needs to be seen as part and parcel of the whole educational programme in prisons. In the same way, the important programmes such as those involving restorative justice and resettlement
‘Ja p Se ilb a g e o re e i u r ak n t ’ s he ec ti on
Peter Dawson
Mr Gove, the Secretary for State for Justice, has made a number of changes to policy and practice since taking up his post in 2015. It is good to note that some of these changes have made a positive difference to living conditions of prisoners. As a result of this new policy, for example, the government has allowed prisoners greater and easier access to books. This is a welcome first step, but there is still quite some way to go if standards of education in our prisons are to be improved. We need to see a rather different approach - some ‘joined up thinking’ - in order to make some very necessary improvements and lift the standards to an acceptable level. I have two concrete examples of how things have not been done well which are drawn from my own personal experience.
training need to be aligned with and integrated into prison education. It is sad to see that the funding for these vital programmes has been reduced. There are new community rehabilitation companies which have been set up and they will have the knock-on effect of reducing rather than increasing the joined up approach which is so very necessary. The separating of educational provision and behavioural change and rehabilitation means that the chances of an rounded and balanced approach are seriously undermined.
spoke to one prisoner who was very close to completing a course that would have given her a nationally recognised qualification - just the sort of thing that she would need to help her find a job once she was released. She told me with a note of resignation in her voice, however, that she was not going to be allowed to complete the course because she was being moved to another prison at very short notice. I was very disappointed at such a lost opportunity and asked her if she would like me to have a word with the prison authorities. She replied, “Thank you, but don’t bother. We expect this. It’s just the way the system treats us.” I was shocked. The system should not treat prisoners in that way. In other walks of life we see things the other way round; so there is a patient-centred NHS and a child-centred Education system.
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The government has begun a review and this is to be welcomed. I would like to urge the government to recognise the importance of the review so that prisoners are able to receive the potentially life-changing education which is so desperately needed. A good educational programme in our prisons has the possibility of helping not only the prisoners on it, but everyone in our society.
Donald Allister is Bishop of Peterborough and a member of the House of Lords where he has spoken on a number of prison issues. This article is based on a speech he made in January as part of a debate on education in prisons.
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Comment // Interview 23
‘A prison problem that we all have to solve’ i n favou r of t he E-bu r n product. Has the ban on tobacco been difficult to uphold? Is it now a more valuable form of currency? There is very little evidence of existing prisoners trying to smuggle tobacco into the prison, however there is evidence to suggest that new receptions are bringing in tobacco. This is in small amounts and is easily detected.
© Chris George
Inside Time has reported on the difficulties encountered by prison governors around the world for introducing a total smoking ban. Now we are hearing from concerned prisoners, staff and even parents of prisoners in the pilot prisons where a ban on smoking is currently being introduced in England and Wales. Being aware of a successful roll out in January 2013 in Guernsey prison we asked David Matthews, Guernsey Prison Governor how he had dealt with this and how prisoners and staff had adapted John Roberts You seem to have come through this unscathed although I expect you too had some problems. Firstly did you take the decision to go smoke free or was it imposed on you by the Guernsey Government? When I was interviewed for the job I was asked at the interview to prepare a presentation on how to make a prison smoke free. When I was appointed I was asked to take this project forward. The States of Guernsey made the decision. I was in full agreement and was happy to take the project forward. Do many of your staff smoke? A snapshot taken of the prison population on 9 January 2012 showed 115 prisoners of which 101 smoked (88%). There were 87 directly employed staff and 34 of these smoked (39%). Not many smoke now, approximately 15, I believe the smoke free initiative helped staff give up.
Was it as difficult for you to introduce the ban in Guernsey prison? It was not difficult. It was a change project like any other change project which required research and a detailed explanat ion of t he reason for change, risk management and engagement of key stakeholders which included prisoners and staff. A key part of the project was the realisation that people are not addicted to smoking they are addicted to Nicotine. Providing nicotine in a safe controlled way rather than selling tobacco really was the key. E cigarettes solved this problem. It was also important to provide prisoners with the opportunity to stop by introducing Quitline sessions through our Department of Health. Were you aware of the same efforts by prisoners to continue smoking tobacco by using the nicotine f rom patches and fruit peel etc or did you offer electronic cigarettes from the outset?
Has the tobacco ban had any impact on the use of so called legal highs and other drugs in Guernsey, assuming there was some problem in the first place? So called legal highs are illegal on Guernsey. Our experience is they are not available on the island or in the prison. As electronic cigarettes do not require anyone to have a lighter has this helped reduce drug use?
Because e-cigarettes were available from the start of the project there was no need for prisoners to make their alternative smoking products.
All lighters and matches are banned. Illicit drug use is not prevalent. We do have a problem with diverted or re directed prescription medication.
Were electronic cigarettes accepted by prisoners with any degree of enthusiasm?
Is there a message you would like to give to prisoners and governors based on your experience?
I wouldn’t describe it as enthusiasm but prisoners were grateful for the opportunity to purchase e-cigarettes when they were received into the prison. In a report in your local newspaper in December you had switched to E-burn. What drove you to make this decision - were prisoners consulted? The driver for the change to E-burn was the opportunity to purchase a product which had been designed for use in secure env ironments. Previously the market had not allowed for this option. We had a small trial with prisoners who tested E-burn and the feedback was overwhelmingly
Our experience has been very positive, prisoners and staff have embraced the changes and agree they are for the better. The key is to get people involved and take ideas onboard, present it as a prison problem that we all have to solve. Prisoners feel much healthier and are able to engage in sports activities at higher levels than before. Lung capacity testing on reception nearly always shows an increased capacity when tested again at discharge. Staff have noticed a considerable difference when cell searching and carrying out fabric checks. The air and fabric of the building is much cleaner.
We then spoke to Darren Haley, the former senior prison officer responsible for the development of E-burn... It seems E-burn has been very successful in Guernsey prison. Do you know if E- burn is to be used in the planned roll out of the smoking ban in UK mainland prisons? The roll out in England and Wales is underway and we are in discussions with NOMS but these things are quite complex and everyone is doing their level best to have everything necessary in place for some trials. The introduction of alternatives to tobacco is the same for NOMS as it was for Guernsey but the scale of it all is something else. There are also discussions taking place in other UK regions and we’ve made a great deal of headway with the NHS to whom we supply E-burn in several secure units. Why do you think E-burn was so popular with prisoners in Guernsey? The Governor set up trials and the feedback was very positive. We had done our best to replicate the taste of the preferred rolling tobacco used by prisoners and we seem to have got that spot on which I am very pleased about. How did the supply to the NHS happen? Well we always had all secure environments in mind when we designed E-burn not just prisons, we simply didn’t know which would come first. In fairness, dealing with smaller units once the NHS had approved it on one site it has been a little easier to get decisions in other regions so we turned our attention to each opportunity as it presented itself.
© Fotolia.com
Smoking ban High Court ruling The recent High Court ruling overturning the compulsory, immediate ban on smoking in prisons enables the Ministry of Justice to introduce changes at its own pace. However, as private prisons are not crown premises they are not affected by this ruling and the ban will therefore stand. Three prisons in Wales became smoke free in January and four prisons in England, Exeter, Channings Wood, Dartmoor
and Erlestoke are to follow suit. We understand plans are being made to make Scottish prisons smoke-free at some point but there are no such plans for prisons in Northern Ireland or Jersey prison to make any changes to their current arrangements. The Isle of Man prison became smoke free back in 2008. The Ministry of Justice is clear in that it plans to implement the changes in all 136 prisons in England and Wales but can now do so without the additional pressure of a legally imposed deadline.
24 Comment
Insidetime April 2016
www.insidetime.org techniques and technology had passed them by. It is true that after I came out of prison in the summer of 2010, I had to learn how to text, use a mobile phone and computer. Prison keeps you out of the technology loop in a big way (it is not so long ago that HMP allowed prisoners access to FM radio, which they classed as a huge leap in technology!), so along with their advanced years this would have put them at a disadvantage. But it is still no excuse for their amateurish post-blag behaviour. Certainly, as you would expect from professional criminals, they were very forensically aware. They always wore masks and gloves, left no fingerprints or DNA at the scene, but then seemed to completely disregard the fact that it was an odds-on certainty that the police would put them under routine surveillance after the job.
© The Great Train Robbery (Acorn Media)
The last of the old firms Noel Smith With the jailing of the Hatton Garden burglars, whose average age is 63, I believe we have come to the end of an era in British crime. Professional UK criminals have always had a reputation for carrying out the big, seemingly impossible heists. Right back to the Eastcastle Street post office robbery in 1952, in which 7 masked men made off with a post office van containing £287,000 in cash (around £7 million in today’s money), British criminals have been reaching for the stars from their starting point in the gutter. It is true that crime is not, as was once believed, the sole preserve of the poor, just think how many millions of pounds
have been stolen by bankers, Lords and MPs, but the perpetrators of all of the big ‘project’ crimes (as the Flying Squad are now calling them) have been working-class professional criminals. The Eastcastle Street robbery set the template for the cashin-transit robberies that were so prevalent during the 1960s, 70s and 80s, and required a degree of planning, patience and investment. The robbery, which was so big at the time that Prime Minister Winston Churchill demanded daily reports on the progress of the police investigation, was allegedly planned by self-proclaimed ‘King of the Underworld’ Billy Hill, a man who had been born into poverty in London in 1911. Nobody
was ever convicted of this robbery, though there were rumours that George ‘Taters’ Chatham, Terry ‘Lucky Tel’ Hogan and Roy ‘Pretty Boy’ Shaw were amongst the team. Despite a £25,000 reward offered for the arrest and conviction of the robbers, no trial was ever held and not a shilling of the loot was ever recovered. The Hatton Garden burglars were just carrying on the tradition of, mainly London, criminals in going after the big ‘prize’. Unfortunately (for them), unlike the Eastcastle Street robbers, they were captured in pretty short order. And this, on the whole, has been the case in all of the large heists carried out since the Eastcastle Street robbery. To use a football analogy, the
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planning and carrying out of the job were Premiership, the afters and getaway plan were strictly Sunday pub league. As a former professional armed robber, there is a small part of me that finds it hard not to be shocked and disappointed at their complete lack of common sense and research. These are men who have impeccable criminal pedigrees, dating back 4 and 5 decades, and should surely have been aware that they were on a small and still dwindling police database of homegrown criminals capable of putting the Hatton Garden burglary together. It has been suggested that, given their ages and the amount of time they have spent in prison, enhanced police surveillance
On the whole, professional criminals are after the loot, they go where the money and valuables are kept, and it should never come as a surprise when a job like Hatton Garden goes off. As infamous and prolific American bank robber Willie Sutton once replied when asked why he robbed banks - ‘Because that’s where the money is!’ But, I know from experience, it is not only the loot which motivates professional criminals, it is also the excitement, the ‘buzz’, as we call it. I have not committed a crime in 18 years (though 12 of those were spent in prison) and have become what criminals refer to as a ‘rusty gun’ or a ‘straight-goer’, but I still find myself glancing at my watch to mark the time when I am passing a security van delivering or picking up its load. It is an automatic response after 3 decades as a serious criminal, like an old war-horse pricking up his ears when he hears the bugle. And
I should imagine the Hatton Garden burglars were the same. As ex-public enemy number one John McVicar, (a contemporary of some of the Hatton Garden burglars) once said - ‘Being a criminal is a great life, the only trouble is that they put you in prison for it’. And it is true, serious acquisitive crime can become addictive, and some criminals, no matter how old, just cannot beat the addiction.
Being a criminal is a great life, the only trouble is that they put you in prison for it John McVicar The Hatton Garden burglars are the last of a fast-fading band of professional criminals. The new breed of young British criminals are smashand-grab merchants. Little planning, no finesse or panache, just a moped up on the pavement and a sledgehammer through a jewellers window seems to be the order of the day. Blowing up cashpoint machines or driving stolen cars through the windows of designer clothes shops, grab what you can as quick as you can and then scarper, is the creed of the up-and-comers. Professional criminality in this country has been dumbed down. The days of wellplanned heists, old school villains and diamond geezers have all but come to an end. The Hatton Gardens burglars are the last of the old firms.
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Comment 25
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From over the wall Inspirational women
Terry Waite writes his monthly column for Inside Time For International Women’s day on March 8, women in that I avoid at all. It’s part of Her first main setback custody from Ratho Hall, HMP Edinburgh were asked the natural cycle and it’s occurred when, in her early teens, she had a terrible inevitable that we are all to write about an inspirational woman in their lives. going to have to face it Terry Waite CBE accident which resulted in This is what some of them wrote... losing one of her legs. sooner or later. To die in Good friends When I was quite a small boy, we lived in a small village in the North of England. Next door was the workshop of a jobbing builder and carpenter and in his yard there was a sandpit in which we, as children, spent hours building tunnels and castles. Back in the workshop there was a circular saw and planing machine, both of which we were forbidden to go near. Many is the time I have watched as large planks of oak were sawn and then planed to make a smooth surface. One of the many roles that our neighbour professed was that of being the local undertaker. The solid oak planks were shaped with clamps and in no time at all he had constructed a coffin for one of the residents of the village who had passed away. These memories were resurrected for me as during the past year I seem to have lost so many good friends to death. I suppose it’s inevitable that as one gets older one is bound to experience more funerals than weddings but nevertheless it’s sad.
Somehow, as frequently happens, this personal tragedy gave her a sympathy for those in life who suffered disadvantage of one kind or another and she was determined to use her abilities to help them. In those days law was not something that girls were encouraged to take up. In fact many applicants were rebuffed and persuaded to take some other occupation in life. Again, her determination won through and she was accepted in law school, eventually becoming a determined fighter for justice and fair dealing especially for those in society whom she regarded had had a raw deal.
In my days of captivity there were times that, because of illness, I almost died but somehow managed to find the will not to give in
I am writing this column from New Zealand where I have been working for the past few weeks. When I am here I normally rent a house in the remote countryside which belongs to a good friend who was a prominent human rights lawyer in the country. Alas, one evening we received a phone call from her tearful partner informing us that Kathy had died that afternoon. She was only 51 and inoperable cancer had claimed her as another victim. A few days later we drove the couple of hundred miles to Wellington to attend the memorial service where I was invited to deliver a short address.
Readers of this column will know that there are lawyers and lawyers! As in every profession there are those who are on the shady side of the street but it’s unfair to tar the whole profession because of one or two bad examples. I say this because I know that some prisoners have had a pretty raw deal and understandably feel angry about the service (or lack of it) that they have received. I have been lucky myself having met so many outstanding members of the legal profession and that afternoon, in Wellington, I was able to chat with several who had turned out to pay their final tributes to a fine fighter for justice.
Kathy was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She was born of a Samoan mother, was sent for adoption and had the good fortune to be taken by a family of New Zealanders.
Natural cycle In many circles death is still a taboo subject about which people are reluctant to talk. As I myself am in the latter stages of life, certainly in the last quarter, it’s not a subject
prison is hard. Of that there is no doubt. In my days of captivity there were times that, because of illness, I almost died but somehow managed to find the will not to give in. Of course, there are times when no amount of willpower will save us and we have to resign ourselves to the inevitable. No one knows the time or the hour is certainly a true saying and, with that in mind, it’s not a bad thing, without being unduly morbid, to prepare for our departure from this mortal world. If you haven’t made a will yet, do so, even if you have little or nothing to leave anyone. My father left me a hundred quid as he had virtually nothing when he passed away. It’s not the sum that matters but the thought. Don’t put off making restitution to those whom you may have harmed.
Life is precious You may not be able to do very much but at least make an effort. You may, or may not, be a believer in God. As belief is a matter of faith, no one will be able to tell you with absolute certainty what lies beyond the grave. That really ought not to be the main concern. What needs to be concentrated on is life now, this very moment. While you still have mortal life live it as fully and as constructively as you can. To do that takes just as much courage as it took Kathy to succeed as she did, despite her racial, physical and other setbacks. If there is one final thing I would want to say to you it is this: Whatever has happened to you in life - whatever you have done - life is precious and whilst you still have it live it as creatively and as positively as you can.
Terry Waite was a successful hostage negotiator before he himself was held captive in Beirut for 1763 days between 1987 and 1991; the first four years were spent in solitary confinement.
“ The Woman that inspires me most is my Gran, well Nana, she hates being called Gran as it makes her feel old! Basically my Nana has done everything for me. She stopped me from being taken into care, looked after me, was there to listen to me when I needed her to, basically everything in my life my Nana has done it all for me! I love her so much, I can’t imagine life without her, it is unbearable to think about! She is my heart, my soul, my everything. ” Danni Lockhart
“ My Mum inspires me as she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at the age of 4. She had my brother and me, and my twin sister Karyn ans still done everything for us. Then when I was 8 she got really ill. She was diagnosed with epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. Even though she was in pain she never moaned about it. All she was interested in was her kids.
“ My Aunt Nicky Lomas. All her life she has been in and out of the jail. When she got out in 2014, she found out that she had throat cancer and had to have her voice box taken out. She had been out for 1 year and 3 month, (her longest time out of the jail). Then in January 2016 she took a turn for the worst, she took a stroke and the cancer had spread to her brain. In February Nicky passed away in Ninewells hospital with my Mum (her sister) at her side. If this has taught me anything it is that life is far too short to be spending in jail. Life is for living, but not in jail! ” Cookie
“ One of the most inspiring women in my life is a woman I met inside the prison. When I was down she helped me up, when I was sad she made me smile. She helps all the lassies in here and takes them under her wing. She had a very hard life but always smiles. A heart of gold, she is a mother to me and others so I would like to nominate Irene Singleton, my best friend, my shoulder to cry on. Someone for me and the other girls to look up to. I want to thank her for being one of the most inspiring girls I have ever met. ” Lisa Diduka
“ My Daughter Chloe has just become a woman however she has always been an inspiration in my life from an early age.
“ My Mum, coming from a completely different life in Pakistan and coming to stay in the UK, was hard for my Mum but she did it. My Mum learnt the language the best she could and looked after us 6 kids, cooking, cleaning and never complaining.
Because of my poor mental health my Daughter Chloe took on the role of Mother. While all her friends were out playing she chose to stay in with me. She spent her time cooking and cleaning. When I had bad weeks she’d do things to try and make me smile. She gave up her young life to be a carer, then when I was given my first sentence she then gave up her teen years to care for my Mother who died last year. Rather than give up my clever Daughter stayed on at school and then college. This year she starts university. She wants to be a drama teacher. Chloe you have never had a life because of me. You are a credit and inspiration to me and I am proud to be your Mum. Aim for the stars, Mummy xxx ” Debbie Laird
When I had my son she loved him. She tried her best to be a gran and mum but she was deteriorating fast. One day she could walk and the next she couldn’t walk or talk, just mumble and it was horrible. So my Mum inspires me cos no matter how much pain she was in she was still the best Mum/ Granny in the world. ” Cheryl Ferguson
My Mum said it was hard for her getting married young and having to come to the UK. She always wanted to study but the tradition back then was different. She took on the role that was expected of her. My Mum has always been supportive of all of us. At times the East and West cultures did clash. Through my Mum we have learnt a balance of both. My Mum has always encouraged us kids to have an education, work hard and have respect for our elders and others. My Mum has said to me it is a continuous battle being accepted in another country. I did not understand that when I was young because this is my country where I was born, I am British. As I got older I have learnt that not everyone is going to accept you for who you are just because you were born in this country. My Mum has taught me to always be good to people that is the best way. ” Anonymous “ My inspirational woman is my Mum. She beat alcoholism after years of being an alcoholic. She cared for my step-dad who was dying of cancer at home. She then met her new boyfriend who then sadly died of cancer. She lost her home and became homeless. After all this time my Mum is still smiling and being strong. I hope that one day I’ll be as strong as her. She is an amazing Woman and I love her to bits. ” Hayley Robertson
Is there someone you know who inspires you? Then write to: ‘Inspirations’, Inside Time, Botley Mills, Botley, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 2GB
and let us know!
26 Comment
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We are surviving victims of a false accuser and wrongful conviction. Our family is in trauma An open letter to the Prime Minister I wrote to you in May 2015 explaining the situation me and my whole family are in. We are all now vulnerable victims of your justice system that allows guilty verdicts on nonexistent crimes. We are all devastated at the way in which we have been treated by the police, CPS, legal aid lawyers, barristers and the judiciary. We have been sacrificed. Our lives stolen and our whole family put into trauma. The criminal courts, following the ruling of the House of Lords in DPP v P (1991) 2 AC 447, had come to accept multiple allegations as mutually corroborative, even when they were not ‘strikingly similar’. In 2002, the Commons Select Committee on Home Affairs issued an authoritative report which warned that the combination of this judgement and the lure of compensation was creating a ‘new breed’ of miscarriage of justice. Among the committee’s members who signed this report was a youthful Tory MP, David Cameron. Prior to this horrific incident, we brought up our family to be kind, caring, human beings and to have morals and to trust in the police and justice system. We were so wrong. The first time me and my family ever needed the police to protect us, they completely destroyed us, without a second thought or care for the lifelong consequences. Ours was a historical case, allegedly 11 years ago. This crime did not happen, it was totally fabricated. All fantasy. There was no
corroborative evidence, as it did not happen. The police and CPS did not conduct a fair and thorough investigation. I know this as I was present at all times and so was my stepson and the accuser’s sister. No one interviewed any one of us. All of us, key witnesses as we all know the truth. We were all present. The Merseyside Police were only interested in a conviction. It seems they are conviction chasers not truth chasers. When challenged about not interviewing key witnesses, they stated that they are guided by the CPS and the CPS did not require them to interview key witnesses. I would like to know why?
It seems the Appeal Courts require new evidence. Evidence that wasn’t available at the trial. Can you please advise me on how I do this? How do I get new evidence of a crime that did not happen 11 years ago? This is my task Why would you want to convict, innocent, good living, honest people, for crimes that did not happen? There was no corroborative evidence, whatsoever. The words ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ have been removed. Are you aware of that? I wasn’t, neither were any of our family or friends. The general public are of the opinion that the words ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ are included in all trials. This is not true. The accuser is called the victim and is protected in court. Video links are used and
coaching in being a witness is used. Your Secretary of State, Rt Honourable Theresa May’s culture of ‘you will be believed’ is being used in courts and juries therefore they presume guilt as they must believe the accuser. This is wrong. When the jury believes the accuser before the trial begins, is this not ‘presumption of guilt’ and against ECHR Article 6, everyone is entitled to a fair trial and must be Presumed Innocent. We were given legal aid, the full cost of which I have now repaid, as I was threatened and bullied that a charge would be placed on my property if I did not make immediate payment. We used a legal aid barrister, who I now know is only required to do the bare minimum. The solicitor that we had was recommended to us by the police. He was the on call solicitor. We now know that he too, did not have the specialised experience required in these cases. When these false allegations were made against my husband, the police created evidence by making a video of the accuser who was in distress for some reason, she was also on medication and there was no qualified doctor present. She just nodded her head. The police officer spoke the words and she just nodded. This was shown in court. We had not seen this video. We were only allowed a transcript. There was also a letter from her sister that was read out, which we were not aware of. The few social reports that they had, were given to our barrister on the morning of the trial. We had not seen them, nor had time to investigate them or challenge them. I have since applied to the police for this video and letter so that I can get an expert to see if it is legal. The police won’t allow it without a court order
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from an appeal judge. Yet I can’t get an appeal judge to grant us a court order without finding some new evidence first. I feel that the police are hiding evidence that could help with an appeal. Why won’t the police help us?
Your justice system has destroyed our family. It has let us all down. We trusted your system. We brought our family up to believe in the police and the Justice System. How wrong were we? It seems the Appeal Courts require new evidence. Evidence that wasn’t available at the trial. Can you please advise me on how I do this? How do I get new evidence of a crime that did not happen 11 years ago? This is my task. The appeal court is asking the impossible. Why is that? Is the justice system not there to find the truth? It seems not. I lodged a complaint with the police PS in Feb 2015. Their reply was that they are satisfied with the enquiry. My innocent husband is now sitting in a cell, convicted of a crime that did not happen. Your justice system has destroyed our family. It has let us all down. We trusted your system. We brought our family up to believe in the police and the justice system. How wrong were we? Only the wealthy, those that can afford the best defence lawyers and barristers have a chance of being found innocent in these cases. Defendants have no chance with inexperienced legal aid lawyers and barristers. Our defence
Regina v Jogee Supreme Court - JOINT ENTERPRISE Looking to review and appeal your wrongful conviction? Sentenced to a term of imprisonment for the actions carried out by another?
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In these HSA cases the burden of proof has for some reason been transferred to the defendant from the prosecutor. The accuser is called a victim and the defendant is now presumed guilty as the accuser must be believed. Surely these trials are unfair trials as ECHR state that everyone is entitled to a fair trial and must be presumed innocent. The Government make the laws, the judiciary follow your laws, which is why I am asking you for help. You have recently made a statement ‘there’s an industry trying to profit from spurious claims’ and you intend to put a stop to it. I sincerely hope that you intend to include the historic sex crimes compensation industry in your mission. Please help us. That’s all we are asking. We don’t want revenge, we just want our family back. We are entitled to Justice too. We are not prepared to be sacrificed by a justice system that allows guilty verdicts on nonexistent crimes. There are thousands of innocent people sitting in cells. There are many others who will not come forward as they are terrified that the police will go out trawling for more false accusers, with their dangling carrot of compensation. Please do something about it. If you can’t sort this out, then who can? A family of surviving victims of a false accuser and wrongful conviction.
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lawyer did not bother to even attend Crown Court once. That’s how much effort he put into our case. The barrister stated ‘the system let you down’ and then left us to rot.
For a free initial assessment please call us and ask to speak to a member of our Appeals Team. T. 020 8519 5500 Emery Halil Brown Solicitors 67 West Ham Lane London E15 4PH
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Information // Through the Gate 27 away all responsibility/To be part of our community, so we isolate them from the community.” Grayson’s LandWorks experience has given him hope. “Without this, it would have taken months, maybe years, to slot my head back into normal life and normal relationships. It is only through building relationships with the LandWorks team and my 1-2-1s with the LandWorks counsellor that I have started to trust again, to speak openly and think clearly. If my thinking had carried on the way it was before coming here, I would have destroyed so much.”
LandWorks: A stepping stone to a brighter future Inside Time LandWorks, formerly Dartington LandWorks, on the Dartington estate just outside Totnes in Devon is thrilled to announce that from May 1st it becomes a charity in its own right. The work-based training scheme providing a supported route back into the community for current and former prisoners began in July 2013 as a patch of rough, overgrown wasteland on the edge of the estate. Now it is a thriving, vibrant hive of industry and enrichment where optimism and hope pervades. Prisoners from Channings Wood work alongside men and women serving sentences in the
community - learning not just skills with wood, stone and animal husbandry (a community of chickens provide fresh eggs every day) - but core to the project is the rebuilding of confidence and self-esteem for those taking part. Manager Chris Parsons explains what independence from the estate means to him and his team. “From a small seed of an idea we have grown into a much respected rehabilitation and resettlement project. We are all so excited about the future.” Work training goes hand-inhand with developing life and social skills on the scheme. In this positive non-judgemental workplace, trainees are able
I have been able to come to terms with what I did, but also how to move on, in a safe environment with people who make you feel human again to develop responsibility, self-belief and confidence. Parsons responds robustly to anyone who questions why training, support and employment for those who have committed crimes should be provided when there are other
people who haven’t committed crimes who could benefit. “Schemes like this are in everyone’s interest,” he says. “We need effective schemes to help rehabilitate offenders and ensure their successful resettlement from custody they help to reduce crime and create safer communities for all. There are currently no specific projects that aim to do this in our rural community. This is not about rewarding anyone but about addressing a significant gap in our communities. Dartington Hall is already involved in other projects to provide employment and training opportunities for other people, including through apprenticeships and intern programmes and there are a range of other work-related programmes in the wider area.” Trainee Grayson explains what he has gained from his time with LandWorks. “I’m not sure society knows how to deal with prisoners yet,” he says. “What I do know is that LandWorks has done more for me than I’ll ever be able to put into words. I have been able to come to terms with what I did, but also how to move on, in a safe environment with people who make you feel human again.” He quotes the poem by Judge Dennis Challeen which sums up why prison fails for so many. “We want them to have self-worth, so we destroy their self-worth/ To be responsible, so we take
Parsons gives an example of how the scheme works. “A trainee could learn how to build a stone wall, a task requiring a number of skills that can be recorded in order to gain qualifications, numeracy for example when estimating stone quantity and volume; taking responsibility for their own section of wall; health and safety; working as a team and finally completing a project and developing self-worth.” For Grayson the idea of regaining a sense of ‘normality’ was
significant. “The funny thing is that before I came to LandWorks, I thought I was ‘normal’. People warn you that you get institutionalised in prison and I just thought, ‘nah, not me’. It isn’t until you leave that environment that you realise how odd you’ve become - programmed not to trust anyone, not to open up, not to care about others. This place is a reality check, a stepping stone. You think your life will just take off from where it left off. You forget that three years has gone by and life and everybody in it has moved on. But I was lucky to have another choice towards the end of my sentence: whether to come to LandWorks. At first, I just saw it as an opportunity to get out of prison for five days a week. I quickly realised it was much more than that. Getting
stuck into a full day’s work was great - if a bit of a shock to the system - but it was also being trusted with tools, being asked for your opinion about a new piece of work, having ‘normal’ conversations with people from all walks of life.” Local Staverton employer KJ Thulborn has given two LandWorks trainees their first vital step back into employment. Managing Director Kevin Thulborn explains why and the result so far. “I knew nothing about LandWorks until I was invited to attend an event on the Dartington estate,” he says. “I got talking to project founder Chris Parsons about how vital jobs are to giving up crime, and the shortage of employers willing to
offer work to ex-offenders. We hadn’t done anything like it before but it seemed like a good way to put something back into society. We took on our first LandWorks trainee, Rob, in August 2014. We thought, let’s run with it and see how it goes. Rob is still with us, and we have just recruited a second employee from LandWorks, Phil, who joined us in September last year. They have slotted in well.” Landworks is a revolutionary and pioneering success - hopefully other rural communities across the country may take note and follow its lead. Second chances benefit us all. For more info visit www.dartington.org
28 Information // Through the Gate
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www.insidetime.org through a variety of methods and the point at which you need to disclose your criminal record will vary with every job. However in general you should disclose it at the point of which you are asked for a declaration, which is usually on the job application form. Being secretive is not the way to deal with this. If an employer has a problem with your record it is better to know early on rather than them finding out once you are in the job.
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The Careers Lady The first step through the door to your future Disclosing Criminal Convictions The Law The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) of 1974 allows most convictions and all final warnings and reprima nd s to b e con sidered ‘SPENT’ or ‘FORGOTTEN’ after a period of time. The sentence you have been given rather than the type of offence determines this period. The ROA is intended to help people with few or minor convictions. Certain criminal convictions can be ‘Spent’ or ‘Forgotten’ after a rehabilitation period. (This is also known as a ‘Buffer’ period.)
This can, of course vary according to the offence. The Rehabilitation period (or Buffer period) begins from the date of conviction. However for convictions resulting in community service or custodial sentence the rehabilitation period will start from the end of the entire sentence (not at the point of release from prison). How long is it before a conviction is Spent or Forgotten? l Community order - 1 year l Prison sentence of six months or less - 2 years l Prison sentence over six months up to and including 30 months - 4 years l Prison sentence of over 30 months and up to 48 months
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- 7 years l Pr ison sentence of 48 months or over or on a Public Protection Order - Never Spent. Applying for jobs Once a conviction becomes spent you do not need to disclose your conv ict ion to employers. It is against the law for an organisation to obtain information about an individual’s spent convictions. However many job application forms contain a section on disclosing any criminal convictions and you may need to be prepared to fill in this section if your convictions have not been spent. Employers recruit new staff
PURCELL PARKER Solicitors
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Always begin by telling employers why you are applying for the job, what you have to offer, the skills that you have that are suitable to the job etc. Always start with your positive points. If you need to disclose your criminal convictions, start by explaining briefly the offences that need to be disclosed and if appropriate, the circumstances. Don’t make excuses for your criminal record but be honest and positive regarding any mitigating factors (addictions issues, mixing with the wrong crowd, loss of a family member, alcohol dependency etc.) In fact, any factors that led you to commit the crime.
The main thing is to reassure the employer you are not at risk of reoffending. Your honesty will be crucial in this. State how your past problems have been resolved and your circumstances are now very different. Good character references are important at this stage - ask your Probation officer or your Personal officer. Include someone who knew you before you went into prison. These would give an employer an idea of what other people think about you. As an alternative to trying to tell the employer about your convictions on the job application form, it may be preferable to state that you have a conviction and that you will be happy to discuss it further if selected for an interview. You could send a detailed disclosure statement in a separate envelope marked confidential to the employer giving your name and details of the job you are applying for. If you do this make sure you should state that you are sending a separate document when completing the application form so that the employer can expect this.
This may all sound very complicated but if you are confident and know you have the skills and qualities and will be the best person for the job you are applying for, you should show this in your covering letter or on a separate attachment to the form. Most employers are willing to employ ex offenders and as long as you show you have confidence, enthusiasm and honesty at your interview or in a covering letter with your application form, the employer will be reassured that you will make a good employee in their organisation.
Discharge Grant update
In last month’s Inside Time I wrote that for prison leavers without an address to go to on discharge there is an additional grant of £50 available on top of the standard £46. To obtain the extra money the Resettlement Officer in the prison should apply on your behalf to the prison’s finance department once the officer has confirmed that accommodation has been found. The money will be paid direct to the accommodation provider.
HAMER CHILDS Prison Law Solicitors Parole Board Applications • Licence Recalls • Independent Adjudications and all Associated Matters Regularly covering HMPs Brinsford, Dovegate, Drake Hall, Eastwood Park, Featherstone, Foston Hall, Hewell, Leyhill, Oakwood, Stafford, Stoke Heath, Sudbury, Usk & Winson Green,
We also cover other prisons for clients we have previously represented.
Have you been Convicted of Murder in the last 30 years on the basis of a "Joint Enterprise"? If so contact us now, we may be able to help. Our Prison Law team have considerable experience of Complex Parole Hearings as well as the routine. We also have many years of experience of dealing with prisoners from the Traveller/Roma community. For further information and any assistance please contact:
Simon or Sarah at Hamer Childs Solicitors 58 The Tything • Worcester • WR1 1JT
01905 724565
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Start-up not lock-down
Time out of cell expected frequency and the minimum requirement is therefore set by Prison Rule 28(2) which states that prisoners have a bath or shower at least weekly. Prison Rules also include the minimum requirements for physical exercise which stands at one hour per week for over 21s and two hours a week on average for under 21s.
Forming a business idea while in prison is a great way to build a better future. So what’s the key to success? Hugh Lenon I am often written to, telephoned or simply asked what I think of this or that new business idea. The UK is, and always has been, a hub for entrepreneurial activity. There is never a shortage of people wanting to branch out on their own and set up their own small - or large - business. In fact, 4.5 million people - approaching 20% of the UK's workforce - are self-employed. They are this country's entrepreneurs. It's hugely satisfying being your own boss, and getting your own business off the ground has never been easier than it is today. Sure, there's bound to be some 'red tape' to wrestle to the ground, but, that aside, to get going you just need a good idea, plus bags of energy and determination. From time to time, someone comes up with an idea which totally transforms an established market or brings out a completely new product. Vodafone developed the first mass-market mobile 'phones in the 1980s. EasyJet and Ryanair - no frills/low cost airlines - opened up Europe to British holiday makers in the 1990s. Soon we may have driverless cars. All ground breaking ventures with the capacity to change our world. Exciting though these examples may be, they are not, however, representative of 99.9% of new business ideas.
have - a good business proposition. Meaning, they have convinced themselves that they can sell something that plenty of people will want to buy. A new gadget, their cooking, their plumbing or decoration services - for example. Self- belief: the essential, and indeed obvious, starting point. An entrepreneur must believe in his or her product - if he does not then why should anyone else? Secondly, entrepreneurs are hardworking and enjoy what they do. It is said that nothing worth having comes easily. Someone who believes in his business idea will commit himself or herself to it wholeheartedly. He - or she - will put in the hours necessary to ensure success. On Day 1 of any new venture, the entrepreneur will have to do everything - open the shop, deal with customers, buy supplies, turn the lights out - and more besides. To do all of this really well it helps if you are also having fun. Successful entrepreneurs like what they do. None of us do well at something we don't enjoy. T h i rd ly, not ever y t h i ng goes to pla n. Succeeding with a new business is helped by being well-organised but also by being resourceful and adaptable. It's good to have a plan but, as we all know, Plan A doesn't always work. Plan B may be needed! Do your research, talk to possible customers, test your product. They may not like exactly what you offer - the price may be too high or the product or service may need adapting. Fine - just make the changes. I am confident that when Henry Ford sold his first car he didn't get it right first time. Fourthly, many entrepreneurs are also lucky. They do well or even better as a result of some slice of good fortune. Self-belief, hard work, good planning and flexibility combined with a willingness to take risks are vital - but a little luck along the way never did any harm. There are those, of course, who don't believe in good or bad luck: "The harder you work the luckier you get!" they would say. Whatever you believe, good luck is nice to have if not to be relied upon.
More often than not, I am approached by someone simply wanting to sell an existing and proven everyday product or service slightly better or cheaper. This is what most new businesses aim to do. They don't target world domination nor radical changes in consumer behaviour - but they can provide immense job satisfaction, independence, and an income for the entrepreneur. Whilst many new businesses survive and thrive, not all do. So what is the key to success? I have met numerous entrepreneurs over the years and, whilst no two are the same, there seem to me to be a few common threads that run through this breed of risk taker. Firstly, they have - or at least they think they
The UK has produced some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs. We are by instinct a nation of risk-takers. Richard Branson of Virgin, Alan Sugar from the Apprentice, Philip Green from Top Shop, Charles Dunstone from Carphone Warehouse - and many more - all travelled this journey. They all started on their own and from scratch. Being your own boss is hard work but also rewarding and fun. 95% of all businesses in the UK are very small employing between 1 and 10 people - and they were all set up by individuals. So it can be done. Now, what is your business idea? Hugh Lenon is chairman of a fund management company and has over 25 years’ investment experience.
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PRISON REFORM TRUST
Ryan Harman Advice an Info Service Manager
Michael Gove, in his evidence to the House of Commons justice select committee in March, stated that time spent by prisoners out of their cells could be one of a number of key indicators introduced to measure prison performance. This would be a welcome move and an important acknowledgement of the valuable contribution time out of cell makes to improving the quality of prison life. Our advice and information service often hears from people wanting to know how many hours a day they should be allowed out of their cell, whether association should be during particular hours or how much time they should get in the open air. There is little surprise that being stuck behind a cell door for hours per day has become the increasing experience of life in prison for many. With the number of staff employed by public prisons having fallen by 30% in the last five years, there are now fewer staff looking after more prisoners. Inevitably this has an impact on regime including the amount of time prisoners have out of their cells. In their annual report 2014-2015, HM Chief Inspectors reported that one in 5 prisoners interviewed reported spending less than two hours a day out of their cells during the week. Only one in seven said they spent 10 hours or more out of their cell each day. Unfortunately, there are few
rules determining how long people should be locked up for and it is not unlawful to be kept in your cell for long periods of time. PSI 75/2011 Residential Services states that ‘Prisoners must be afforded time out of their living accommodation, time in the open air and the opportunity for family contact’ but it does not set any minimum standards. PSI 30/2013 Incentives and Earned Privileges lists time out of cell as a recommended earnable privilege for prisoners, but leaves it up to each prison to decide what theses limits might be. There are more specific guidelines on time in the open air, though these are not generous. You should get a minimum of 30 minutes in the open air daily, though this is subject to weather conditions and need to maintain good order and discipline. Time outdoors as part of work or sport counts, as does time in the open air moving between activities. The 30 minutes can be split into two periods but no more than this. Other instructions give some basic indication of what a normal regime should include. You should be given access to a telephone at times when family and friends are available and at reasonably frequent intervals. Further to this, PSI 49/2011 Prisoner Communications states that the time available for using the phones must not normally be less than two hours each day. Although PSI 75/2011 says that prisoners should have access to facilities to meet personal hygiene needs it again does not specify
It remains our view that these minimum standards, even when met, are indecent. Although we recognise that many prisons normally deliver above these standards we believe that these minimums should be reviewed and increased to more acceptable levels. However, despite the difficulties that are faced by many, we also hear of creative approaches to these problems which provide hope and perhaps a template for other prisons. For example, we are aware that some prisons have taken the decision to get rid of lunch time bang up. We had indication from prisoners that in some establishments they have provided increased hours out of cell for older people and those unable to work due to disability. Prison Reform Trust saw a particularly refreshing example of this in HMP Birmingham recently. There the director met with prisoner representatives every week to review the levels of association. He would allow the reps to give views as to whether more people could safely be granted association at a given time and use this to decide on the following weeks association. This approach appeared to be highly effective both in maximising safe association and including prisoners in the decision making process. We would be very interested to hear from prisoners who have experienced similar new approaches to managing time out of cell, as well as from those who are experiencing difficulty in this area. You can contact the Prison Reform Trust’s advice team at FREEPOST ND6125 London EC1B 1PN. Our free information line is open Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 3.305.30. The number is 0808 802 0060 and does not need to be put on your pin.
30 Information // Substance Misuse
Insidetime April 2016
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Inside Drink & Drugs News
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The ‘heroin drought’ of 2010-11 - which saw a significant drop in purity levels - was a ‘catalyst for some users to tackle their addiction and enter treatment’ according to a Home Office report. There were, however, no significant falls in overdose rates, with some areas reporting an increase ‘as well as other side effects’ as a result of additional adulterants in heroin and/or replacement substances.
Drink and Drugs News (DDN) is the monthly magazine for those working with drug and alcohol clients, including in prisons. In a regular bi-monthly column, editor Claire Brown looks at what’s been happening lately in the substance misuse field Claire Brown DDN Editor We recently held our annual event - the DDN national service user involvement conference. People involved with drug and alcohol treatment travel to Birmingham from all over the country, many of them in groups of service users. Some may have become abstinent from drink and drugs for several years; others may be still using, or on a maintenance prescription such as methadone. The main point is, everyone is welcome and everyone takes part - and many people form groups or start initiatives as a result of the networking, or a thought planted by one of the speakers, most of whom have a n inspiring experience to share. We always look for a galvanising keynote speaker; someone who will deliver a rousing afternoon speech - not the
easiest remit when you have just filled the delegates with big plates of curry! We hope to find someone whose story w ill resonate - a nd a lso inspire. John Bird, creator of the Big Issue, did us proud. He described homelessness and prison - ‘and being beaten shitless by the police and my father’ - as teaching him to constantly pick himself up and have self-esteem. Starting up the Big Issue with Gordon Roddick, he passed on the same ethos to the army of homeless people who started to sell the paper on the streets of London. When the paper launched in 1991, he had run into an immediate problem: when telling homeless people that they’d have to buy the paper to sell it, ‘they went nut s’, say i ng ‘ but we’re homeless, we’ve always been given stuff for nothing’. He told them, ‘That’s why you’re still homeless. It’s a w ay of w a l l i ng you of f,
keeping you helpless, keeping you a child.’ And here was the take-home message: ‘There are transferable skills you learn as a homeless person - use them. You learn skills and abilities - don’t kid yourself that you haven’t picked up enormous skills when you’ve been down that you can use on the way up. All you need is a hand up, not a hand out.’ The following day he was due to give his maiden speech in the House of Lords, and said he was sure he was going to be thrown out. But his flamboyant delivery had a clear message: ‘What we really need to do is understand people, give them help and encouragement and create social justice for those who fall on hard times.’ To order copies of Drink and Drugs News telephone: 020 7463 2085
[email protected] drinkanddrugsnews.com
Dying for a drink Dry statistics Sixteen per cent of Britons attempted ‘Dry January’ this year, according to Alcohol Concern, with just over 70 per cent of them succeeding in going the full 31 days without alcohol. ‘People tell us that having a Dry January has helped them to break bad habits and to kick start a new relationship with alcohol,’ said the charity’s campaign director, Tom Smith.
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A bill to strengthen support for the children of people with alcohol problems has been published Liam Byrne MP, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Children of Alcoholics. The Children with Alcoholic Parents (Support) Bill calls for a national strategy and a dedicated minister, along with far more transparency from local authorities and health services around budgets and the amount of support provided.
A national campaign to oppose cuts to HIV services has been launched by a country-wide alliance of charities and professional bodies. The ‘Support people with HIV: stop the cuts’ campaign has written to health secretary Jeremy Hunt to demand adequate funding, effective commissioning and access to support for everyone living with HIV.
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Information // Ombudsman 31
How to complain to the Ombudsman It is not difficult or complicated to complain to the Ombudsman, but there are some simple steps you must follow We receive a lot of complaints - about 5,000 last year - although only around 2,400 could be accepted for investigation. We upheld or partially upheld many of the complaints we investigated (about 40%) in favour of the prisoner and made nearly a thousand recommendations to prison, probation and immigration services. Nigel Newcomen Prisons and Probation Ombudsman As readers will know, my office carries out independent investigations into deaths in custody and complaints. We can investigate complaints from prisoners, children and young people in prisons and secure training centres, offenders under probation supervision, and immigration detainees. (For simplicity this article only talks about prisoners, but exactly the same points apply to all the other groups.) My ambition is that these investigations should not only make a difference in individual cases, but also help to make prisons safer and fairer places. Unfortunately, we have to reject over half the complaints we receive without investigating them. This is because too many prisoners have not gone through the right processes before coming to us. This frustrates you and wastes my staff’s time. This article, therefore, explains what you need to do to get our help.
So complaining to the Ombudsman is not only your right, it is a way for many prisoners to get improvements in their situation. It also worth emphasising that we are completely independent. We do not work for the Prison Service. Once we have collected all the facts about a complaint, our job is to make a fair and balanced judgement. How to complain to us My office is here to investigate issues about the way you have been treated. This includes decisions and actions (or lack of action) about your management, supervision, care and treatment. But there is a process which you must follow before we can help. First, you must always complain directly to your prison, immigration removal centre, secure training centre or probation office first to try to get the problem resolved. Second, if you have gone through all the internal complaint processes locally and are still not happy with the way your complaint has been dealt with, then you can complain to us. So there are three steps:
Made a complaint? Not happy with the response? If you have gone through the internal complaint process and are not satisfied, you can still complain to the PPO.
Send a short note explaining your complaint along with ALL your complaints paperwork to: Prisons and Probation Ombudsman PO Box 70769 London SE1P 4XY See our leaflet ‘How to Complain to the Ombudsman’ for more details.
The background I have been writing articles for Inside Time every couple of months for about four years, explaining what we do and how to use us. You may even have heard me speak or heard our adverts on Prison Radio. By now, I hope you will also have seen our new posters and leaflets explaining “How to complain to the Ombudsman”. I have asked for these to be used in induction and put on display on wing notice boards and in libraries. If they are not being displayed on your wing, ask staff to find out why not.
1. Make sure you go through all the stages of the prison complaints process first. 2. Write a short note telling us what your complaint is about, and why you are still not happy. 3. Send all your paperwork to us including all the prison complaint forms if you have them. (If you don’t have them, you can still complain to us but it will take us longer to reply.). Can we investigate your complaint? When we get your complaint, the first thing we do is to assess whether we can investigate it under our Terms of Reference - in other words, we assess whether it is eligible for investigation. To check whether we can investigate a complaint we ask some key questions: Have you completed the local complaints process? Our Assessment Team has to reject around half the complaints we receive because the complainants have not completed all the stages of the
local complaints process before approaching us. Remember, if you have not been through all the local stages first, we can’t accept your complaint for investigation. If you are not sure if you have done this, you can ring us for advice. It will speed things up a lot if you can send us the paperwork to prove you have completed all the local stages. What we need to see are the COMP1 and COMP1A complaints you have submitted and the replies you have received. We will copy these and send the originals back to you. If you don’t have them, we can ask the prison for them, but this takes longer and means it will take us longer to let you know if we can accept your complaint or not. Is your complaint in time? When you receive the final answer to your complaint from the prison, you need to complain to us within three months. If you wait longer than this, we won’t normally accept your complaint for investigation (unless it is about something very serious and there is a genuine reason for the delay). Is your complaint about a subject we can investigate? Our Terms of Reference don’t allow us to investigate the following subjects: l Your sentence; l Parole Board decisions; l Your medical treatment. Are you complaining on your own behalf? Unless you are under 18, we won’t normally accept complaints from ‘third parties’ (such as partners, family members or other prisoners) and you need to complain yourself.
Can we achieve anything worthwhile for you? In order to make the best use of my Investigators’ time, we occasionally decide not to accept a complaint for investigation even if it meets all the eligibility requirements. This might happen for example where the complaint is about something quite minor (such as a one-off problem with a meal) or where there is nothing more my office could achieve for you (for example, where you have already received an apology or sufficient compensation for lost property). Not investigating complaints of this kind means we have more time to spend investigating the complaints where we can make a real difference. Investigating the complaint If we decide we can’t accept your complaint for investigation, we will write to you and explain why (and suggest what you might do next). If we accept your complaint for investigation, we will write to let you know. Your complaint will then be allocated to an Investigator. This is likely to take a few weeks. If your complaint is a straightforward one you may not hear from us again until we have finished our investigation. If the complaint is going to take a while to resolve, however, the Investigator will write to you to introduce him or herself. The Investigator will gather evidence about the complaint. This may include: l Looking at relevant records from the prison, probation or immigration service; l Researching relevant laws, policies, procedures and guidelines;
We don’t accept complaints about things that have happened to other people - you need to have been personally affected yourself.
l Telephoning or visiting you;
You can ask a solicitor to complain on your behalf if you want, although there is absolutely no need to do so most complaints come to us directly from prisoners and we give all complaints the same level of attention wherever they come from.
Each case is different and the Investigator and their manager will decide what is needed in each case.
If you are in a Secure Training Centre or a Young Offenders Institution (YOI) you can also ask one of the Barnado’s advocates to help you complain to us. Is your complaint the subject of court proceedings (including Judicial Review)? In some cases you might want to pursue your complaint by going to court. If you choose to do that, you can’t also complain to my office. You need to decide which route you prefer.
l Interviewing relevant staff or witnesses by telephone or in person.
Making a decision After considering the relevant evidence, the Investigator will come to a view about whether to uphold your complaint or not. The final decision will be made by a senior manager (an Assistant Ombudsman or the Deputy Ombudsman). If we don’t uphold your complaint, we will write to you and explain why. If we do uphold your complaint, we will try to settle it in one of the following ways: l mediation - this means trying to find a solution that you and the
prison can both agree on. This is most often used to agree a sum of compensation when property has gone missing and is often the quickest way to deal with the complaint. l writing a report setting out our findings and making recommendations to put things right. We will send a draft version of the report to you and the prison for your comments. We will then consider any comments we receive, make any necessary changes, and send you and the prison the final version. We aim to deal with your complaint within 12 weeks of starting the investigation, although serious complaints will take longer. Making recommendations When we uphold a complaint we almost always make recommendations to the prison to put the problem right or stop it happening again. For example, we can recommend: l A written apology; l Financial compensation (in the case of lost property); l Quashing an adjudication finding and punishment; l Changes to local or national policies; l Disciplinary investigations against staff. The Prison Service must tell us whether they accept our recommendations. They are not required to accept them but it is extremely unusual for them not to do so. We will let you know what is happening. We then require written evidence from the organisation to show how they have implemented the recommendation(s). Conclusion The independent investigation of your complaints by my office is an important safeguard against mistreatment. But, we can only help you if you follow the right processes. I hope this article will help you to get the best out of my office.
Send a short note explaining your complaint along with ALL your complaints paperwork to: Prisons and Probation Ombudsman PO Box 70769 London SE1P 4XY
32 Information // Health
www.insidetime.org eating, washing and dressing. They may become repetitive and struggle to recognise people, and become easily upset, angry or aggressive. The benefits of having a diagnosis include being offered medication to slow down the progression of the illness. A diagnosis can also explain why a prisoner may be behaving in a certain way, and ensure the right support plan can be put in place. Who is at risk? After the age of 65, the risk of developing Alzheimer’s doubles approximately every five years. According to the Ministry of Justice, the over 60 population in prisons in England and Wales has increased eight-fold since 1990 and in the last decade, the number of sentenced prisoners aged fifty or above has risen by 74 per cent to almost 10,000. © prisonimage.org
Dementia in prisons Rachael Doeg In the next ten years, more than one million people in the UK will have dementia. With a growing population of older people in prisons, awareness of dementia is vital to ensure prisoners and staff have the necessary information and support to help them to cope. Dementia is a complex illness. Although awareness of the condition is growing and more people are accessing the treatment and support they need, much more needs to be done to raise awareness across all areas of society. Knowing what symptoms to look out for, understanding why people may be behaving in certain ways, and knowing what to do to support people with dementia will help everyone involved in a person’s care feel more able to cope. But what is happening about our older population in prisons? Who is looking out for the warning signs of dementia in this vulnerable and growing group of people? And what about prisoners worried about their own family members? Would they know what to do or who to turn to for advice? These are some of the questions the Alzheimer’s Society* have been asking. Last year, the charity began working with prisons in England on a pilot project aimed at understanding some of the challenges prisoners and staff face in dealing with dementia. What do we know so far? One of the main problems identified is that symptoms are being missed. This is either because they are not recognised and therefore overlooked or because they are confused for something else, which means that getting a diagnosis is delayed. Lack of knowledge about the condition among staff can also mean they don’t know how to provide appropriate support for prisoners diagnosed with dementia. In addition, prisoners can be wrongly punished for behaviour that is actually a result of their dementia. The focus of the project is to increase awareness
of dementia among prisoners and staff through training, talks and making more information about dementia available in prisons. This will help to increase knowledge and awareness of the condition and help people to identify anyone potentially at risk. The project has also highlighted the need for support for prisoners with dementia who are due for release. Alzheimer’s Society staff plan to work alongside probation officers and parole boards to ensure that the implications of a diagnosis of dementia are taken on board when planning release. What is dementia and what are the symptoms? People often ask about the difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, believing they are different conditions. In fact, one causes the other. If someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, then this will cause the symptoms of dementia (see below). Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, and vascular dementia is the second most common. Some people have a mix of the two. Other types of dementia include fronto-temporal dementia, which can affect a person’s personality and their behaviour, and alcohol-related dementia and Korsakoff’s syndrome, which is caused by very low levels of vitamin B-1 and often associated with alcohol abuse. Although symptoms will vary according to the type of dementia diagnosed, common signs to look out for include: • Short-term memory loss • Mood changes / changes in behaviour • Difficulty reasoning or making decisions • Withdrawal and loss of confidence • Communication problems • Lose interest in others or in activities Many of these symptoms are commonly experienced by prisoners, and are also apparent in other conditions such as depression. When a person has dementia, however, the symptoms do not go away and gradually become worse. As the illness progresses, people need frequent reminders to do everyday activities such as
This, coupled with health-related problems, puts prisoners at a higher risk of getting dementia. People in prison are more likely to have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes and smoke a lot more than people in the general population. There is also a much higher rate of chronic drug and alcohol abuse. This of course puts a lot of extra stress on the body and greater strain on the heart, which in turn increases the risk of strokes. It also means that typically, the bodies of prisoners age more quickly than the general population, putting them at greater risk of getting dementia. Why more needs to be done Dementia is not always straightforward to diagnose. It is commonly misdiagnosed as depression, stress, bereavement, or dismissed as memory loss due to simply getting older. Symptoms such as withdrawal, changes in behaviour and depression may not be identified as warning signs. There may also be reluctance, particularly among older generations, to seek help or report difficulties performing everyday tasks. A tendency to deal with things themselves and ‘get on with problems’ may prevent older people asking for help in case they are seen as weak. Due to the lack of knowledge about dementia among prison officers, they are unable to identify symptoms when they do present.
Insidetime April 2016 managed well. If prisoners are presenting to us with signs of dementia and our group of prison officers don’t understand that these may be symptoms of dementia, things could escalate. ‘If someone isn’t able to take direction from the officers or haven’t understood or remembered what they’ve been told, that could lead to conflict and arguments, which in turn can lead to something bigger, perhaps restraint or even segregation. ‘What should happen is that officers share their observations with us, and if they notice certain symptoms and particularly if it’s an older person, it should ring a bell about dementia. But that can only come with time and training and we’re working with the Alzheimer’s Society to organise this.’ The way forward For the year ahead, raising awareness of dementia in prisons is a priority. As well as the talks and training sessions which are being organised, prison staff are looking at the best way to support prisoners with specialist needs. Junaid Dowool says, ‘We need to think about adjusting our assessment tool and working out a pathway, as we’ve done for people with learning disabilities, to ensure specialist needs are met. This would start when someone comes to reception and has their Wellman check. ‘Then we need to make other prisoners aware of the need to support people and ensure certain approaches are needed, to help and remind someone it’s association time and to put on their shoes for mealtimes, for example, or be there for someone to talk to. We don’t want symptoms to be missed or for anyone to be suffering in silence.’ What to do if you are worried about someone with memory loss l Speak to your prison officer and request a healthcare appointment. l Call Alzheimer’s Society’s national dementia helpline (0300 222 1122) l Ask about Dementia Friends sessions being held in your prison - and request them if there are none planned. l Ask for the list of recommended books on dementia from the library.
Junaid Dowool is team leader for mental health services at HMP Pentonville. He is working with Alzheimer’s Society alongside HMP Wandsworth and HMP Wormwood Scrubs to support prisoners with dementia. Junaid says, ‘The need isn’t currently being
Rachael Doeg is an Alzheimer’s Society Dementia Adviser
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Information // Health 33
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Older people in prison
Prisoners aged 60 and over are the fastest growing age group in the prison estate. There are now nearly triple the number there were 15 years ago.
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Type 2 Diabetes Are you at risk? Paul Sullivan As the rates of Type 2 Diabetes rise throughout Britain the number of prisoners with the disease is also rising. It is not known why people get it but it is likely to be a mixture of genetic and dietary influences. Type 2 Diabetes develops when the body doesn’t produce enough insulin or the insulin that is produced doesn’t work properly (known as insulin resistance). Usually it appears in people aged 40 or over. It is normally treated with a healthy diet and increased physical activity. In addition medication and/or insulin is often required. Symptoms occur because some or all of the glucose stays in the blood and isn’t being used as fuel for energy. The body tries to reduce blood glucose levels by flushing the excess glucose out of the body in the urine. The main symptoms of undiagnosed diabetes can include:
Prisoners with diabetes are advised to follow the same healthy eating pattern recommended for everyone - food that is low in fat, salt and sugar: have starchy carbohydrate foods in each meal and plenty of fruit and vegetables. Aim to choose healthier options most of the time, e.g. choosing fruit instead of puddings high in fat and/or sugar. It also helps to regulate your weight. Being overweight makes diabetes control more difficult as the excess weight makes it hard for the body to use insulin properly (insulin resistance). Losing weight can have a lot of health benefits such as improved diabetes control and lower blood pressure and cholesterol. If you don’t go to the gym have a word with gym staff to see if there are suitable sessions for you, you may need to get the nod from Healthcare before taking up rigorous exercise. Use exercise periods to walk briskly and have a look at the exercise routines in the Jailbreak section.
• Blood glucose - blood test; • Blood fats (cholesterol) - blood test; • Blood pressure; • Retinopathy screening - eye check; • Legs & Feet check - for nerves and circulation; • Kidney function check - urine test; • Weight check. If you are not happy with the care or treatment you are receiving you should make a complaint and ensure you follow it through. The possible effects of improperly controlled diabetes can be very serious. Prisoners with poorly controlled blood sugar levels may be entitled to a finger-prick glucose meter. Diabetes UK produce an excellent leaflet ‘Having Diabetes in Prison’: You can write to Diabetes UK for a copy: Diabetes UK Careline, Macleod House, 10 Parkway, London NW1 7AA. Helpline: 0845 120 2960 Acknowledgements to Diabetes UK from whose leaflet the medical information was acquired. Download the leaflet: tinyurl.com/z4v3mng
People aged 50 and over currently make up 14% of the prison population. There are 11,980 people aged 50 and over in prison in England and Wales - 4,109 are aged 60 and over.
Six out of 10 older prisoners (59%) report having a longstanding illness or disability. This compares with just over a quarter (27%) of younger prisoners.
The number of healthcare ‘older prisoner leads’ has increased in recent years but they do not all appear always to be active in their roles, nor in receipt of specialist training. Nearly half (44%) of establishments do not have an older prisoner policy, against Department of Health guidance. 42% of men in prison aged over 50 have been convicted of sex offences. The next highest offence category is violence against the person (25%) followed by drug offences (11%). All images © Fotolia.com
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The number of people released for compassionate reasons is low - between 2009 and 2013, 45 people were released.
As the prison population ages, more prisoners will die of natural causes while in prison. In 2014, 107 people aged 50 or over died of natural causes whilst in prison, an increase of nearly 50% in the last decade.
People can apply for compassionate release if they have a life expectancy of less than three months, are bedridden or severely incapacitated. A study conducted in HMP Stafford found that 51% of 50-59 year olds and 42% of those over 60 had at least one diagnosable psychiatric disorder.
Older prisoners interviewed on entering prison for the first time often suffered from ‘entry shock’. This was made worse by a lack of information and an unfamiliarity with prison regimes and expectations. Delays in accessing health care and receiving medication were a particular cause of concern. Threequarters of older prisoners were currently taking medication. At HMP Winchester the inspectorate found two older, severely disabled men who spent all day together in a small dark cell, who had not been able to shower for months, and who faced problems that staff were unaware of. PRISON REFORM TRUST
Source: Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile 2015 www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk
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If you are provided with diabetic medication (usually Metformin) you should ensure
you take it as instructed. Ensure you have regular (at least annual) diabetic checks which should include:
The 2010 PRT report, Doing Time found that 59 out of 92 prisons had nothing specific in place to support the resettlement needs of this group.
eg R
• Passing urine frequently (especially at night); • Increased thirst; • Extreme tiredness; • Unexplained weight loss; • Genital itching or regular episodes of thrush; • Slow healing of cuts and wounds; • Blurred vision.
If you have any of the symptoms above you should see the doctor. Early diagnosis, treatment and good control of diabetes is vital to reduce the chances of developing serious diabetes complications.
On 31 March 2014 there were 102 people in prison aged 80 and over. Five people in prison were 90 or older.
On 30 June 2015 there were 2,177 people aged 50 and over serving life sentences - of these 1,305 were mandatory sentences. 814 people were serving IPP sentences.
Don’t waste your next opportunity before the Parole Board CONTACT EMMERSONS NOW and let us get on with preparing your case in good time.
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34 Information
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You have a right to claim when MoJ negligence causes you pain Daniel Harley For hundreds of years, English law has recognised that you should be compensated if you have suffered an injury that was somebody else’s fault.
prison or healthcare service, this poster has been making an appearance in prisons across the country:
Often, you’re expected to work in prison as part of your rehabilitation. However, if you are performing the duties of a worker, you should also have the same protections employers owe their workers, like training and protective equipment.
Not only does an injury cause you pain and suffering, but it may also prevent you from working and enjoying leisure activities, and while compensation cannot take away pain, it can recover lost earnings and expenses, and go some way to righting the wrong. For example, in Donoghue v Stevenson, a House of Lords case from 1932, the court awarded compensation to a lady who became very ill after discovering a decomposing snail in her ginger beer. The ginger beer company had been negligent in letting the snail get into the bottle, and had they been more careful, the woman wouldn’t have been unwell. It was therefore decided that compensation should be paid by the negligent company. So, as you can see, the payment of compensation is not a new idea at all. It’s a legal protection that we all have, and you do not lose these rights when you are sent to prison. However, to stop prisoners exercising their legal right to claim compensation when they have been injured through the negligence of the
bed but the safety rail is missing, you deserve compensation if you fall out of bed and hurt yourself in the middle of the night.
If you’re doing some heavy lifting, you should receive manual-handling training. If you aren’t trained in how to lift heavy things and hurt yourself trying, again you are entitled to compensation for your injuries. Similarly, in prison you should receive the same level of medical care that you would get in the community and if, due to time constraints, medical or dental treatment goes wrong, you should receive compensation. At first sight, you may indeed think twice about making a claim. If this poster is true, a claim could cost you money and add years onto your sentence, and who wants that? Best not to bother, right?
So, starting with point one on the poster, apparently most claims made by prisoners are unsuccessful. If this is true and you’re probably not going to get compensation, why make the effort?
Wrong! This poster is very inaccurate, and by reading this article you will learn why you should not be afraid of making a claim.
We do not know where the MoJ has obtained its figures about prisoner claims, but No-Win-NoFee solicitors assess your chances of success from day one, and will re-assess them regularly. If at any point we feel your claim has less than a 50% chance of success, we will let you know and
Accidents happen in prisons. If, for example, you have been made to sleep in the top bunk
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the file will be closed long before it gets to court. Then there’s no loss to you and none to the MoJ. Point two on the poster is completely false. Unless you have been fundamentally dishonest about your claim, the MoJ cannot ask you to pay their legal costs. You are protected by something called ‘Qualified One Way Cost Shifting’ or QOCS. QOCS (pronounced ‘qwocks’) isn’t the name of those unfashionable plastic shoes with the holes in them; it’s the rule that you, as a claimant, get to recover your costs if you win, but the defendant does not. Point three may be true, but if we think your claim is dishonest, and not supported by evidence, we won’t take it on in the first place. We don’t want to lose the case either, because working on a No-Win-No-Fee basis means we don’t get paid unless the claim is successful. Next, if you are convicted of any fraud, whether that be a fraudulent claim or anything else, you may well have time added onto your sentence, but why should this stop you from making an honest claim? Finally, the MoJ may ask you to pay back, out of your compensation, any money you owe them, but it can do the same by deducting your wages. Again, why should this make you think twice about making a claim? The bottom line is prisoners have the same right to compensation as everybody else. If you see this poster in your wing, you shouldn’t be intimidated by it. If you think you have a claim, apply your legal rights and contact a solicitor for free advice on your options. Daniel Harley - Attwoods Solicitors For more information see our full page advert on page 18
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Information // Education 35
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Why education is a must for women in custody Britain’s Failing Prisons and is patron of the charity Working Chance, which helps women find employment after release. Writing for PET on International Women’s Day Vicky called for more higher-level qualifications and controlled internet access:
Prisoners show power of expression at Warren Hill In February, Rod Clark was invited to Warren Hill for an afternoon of poetry, drama and song created and presented by prisoners Rod Clark Chief Executive Prisoners’ Education Trust The showcase, called Expression, was the brainchild of a team of three learners, led by writer in residence Julian Earwaker. Five months in the planning, Expression event gave a platform for a number of prisoners, mostly first-time performers, to express their thoughts and feelings through words and performance. One piece, by a prisoner named Edgar, dealt with the choices and emotions of a prisoner approaching release and walking the invisible line between punishment and rehabilitation, forever lost in translation. Edgar had achieved an Open University degree in Psychology with the support of PET and then had “fallen in love with the arts” through working with Synergy Theatre. He had produced this dramatised version of his fiction as part of an advanced creative writing course. Edgar said he looked forward to continuing his writing and working with theatre after his release and graduation in the summer. Edgar’s work picked up the theme of family, which also came out strongly in many other pieces. The song, I Don’t Know, written by Rolly and powerfully performed by a talented trio of prisoners, explored the feelings of a prisoner on an indeterminate (IPP) sentence unable to tell his son when he would come home: emotions and emotions on the phone / ‘cause the answers to these questions I don’t know? Julian Earwaker, who has been the writer in residence at the prison since 2010, said the festival was a “huge success”. “Men who had never performed or displayed work previously displayed their courage - and no little talent - before an enthusiastic audience of invited guests, staff and prisoners. There were tears of laughter and lumps in the throat
from some emotionally charged material.” The prisoners were supported in their performances by Chickenshed Theatre, who bring theatre and performance to deprived communities and excluded groups. Chickenshed are bringing the words and recordings of the Warren Hill prisoners to engage with groups of children in East London. Overall, ‘Expression’ was a moving testament to the creative power of words to help oneself and others. In the words of I Write, a poem by Stephen: I write to be remembered for my words / rather than my dark deeds… I write because I have to… I write because I can…
Vicky Pryce served a short sentence in HMP Holloway and HMP Eastwood Park in 2013. She has now returned to her job as an economist, but has also published a book: Prisonomics: Behind bars in
Providing education and training in the prison context is difficult. When someone enters prison they have often had all of their self-confidence and self-esteem taken away. Women are likely to be distracted, many are unfamiliar with formal education, and prisons are often at a loss about how to occupy them with vocational work. Many women find themselves moved from prison to prison, and required to learn the same thing again and again. Some want to learn at a much higher level than is offered inside
prison, but you can’t do much of this if you don’t have internet access. A prison sentence costs women, their families, the economy and society dear. We are sending too many people to prison when other types of non-custodial sentences may be more appropriate. But, if we must send women to prison, the surest way to cut reoffending is by ensuring that they have better access to education while there. And I don’t mean just basic numeracy and literacy skills, though that is important of course. There needs to be more emphasis on higher levels of attainment including tertiary education for those spending longer in prison. Greater access to the internet, sensibly controlled and monitored by the prison authorities, would make a huge difference.
A sporting chance in custody? Do you face hurdles to exercising? Or is sport helping you to meet your goals? In an Olympic year, the world’s eyes are on sport, and PET’s attention is on how exercise can help learning within prison and after release. PET recently became a member of the National Alliance of Sports for the Desistance of Crime, which is a voice for the power of sport in preventing reoffending. If you are involved in any sports in prison we would love to hear from you. We are keen to find out about your experiences including:
1. What sport or exercise are you involved in? 2. In your own words, what general impact is the sport or exercise having for you? 3. Do you feel like you have enough opportunities to take part in sports and exercise? Please answer the questions above and return your answer to FREEPOST: Prisoners’ Education Trust. Please also let us know your age and prison.
If you would like advice or funding to study a distance learning course or tell us about your experiences of prison education write to FREEPOST Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET) or call 0203 752 5680.
We take pride in providing a full range of criminal and prison law services. Prison Law services include: • Parole Reviews • Life Sentence Reviews • IPP Reviews • Recall • Sentence Planning
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36 Information // The Rule Book
The RULE Book
External Prisoner Movement PSI 2015-033 Issued: 9 December 2015, Effective from: 9 December 2015, Expires: 8 December 2019 This PSI updates policy regarding the external movement of prisoners. There are three sections which I am going to cover in this Rule Book; those are the use of restraints, hospital escorts and funeral escorts. The PSI also covers bedwatches, weddings, court escorts, vehicles and prisoners’ property and property records.
with Paul Sullivan
Restraints (Section 5) There are three types of approved restraints. The first is handcuffs; of which there are four types to be used depending upon circumstance and nature of prison. The second is an Escort Chain. This is used to provide distance, for example where a prisoner needs to use a toilet. The PSI says that where a chain is used in public it should be as short as possible to make its use inconspicuous.
© Gstudio Group - Fotolia.com
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The third restraint is a Body Belt which can only be used in exceptional circumstances and by Prison Service staff. There must be a risk assessment and a member of healthcare staff must accompany the prisoner at all times during the escort.
The healthcare person’s sole interest is the safety of the prisoner and can order a diversion to the nearest prison, police station or hospital, or if necessary, immediate removal of the belt. Prison managers decide whether restraints are necessary but normally all prisoners will be single cuffed except B-Cat and E-list prisoners who will be double cuffed. Restraints should normally be removed once in a vehicle cubicle and always on arrival at court unless the judge agrees to a prisoner being cuffed in court. Annex B of the PSI provides guidance on the correct procedure for the application of restraints. Hospital Escorts (Section 6) The PSI states that: “Prisoners are entitled to receive the same standards of healthcare, including due regard to decency and privacy issues, as any member of the general public and in so far as it is possible to do so, every effort should be made to meet this entitlement, without compromising security or safety. Normally there will be a two officer escort with restraints applied but there should be a risk assessment for each case and the PSI lists twelve criteria for that assessment. Paragraph 6.9, which is mandatory, states; “Consideration must also be given to the prisoner’s need for privacy during treatment, particularly where the
prisoner is to undergo an intimate examination or procedure. Privacy should be accommodated in so far as it doesn’t compromise the security of the escort. There must be an assessment of whether there is a security need for escorting staff to remain in a consulting room with a prisoner while the examination or procedure is undertaken or whether it would be safe for them to be positioned out of sight and earshot of the examination.” 6.17: “There will be occasions when the prisoner to be escorted to hospital for out-patient or inpatient treatment will have been diagnosed as seriously or terminally ill. Such circumstances require sensitive handling to ensure that the needs of security are balanced against the clinical needs of the prisoner.” 6.18: “The restraint by handcuffs of a prisoner receiving chemotherapy, or any other life saving treatment, must be justified by documented security considerations.” Para 6.20 states that pregnant women at hospital for ante-natal checks should normally have restraints removed upon arrival. Women entering hospital to give birth should be accompanied by two female officers and have restraints removed upon arrival. Staff should not be present in the delivery room. On return to prison a suitable vehicle should be provided to allow the
mother to attend to her baby during the journey. Restraints should not normally be used. If at any time a health professional seeks the removal of restraints because of an immediate risk to health, because the prisoner is in pain or because the restraints are impeding essential treatment they must be removed immediately. Funeral Escorts (Section 7) Where possible prisoners should be given RoTL to attend funerals or dying relatives. There is no ban on a prisoner of any category attending a funeral of a close relative (the PSI defines ‘close relative’). Para 7.2 states; “Applications to attend should be assessed on an individual basis taking care to balance security considerations with those of decency, and should only be refused on security grounds, which need to be clearly evidenced in the risk assessment. Factors such as distance to the funeral and associated costs can be taken into account; but on their own, i.e. in the absence of identified security objections, are not grounds for refusing the escort. Where possible, attempts should be made to mitigate these issues, for example, by considering a temporary inter-prison transfer to a prison closer to the venue of the funeral” This PSI should be available in all prison libraries (in England and Wales) and can also be downloaded from: tinyurl.com/hvh2jyu
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during confinement is on the increase. Whether it is due to a lack of resources or inept practitioning there is no excuse if your health has suffered physically or mentally, as a result you could be due 1000’s of pounds in compensation. Negligence may not just
If you feel you’ve been badly treated, misdiagnosed or kept waiting for an unacceptable
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The reported cases of clinical and dental negligence
repercussions far into the future which is why you need expert, experienced advice to secure the
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Information // The Inspector Calls 37
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The Inspector Calls Inside Time highlights areas of good and bad practice, along with a summary of prisoner survey responses at HMP-YOI Holloway and HMP Ranby. These extracts are taken from the most recent Reports published by HM Inspectorate of Prisons
This inspection was carried out a month before the announcement to close Holloway. Holloway is the largest women’s prison in Europe with a complex mix of prisoners ranging from remands to life sentence prisoners. It held a large number of foreign national prisoners and women with mental health issues. Deputy Chief Inspector of Prisons, Martin Lomax, says, in opening his report; “After many years of being very critical of the treatment provided to women at Holloway, at our last inspection, in 2013, we reported a much improved picture. Despite the size of the population and the significant difficulties of the physical environment, this inspection found a prison which had continued to improve in all but one of our healthy prison tests.
Sustained improvement, but limited by poor design “At the last inspection we highlighted progress in making the prison safer but emphasised the need to ensure the sustainability of this improvement. To their credit managers had achieved this. The environment at Holloway remained a significant challenge, but this was mitigated by managers and most staff placing decency and respect for the individual at the centre of their work. Crucial support around maintaining contact with children and families was much improved and good support was offered to the many women who had been abused. “The welcome fall in the number of women in prison creates the opportunity to reduce the number of prison places available for them. The need to hold women in smaller establishments makes Holloway an obvious candidate for
He said that Holloway remained a challenging physical environment but; “… it was clean and reasonably well maintained and outside areas were pleasant. Relationships between staff and prisoners were mainly decent and respectful and some staff working with the more challenging and complex women in the prison were exceptional. Support for most of the protected characteristic groups was well developed. Health care generally met needs and mental health support, including the day care facilities, was excellent. “We found the prison to be generally safe and well controlled, with little serious violence and some excellent processes to anticipate and manage potential problems and identify those who might be vulnerable. Women in the population with complex needs had benefited from this support and the caring approach adopted by staff to ensure their wellbeing. The inpatient landing and day care centre were notable in this regard, although there were women on nearly every unit who needed specific care to ensure they were kept safe. Support on arrival at the prison was generally good, as were arrangements to support adult safeguarding. Women identified as at risk of self-harm generally felt well cared for. Formal disciplinary processes were well managed and used as a last resort and use of force was proportionate, with de-escalation used throughout. The oversight and application of force were among the best we have seen. Aspects of the regime in segregation had been weaker but relationships were good. Substance misuse services had developed since the last inspection and met the needs of the population well.”
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The final inspection of HMP-YOI Holloway
closure. As this inspection shows, Holloway’s poor design limits what can be achieved, despite the efforts of staff. That said, the staff and managers at Holloway should be proud of their recent successes, and if this is to be our last report on this iconic institution it is undoubtedly one of the best.”
HMP Ranby
Category C training prison for adult male prisoners Managed by HMPS CNA: 892 Population: 1087 (September 2015) Announced Full Inspection: 24-25 August, 1-4 and 7-11 September 2015 Published: 25 February 2016 Last inspection: March 2014 Safety Poor Respect Reasonably good Purposeful Activity Not sufficiently good Resettlement Not sufficiently good
Safety remains a significant concern Responses to 197 returned prisoner questionnaires: 9.3% IPP/Life Prisoners 8.3% Recall 70.7% Less than 6 months at prison 72% Treated well in Reception 37% Had legal letters opened 42% Food is bad or very bad 26% Don’t know who IMB are 76% Treated with respect by staff 57% Number who have felt unsafe 28% Victimised by staff 58% Difficult to see dentist 58% Easy to get drugs 25% Not engaged in any purposeful activities 27% Less than 4 hours out of cell 14% Don’t get visits This inspection found multiple problems stemming from a number of fundamental factors. The prison held 20% more prisoners than its Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA). Staff cuts had meant staff had no time to do basic work, a third of staff in the ‘closed prison’ had been employed for less than 12 months. 15% of the population were receiving support from mental health services. There was a lack of purposeful activities with prisoners locked up for long periods. The prison was in danger of being overwhelmed with new psychoactive substances (NPS). Safety was a main concern: in his report Martin Lomax, Deputy Chief Inspector, said that staff working on Houseblocks 1 to 3 did not feel safe:
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“… prisoners in these house blocks reported difficulty obtaining cleaning materials, clean clothes and clean bedding; staff appeared very busy with little time to talk to prisoners and this was compounded by the long time many of these prisoners spent locked behind their doors. The prisoner information desk worker scheme and the drop-in facility ‘One Ranby’, had improved the handling of day-to-day issues, but the applications process still did not work effectively and added to prisoners’ frustrations. In summing up Martin Lomax said; “HMP Ranby has not made sufficient progress since the previous inspection. We remain seriously concerned about the stability of the prison, the safety of prisoners and staff and the inadequate measures being taken to prepare prisoners for release and reduce the risk they will reoffend … There should be an immediate temporary reduction in the Ranby prison population to give staff the opportunity to regroup.”
Recently published HMCIP reports Ashfield - December 2015 ‘A well run prison’ Hatfield - January 2016 ‘A safe, decent and purposeful resettlement prison’ Leicester - February 2016 ‘Conditions have deteriorated’ Maidstone - December 2015 ‘Unsure of its role in preparing prisoners for release and managing their risk’ Rye Hill - December 2015 ‘Performing well in most areas’ Rochester - January 2016 ‘Some deterioration’ Warren Hill - February 2016 ‘Well led and making impressive progress’ Wealstun - December 2015 ‘A well run prison but new psychoactive substances causing problems’ Copies of the most recent report for your prison are available in the library.
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“This was reflected in the number of violent incidents, which was much higher than in similar establishments. In one incident, a group of prisoners muscled into a wing office to take back a ‘throw-over’ package of drugs that had just been intercepted by staff. Assaults on staff had increased significantly and a number of very serious incidents had occurred. In the 17 months between inspections there had been a dreadful six self-inflicted deaths and there had been four since April 2015 alone. A further death this year is being treated as a homicide.
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Insidetime April 2016
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Funding prison law and appeal cases - legal aid or private? Lesley Perry and Robert Twell
Most inmates who have been in the prison system for a couple of years or more will by now be very familiar with the fact that legal aid funding is not available for the vast majority of issues which confront inmates on a daily basis. The government targeted a few years back the types of issue that inmates commonly sought advice and assistance on through legal aid and took that privilege away. Nowadays, important issues such as progression through the category system, sentence planning, risk assessment, release provisions under home detention curfew or concerns over proposed license conditions do not attract legal aid for inmates. Only adjudications before the external judge and parole reviews, including recall, allow inmates to obtain legal aid. This explains exactly why publications like Inside Time and others are littered with so called experts in the field of parole and advocacy in adjudications. As for criminal appeals against conviction and sentence, although there have been reductions in fees, legal aid funding is still available. For appeal and prison law cases where legal aid is still available, eligibility for legal aid is dependent on means and the vast majority of inmates qualify. The basic principle is that where an inmate’s income is £99 or less per week, and where savings are less than £1000, legal aid will usually be available. If an inmate has a partner with whom he or she would live upon release, then the partner’s means would need to be factored in when assessing eligibility. Even if an inmate is eligible on means, solicitors can only open files on legal aid cases where there is an identifiable benefit to the client in doing so - referred to as the ‘sufficient benefit test.’ This is not always an easy consideration and a number of factors need to be considered, such as whether an inmate has already received advice and assistance on the same subject in the last months (except from original trial lawyers in appeal cases). If he or she has, then only exceptionally can further advice be given. There are a surprisingly high number of inmates who do not qualify for legal aid, either because of their own income or savings is too high, or because together with a partner, income is over the threshold. For these inmates, the only option for representation is usually to fund a case on a privately paying basis. Some inmates, even though they may well be eligible for legal aid, quite understandably prefer to obtain representation privately, and it is not uncommon for inmates’ families to help with financing a case. Determining fees for any matter is a difficult exercise. Much will depend on the complexity of the matter. Other considerations include whether or not the matter is something which requires an initial visit, or a number of visits. Much will depend also on what work is
required. For prison law cases, most cases require a series of representations. Take, for example, a category review. An inmate really ought to be visited in order to go through the various reports face to face. Much more can be learned about a client and his case in a face to face meeting than simply reading numerous reports and correspondence at a distance. The experience of a representative is also a key factor for any inmate paying privately. Privately funded cases ought to attract the most experienced representatives in any field. One of the key considerations is whether or not privately funded cases should be funded on a fixed fee basis or whether an hourly rate should be applied. That is very much a matter for any client and representative to resolve between them on a case by case basis. Arguably, it is far easier to apply a fi xed fee structure to prison law cases and for sentencing appeals. Conviction cases are always more complex and usually involve quite a bit more work. Even some of the most experienced lawyers can work on a fi xed fee basis. Wells Burcombe’s prison law and criminal appeals team are regularly instructed on a privately funded basis by clients. The process will start by simply writing to us and asking for some indication of fees. It will be important to set out as much detail as possible in your initial enquiry so that we may give the best response. Wells Burcombe can be instructed privately including on a fi xed fee basis - on any issue affecting an inmate and including category reviews, issues concerning sentence planning, OASys report concerns, parole reviews and hearings, recall, representations concerning medical treatment (or lack thereof), general human rights issues, prison transfers, HDC, license conditions, risk assessments and sentencing appeals. Offices also now in Essex and the North East.
Lesley Perry & Robert Twell, Prison Law team Wells Burcombe
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‘A thing that is accepted as true without proof’ Chloe Jay Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Commissioner for the Metropolitan police, has announced that the Met may now move away from their existing policy with regard to sex crimes. Up to this point they have assumed that anyone complaining of a sex crime is telling the truth. To assume makes an ‘ass of u and me’ as they say and with good reason. If you accept that people can lie then why on earth would we assume that sexual allegations are a special case where people never lie? It reminds me of a police station investigation which I became involved in a few years back. A 25 year-old man was arrested for rape and I attended to advise him. His ex-girlfriend (who was just 18) had alleged that he had raped her on New Year’s Eve (it was now April.) He was in total shock and cried throughout the interview with me, explaining that they had been in a relationship and he couldn’t believe what she was saying. He told me in painstaking detail about every occasion that they had met up and what had happened. He then repeated all of this in interview with the police, explaining that sex had taken place but it was entirely consensual. He was bailed whilst they carried out further investigations. He called me a week or so after
his arrest and said that he had managed to find a handwritten love letter from his ex’ dated 1st January thanking him for a ‘gorgeous night’. It seemed that we now had something to finally decide the matter; if the letter was from her, which could be verified by handwriting analysis, then it must surely be incompatible with her allegation, alternatively my client had deviously tried to falsify evidence and therefore was likely to be caught out. Having met my client I was entirely confident that the letter would prove to be genuine. We met with the police and gave it to them. It was approximately 10 months later that the matter was finally drawn to an end. Despite constant badgering from me the police did not seem to think that the letter was conclusive. The complainant had accepted that she wrote the letter and it related to the same night but apparently still maintained she had been raped. The police had given her a considerable amount of time to explain the letter with counselling but finally after 10 months they decided not to take any further action. It felt to me as if the concept that the allegation had been false was simply the last explanation they were willing to consider. In the meantime the police had notified my client’s employer and he had been suspended from work for almost a year. Frustratingly the police
confirmed they would not be taking any action against the complainant and that was the end of the matter. After 17 hours in custody, 10 months waiting whilst suspended from work… you can imagine how he felt. In that case the complaint was made 4 months after sex took place and so there was no forensic evidence available to help clarify the truth. In this way the case was similar to the historic allegations that we frequently see in the press. With these cases there is usually no ‘independent’ evidence such as forensics, CCTV or mobile phone data and convictions must be founded upon the testimony of witnesses alone. I recently dealt with a case in the Crown Court where everything had taken place in the 1970s. Piecing together what had happened, and when, was exceptionally difficult and that was just for the police and the lawyers, let alone the defendant. With many sex crimes defendants are left trying to prove a negative, trying to prove that something did not happen. It can be almost impossible. For that reason the very greatest care must be taken and there is no place for assumption.
Chloe Jay is Solicitor Advocate at Shentons Solicitors and Mediators, a firm who specialise in appealing wrongful convictions and sentences.
Specialists in: Appeals against Conviction & Sentence, CCRC, IPP Appeals and Parole, Prison Adjudications & Discipline, Criminal Investigations, Confiscation & POCA proceedings. For advice and assistance anywhere in England & Wales, either in person or via video link, please call or write to our head office: 5 Holywell Hill, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL1 1EU
Telephone: 01727 840900 24hr Emergency Number: 07592 034170
Criminal Defence Specialists Shentons Solicitors & Mediators, Star Lane House, Staple Gardens, Winchester, Hampshire, SO23 9AD Telephone: +44 (0) 1962 844544 E-mail:
[email protected]
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Jules Purdon l R v Jogee (Appellant) [2016] UKSC 8 On appeal from [2013] EWCA Crim 1433 l Ruddock (Appellant) v The Queen (Respondent) (Jamaica) [2016] UKPC 7 On appeal from the Court of Appeal of Jamaica On the 18th February 2016,the Supreme Court allowed two appeals on the basis that Judges have misinterpreted the law in relation to people accused of being a secondary party to a crime for the last 30 years. In both appeals, there was a
challenge to murder convictions, on the basis of joint enterprise; their convictions have been set aside. The law on joint enterprise is that where two or more people act together to bring about a crime (not just murder) they are equally responsible for the crime even if they play separate parts therefore where someone for example stabs a victim and his friends encourage him to do so he and his friends are equally responsible for the stabbing so long as they intended for that person to be stabbed. The person who did the stabbing is considered the principa l a nd t he ot hers a re
Supreme Court allows two appeals against joint enterprise convictions considered secondary party. This basic principle still remains good law. However for the last 30 years where two or more people are involved in the commission of a crime for example assaulting someone (Crime A) and one of them goes on to commit another offence - for example kill the victim (Crime B) the jury had to consider whether the secondary party foresaw that the principal might intend to cause serious harm or kill. The question for the Supreme Court in these two appeals w a s whet her t he Judges wrongly directed the jury to focu s upon whet her t he
accused knew that there was a possibility that their co-defendants [the principal] might intend to cause serious harm or kill. The Supreme Court ruled, unanimously, that to be guilty of a crime as a secondary party a defendant had to have intended to assist or encourage the principal to commit the crime. The secondary party’s foresight of what the principal might do is still evidence that a jury could use in deciding that the secondary party had the intention to assist or encourage. The effect is that now it is not enough for the prosecution to only establish that the secondary party
could foresee what the principal might do. This principle does not only apply to murder cases but is applicable to any offence where joint enterprise is alleged. The question for the jury is no longer whether the secondary party foresaw that his co-defendant intended to commit the offence that took place rather the question is whether he intentionally encourages or assisted his co-defendant to commit the offence and foresight can only be evidence of such intention. It will be interesting to see how the National Probation Service and prison psychologists deal with the aftermath of this ruling. Any person attending a parole hearing in the coming months may also be seeking to appeal a joint enterprise conviction. The Parole Board and applicants to the Parole Board will be well aware of an almost institutionalized recommendation f rom Of fender M a nager, Offender Supervisor, and prison psychologists that applicants need greater insight into the offence and their part in it. An insight which may well never exist because it was never there in the first
place. This has led to knock backs and seemingly unnecessary 1-1 work and risk reduction courses to unlock insight and offence understanding. Michael Purdon Solicitor is work ing w ith leading London Barristers to identify the best way forward for all inmates who have been convicted of a joint enterprise offence. The benefits of challenging these convictions goes beyond the obvious overturning of a conviction and can have significant impact on licence conditions, MAPPA involvement, employability and ability to move forward in society and properly rehabilitate themselves. R e ade r s shou ld cont ac t Michael Purdon Solicitor on the address’s in the advert below, we have a team of highly experienced parole advocates as well as both QC’s and junior barristers fully engaged in seeking to progress joint enterprise appeal work.
Jules Purdon is a solicitor with Michael Purdon Solicitor. This article is co-authored with Chloe Gardiner, Yimi Yangye and Hayley Brickel of Nexus Chambers
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Internal Judgement Day... adjudications and what that means for prisoners otherwise this is a ground for the case to be dismissed.
available on request.
Emma Davies and Jennifer Mitchell
What happens if I am ‘nicked’? We have provided guidance on the adjudication process previously, but are aware that many of those in custody cannot always obtain legal advice regarding it. This article seeks to serve as a reminder about what to do for those who are subject to d iscipl ina r y action. What is an adjudication? In order to receive an adjudication a prisoner must have breached one of the Prison Rules. Breaches can vary in severity, from possession of an unauthorised article to disobeying a lawful order. Full details of the various offences can be found in the Prison Discipline Manual, and a copy should be kept in the prison library and should be made
If a prisoner is accused of breaking a Prison Rule, they will be given a form called a DIS1, more often referred to as a “nicking sheet.” This will outline when and where they were found to be breaching the rules, and will specify which rule was broken. It will also confirm the details of the of f icer i nvest igat i ng t he charge. This form is especially important, as it will confi rm the timings of every step of the process. The charge should be laid and the form issued as soon as possible, and must be within 48 hours of discovery of the offence. If the charge is laid later than 48 hours, then there must be “exceptional circumst a nce s” g ive n for t h i s ,
It is very important that upon receipt of the form it is carefully checked to ensure that it has been served within the specified time period. The Adjudication Liaison Officer must also be consulted, and this must be confirmed on the form by the investigating officer. Their job is to advise staff on whether a disciplinary charge is an appropriate response to the incident, and if so what charge is appropriate to lay. If they have not been consulted then these are also ground for the charges to be dismissed, as it is possible to argue that the correct procedure has not been followed. What happens after I have been given a nicking sheet? The Governor should hear the case within 24 hours of the prisoner’s receipt of the DIS1 form. If the charge is of serious
criminal behaviour then the case may be referred to the police. The police would then be tasked with investigating the offence. If the police feel that the matter warrants it the prisoner could be charged with a further criminal offence. In such cases a prisoner should not be subject to the prison disciplinary proceedings for the same matter. If the offence is not referred to the police the Governor will need to decide whether he deals with it himself. Cases will usually be dealt with by the Governor when they are less serious and do not attract a punishment of additional days. If the offence is serious or complex in nature the Governor should refer it to an Independent Adjudicator who is a District Judge who visits the prison (usually on a monthly basis) who will consider the matter. If the Governor decides to refer the matter to the Independent Adjudicator then the prisoner must appear before the Independent Adjudicator within 28 days of the prisoner’s initial appearance in front of the Governor. What punishment can I get?
Our open, friendly solicitors working in Criminal Defence will help you with all aspects of Prison Law including: Licence recall • Adjudications Parole hearings • IPP queries Judicial review • Sentence planning issues
Call us on 01865 518971 or visit www.hinesolicitors.com Oxford Freepost address FREEPOST RTHU - LEKE - HAZR Hine Solicitors | Seymour House 285 Banbury Road | Oxford | OX2 7JF
The Independent Adjudicator has the same powers of the Governor in respect of distributing punishments, however they also have the additional power to add additional days onto a prisoner’s sentence. This type of punishment is only suitable for prisoners serving a determinate sentence, and therefore it is uncom mon for I PP o r L i fe Sentence prisoners to be referred to an Independent Adjudicator. However, it is often wise for those prisoners to request their case is referred to the Independent Adjudicator, particularly if they are subject to a parole process. Any such prisoners should speak to their solicitor about this and they can advise them as to what to do if they a re found to be in t he position. There are sentencing
guidelines which the Independent Adjudicator should be guided by before imposing any sentence that involves adding additional days onto a prisoner’s sentence. If the offence is one that carries additional days then the maximum sentence that can be imposed is 42 days for each offence. There is argument to suggest that additional days should be suspended for a p e r io d of t i me . I f t he Independent Adjudicator agrees to do this the prisoner will not serve those additional days unless they commit further offences thereby activati ng t he su sp e nde d d ay s awarded. Less serious offences can carry loss of canteen, cellular confinement and loss of privileges for example. This is detailed within the Prison Discipline Manual. The hearing itself... If the prisoner is appearing for the first time, the Governor will in the first instance assess whether he is dealing with the case, referring it to the police or adjourning the matter to be dealt with by the Independent Adjudicator. Once this decision has been made the hearing will proceed. During the hearing the charge will be read to the prisoner who will then indicate whether he pleads guilty or not guilty. The prisoner will be asked if they require legal representation for their adjudication and should be given the opportunity contact a solicitor. In such circumstances proceedings should be adjourned to enable the prisoner to instruct someone. Prisoner should be aware that although they can ask for advice for a Governor adjudication they will not be able to have a solicitor present at such a hearing and nor is there Legal Aid funding available. There is however funding available for adjudications before the Independent Adjudicator and prisoners should be encouraged to have Legal Advice in these cases, particularly as they could have additional days added to their sentence. If the prisoner pleads not guilty the Adjudicator will hear evidence from the prisoner. The reporting officer should be present as well as any other witnesses that the prisoner or the Adjudicator feels are necessary to provide evidence. If they are unavailable for the
hearing then the case may be adjourned. Essentially the hearing should be conducted much like a trial but often is very informal. During the hearing the prisoner, or if one is present a solicitor will be given the opportunity to put questions to any witnesses. Once all the evidence has been heard the adjudicator will decide whether or not the prisoner is guilty. The standard of proof is the same as in the criminal courts, so the adjudicator must be satisfied so that they are sure that the prisoner has done what is alleged. If there is any doubt then the prisoner should be acquitted. If a prisoner is convicted then a conduct report is usually read out. The prisoner or a solicitor if one is present will then be able to mitigate about the circumstances of the offence and set out any other information that may assist before the adjudicator decides on his sentence. It can be stressful and overwhelming being subject to prison disciplinary proceedings and there is often a lot at stake for those who are subject to them for varying reasons. The process is not always as straightforward as it would appear and often in hindsight those who have been subject to it feel they would have been assisted if they had someone fighting their corner. There are many aspects of the adjudication process that a prison law solicitor can advise on ranging from ensuring that the paperwork has been completed correctly to ensuring that the hearing is a fair and balanced one. It is likely that there will soon to be some changes to the disciplinary process as the current discipline manual (contained in PS 47/2011) expired in September 2015. If you need any help or advice with any prison law issues please contact the prison law department at Hine Solicitors Telephone - 01865 518973 or FREEPOST - RTHU - LEKE - HAZR Hine Solicitors, Seymour House, 285 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7JF.
Emma Davies is a Partner at Hine Solicitors. Jennifer Mitchell is a Paralegal
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Money laundering Keeping it clean… Jonathan Lennon and Aziz Rahman Part 7 of Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) contains the Act’s money laundering offences. The provisions have kept pro-active criminal lawyers (defence and prosecution) busy for years. Money laundering used to be a fairly well understood concept but, it has to be said, that as prosecutors got more and more used to the statutory framework so the multitude of scenarios which could lead to a money laundering charge appeared to grow and grow. Mercifully, the Court of Appeal has, in more recent times, begun to put a brake on some of these advances putting a little more common-sense back into the process of deciding whether a particular situation could amount to money-laundering or not. Laundering Charges Under POCA and ‘Criminal Property’ There are three main money laundering offences created by POCA - they all carry penalties of up to 14 years imprisonment. They are s327 - concealing, disguising, converting or transferring criminal property, or removing it from the jurisdiction. This is one offence which can be committed in the five different ways listed. It is perhaps the easiest way for the Crown to proceed on ‘self-laundering’ charges - i.e. laundering the proceeds of one’s own criminal activity. Section 328; is entering into, or becoming concerned in an arrangement to facilitate the acquisition, retention, use or control by, or on behalf of another person, of criminal property knowing or suspecting that the property is criminal property. That offence can cover a wide range of evils but it can be seen how it would be used in cases where the launderer is not said to be the principal offender in the criminal conduct. Section 329 is the offence of acquiring, using or having possession of criminal property. Again, this can cover a whole range of situations but will often be used to prosecute an ‘end user’; i.e. the person who buys a car, a house etc. from a criminal. There are exceptions to all 3 charges where the person concerned makes an “authorised disclosure” to the relevant authorities but this is really to protect banks and other businesses from committing what would otherwise be an offence when dealing with a criminal’s money. The Act is clear that certain businesses, are under a duty to inform the authorities of any customer they believe is laundering criminal cash through their business. Many professionals have fallen foul of the Act in one way or another. What is ‘Criminal Property’? It can be seen then that the lynchpin of the 3 offences is the notion of ‘criminal property’. The prosecution have to prove that the property, whether it is cash, a house, a car or whatever it is, is ‘criminal property’. This is defined at s340(3) as property which represents a benefit from criminal conduct, either directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, so long as the launderer ‘knows or suspects’ that the property represents such a benefit. The Crown thus has to show that the launderer committed the relevant act (i.e. transfer, concealing etc.) knowing or suspecting that the property derived from criminal conduct. In R v IK [2007] EWCA Crim 491, 8/3/07 the question for the Court was whether the proceeds of cheating the revenue could be ‘criminal property’. In a nutshell a legitimate trader had earned legitimate money undertaking a legitimate business (a shop). However, the allegation was that not all the income was declared - thus cheating the revenue. The Crown prosecuted a money laundering offence but the trial Judge ruled that there was no ‘criminal property’ - the money did not come from crime. Following a prosecution appeal the Court of Appeal found that the undeclared income could in part ‘represent’ the proceeds of crime, as that undeclared amount would be representative of the ‘benefit’. Thus applying the statute properly, that undeclared income could at that point
be criminal property. The case was followed in R v William & Ors [2013] EWCA Crim 1262 - the “criminal property”, as defined by s340, was the entirety of the undeclared turnover, not merely the tax due - even if only the ‘benefit’ was the tax that should have been properly due. How do the prosecution prove the existence of ‘criminal property’? To prove any of the above 3 offences the Crown have to prove that the property was derived from criminal conduct. How do they do that? It all depends on the facts of the case; if the money laundering is a secondary count to the principal crime alleged in count 1, then the focus for all sides is to concentrate on count 1. If though the alleged money launderer is not included in count 1, or the original criminal activity was committed by someone else convicted in an earlier case; or even where there is no convicted principal, the case for the Crown on money laundering becomes more problematic. The Crown will first of all want to prove a link between the principal criminal, the drug trafficker for example, and the defendant as launderer. Under the three offences the Crown have to show that not only that the money derived from crime, but also that the suspect ‘knew or suspected’ it was. Where the prosecution is unable to show or explain to the jury what the exact underlying criminal offence was, then that task becomes more difficult and the Crown will then usually have to rely on circumstantial evidence to try and prove that the money is ‘criminal property’. The same often applies were a particular crime can be proven to have been committed by someone else; then the only issue for the jury, in the money laundering trial, will be what was in the defendant’s mind - did he/she ‘know or suspect’? In R v Anwoir [2008] 2 Cr. App. R 36 the Court of Appeal found that in that sort of case the prosecution had two ways of proving that the property was ‘criminal property’. Firstly, by showing that it derived from a specific ‘kind or kinds’ of crime; e.g. fraud, drug-trafficking etc. Secondly, that from the circumstances the “irresistible inference” can be drawn by the jury that it can only be derived from crime. In R v Da Silva [2006] EWCA Crim 1654, 11/7/06 the Court of Appeal considered a trial Judge’s direction to the jury on the word ‘suspicion’. Generally there should be no jury direction on what it means but in law ‘suspecting’ means that “there is a possibility, which is more than fanciful that the relevant facts exist. A vague feeling of unease would have suffice.” Of course the circumstantial evidence which the prosecution may bring to Court can be quite damming at first sight, e.g. large sums of cash, contaminated notes, lies in interview or a lack of commercial sense in some transactions, linked possibly with connections to someone convicted of the principal offence. However, though the power of circumstantial evidence should never be underestimated, the fact is that the defence may, either through cross-examination or through the defendant’s evidence, show that there are other ‘co-existing circumstances’ which explain the issues and can go to weaken the prosecution’s inference. The Judge may be persuaded that the case is a suitable one for direction to the jury on circumstantial evidence. This simply means that the Judge will remind the jury that, as a matter of law, that it should distinguish between arriving at conclusions based on reliable circumstantial evidence, and mere speculation. Juries are often told that speculating in a case amounts to no more than guessing, or making up theories without good evidence to support them and that is an un-supportable basis for a conviction. Rebutting inferences therefore can be a very significant part of the job of defending and must get early attention. It may lead to the instruction of an expert, for example a forensic accountant. It may be that an accountant or auditor with a particular knowledge
of the business concerned can help a defendant show, for example, that it is not unusual for significant cash flow to come from the sort of business concerned or that certain losses appeared to fall outside the indictable period. The expert may be able to help with the rebuttal by comparing with other like businesses in the area and/or show the existence of a reasonable audit trail. Of course there may be a lack of a proper audit trail etc. Experts will certainly not be the answer every time but may be able to help in the right circumstances and make the Crown’s case look like speculation. Conspiracies In R v Saik [2007] 1 A.C. 18 the House of Lords considered allegations of conspiracy to money launder under the old, pre-POCA, law. The Court found an in-built tension because a conspiracy allegation requires a knowing agreement to commit an offence, whereas the actual offence itself (i.e. not a conspiracy) could be committed by the defendant merely suspecting that the property he was dealing with derived from the proceeds of crime. The conviction in that case was quashed. The case seems to have been accepted as applying equally to POCA cases - you cannot after all agree to have a suspicion, you either know or you don’t know in a conspiracy case. Attempts This is another area where there has been some recent return to common-sense. In R v Pace and Rogers [2014] EWCA Crim 186 (18/2/14) the principal issue before the Court of Appeal was the mental element required for an attempt to money launder. Thames Valley police sent undercover officers into scrap metal yards to sell power-cable, lead flashing, even a brass war memorial plaque all purportedly stolen. None of the items were in fact stolen. The defendants were convicted of an attempt to convert criminal property - s327 (1) (c). The Crown’s case was that though there could be no knowledge that the goods were stolen - since they were not - there could be a ‘suspicion’ which is all the Act required. The Court of Appeal thought it odd that a man could not be guilty, under these circumstances, of actually laundering, but could be guilty of attempting it (para 64) and, following the case of R v Montilla [2005] 1 Cr. App. R 26, found that for an offence of converting criminal property to be made out the property had
actually to be ‘criminal’. “Arrangements” Section 328 has produced some interesting case-law - but again it is all really common-sense, or the checking of a prosecution tendency to depart from common- sense. In R v Geary [2011] 1 WLR 1634 the Court of Appeal considered that the natural and ordinary meaning of ‘arrangement’ - to which it referred must be one which related to property which was ‘criminal property’ at the time the arrangement began to operate upon it. It did not extend to property which was originally legitimate but became ‘criminal’ only as a result of the carrying out of the arrangement. In that case G was handling money which was going to be hidden from a spouse in a divorce case and could, at that point, have become criminal property. The case was more recently approved in the Supreme Court in R v GH [2015] 2 Cr. App. R. 12. It is especially important in money laundering cases to keep an eye on the basic ingredients of the offence and if it is a ‘suspicion’ case seek to get rebutting evidence, and in complex cases ensure that full disclosure has been given of all the accounts and audit trails etc. and an expert for the defence considered. One thing is for sure; given the authorities emphasis on money laundering, an increasing amount of this publication’s readership are likely to fall into POCA’s net in the months and years to come.
Jonathan Lennon is a Barrister specialising in serious and complex criminal defence cases at 33 Chancery Lane Chambers, London. He has extensive experience in all aspects of financial and serious crime and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. He is ranked by both Legal 500 Chambers & Ptnrs & is recognised in C&P’s specialist POCA and Financial Crime sections; ‘he is phenomenal and is work rate is astonishing’ (2015). Aziz Rahman is a Solicitor- Advocate and Partner at the leading Criminal Defence firm Rahman Ravelli Solicitors, specialising in Human Rights, Financial Crime and Large Scale Conspiracies/Serious crime. Rahman Ravelli are members of the Specialist Fraud Panel and have been ranked by Legal 500 as an ‘exceptional’ firm with Aziz Rahman being described as ‘top class’’. The firm is also ranked in Chambers & Partners. Rahman Ravelli are a Top Tier and Band 1 firm.
The strongest legal representation in the fields of serious, complex and business crime. The most informed, expert advice for those being prosecuted.
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DV - HMP Guys Marsh
Q I made a claim in April
Legal Forum Answers are kindly provided by: Hine Solicitors Reeds Solicitors Frisby & Co Solicitors Pickup & Scott Solicitors Answers to readers’ legal queries are given on a strictly without liability basis. If you propose acting upon any of the opinions that appear, you must first take legal advice. Send your Legal Queries (concise and clearly marked ‘legal’) to: David Wells, Solicitor c/o Inside Time, Botley Mills, Botley, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 2GB. For a prompt response, readers are asked to send their queries on white paper using black ink or typed if possible.
2013 with a solicitors firm who took on my claim having consulted counsel regarding my case concerning parole delays. They told me this is a possible infringement of Article 5 of my human rights. My claim was for two years of delays and I awaited my compensation. I came before the Parole Board in 2014 and was eventually released. Unfortunately I was recalled for bad behaviour that year. As I couldn’t get hold of my solicitors I tried contacting another firm to take on my claim. Their response was that the limitation period for these types of cases is 12 months and as over 12 months has now passed, any claim I have had is statute-barred. I would appreciate advice on this matter.
A You state that you pursued a claim for compensation against the Parole Board in 2014, having instructed a particular firm of solicitors to represent you in this matter. You state that the solicitors became difficult to get hold of, and you never did receive any clarification or decision with regards to your compensation claim. You then instructed alternative solicitors to assist you, but were advised that you were out of time. The Human Rights Act 1998 is applicable to your situation. Section 7(1) states that a person who claims
that a public authority has acted in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right may bring proceedings against the authority in question. Section 7(5) states as follows: Proceedings under subsection (1) (a) must be brought before the end of (a) the period of one year beginning with the date on which the act complained of took place; or (b) such longer period as the court or tribunal considers equitable having regard to all the circumstances, This is also confirmed in the Parole Board’s publication, Parole Board Litigation Strategy August 2015, which confirms that proceedings begin at the date the Court issues a claim form at the request of the claimant. The time frame therefore is 12 months. It is important that you make meaningful contact with the original solicitors, in order to establish whether they pursued a claim on your behalf, exactly how far your claim was progressed, whether proceedings remain open or when matters concluded. Section 7(5)(b) does however provide that a claim may be able to be brought after 12 months, if the presiding Court considered it “equitable” to do so in all the circumstances. It is difficult to assess whether your situation could lead to an out-of-time claim. Your second solicitors have seemingly advised you that it would not. If you still
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believe you may have grounds for a claim, you will need to contact a specialist solicitor for further advice on this. Response provided by Hine Solicitors
AS - HMP Oakwood
Q My medication has been
stopped because nurses accused me of trying to obtain a double dose. I was prescribed 400mg of Tramadol for back pain however I was stopped with no reduction or replacement. For over two weeks healthcare have left me with severe withdrawal symptoms. I was put on Methadone and they want me to stay on this until I’m released. I came to prison drug free and getting out on Methadone which I think is for people with heroin addictions. Everything about my case doesn’t seem right to me so I ask is this correct procedure? Have healthcare medically neglected me or made me suffer through no fault of my own? Would I be entitled to compensation?
A You are correct in thinking that Methadone is used to treat people with heroin addictions. It is a synthetic opiate and used as a heroin substitute for patients suffering from withdrawal symptoms. However it is also an established way of treating long term pain, and it has similar effects as morphine, but in the case of Methadone they last much longer. It is advised that due to its strength you should not stop using Methadone suddenly, and your dose should be tapered to your needs. Treatment in prison has to be approved by a prison doctor or a member of the healthcare team. You can ask to see another member of the healthcare team if you are dissatisfied with your
current treatment, and you can refuse treatment, however the healthcare team may decide to give treatment if the prisoner is not capable of making decisions. As you are unhappy with your current medication, I would strongly advise you to discuss alternative options with another member of the healthcare team. If you continue to be unhappy with your treatment, you are able to refuse your treatment. In order to make a personal injury claim for clinical negligence, you would need to prove that your injury, illness or disease was caused as a result of the negligence of another party. As your situation currently stands you may not be eligible for compensation in respect of the prescription of methadone, as it is used in the treatment of long term pain, and the prison doctor may have a suitable plan in place in respect of your medical needs, such as lowering your dosage. I would advise you to discuss this with the healthcare team, as they may be able to advise you of future plans regarding your medication. If you are able to prove that your suffering of withdrawal symptoms was a result of medical negligence, or if you are able to prove that you have become addicted to methadone as a result, then you may be able to claim general damages for pain and suffering, special damages for any past financial losses and expenses and compensation for future losses and expenses. I would advise you to contact a specialist in claiming for medical negligence, and expand on what you mentioned in your letter, and they may be able to give you a definitive answer. Response provided by Hine Solicitors
MA - HMP Moorland
Q One morning an officer
opened up my cell and told my cell mate he was getting transferred to another prison and he should pack up his belongings. I was told to go to work. When I came back at dinner time I noticed my stereo had gone. I told an officer about this and he said he would look at the CCTV and check with reception. Reception told the officer that my cell mate hadn’t come through with a stereo. However when the officer rang the prison my cell mate had transferred to, they said they had taken my stereo off him and would sent it back to me. I’m still waiting for it to come back. What can I do about this theft and what punishment would you expect my ex-cell mate to have?
A Unfortunately it is difficult to provide a definitive answer to your query concerning any punishment that your ex- cell mate may receive for Theft as we do not have enough information about his background. You would have to make a complaint of theft for criminal proceedings to be brought against him. In order to do this I would suggest that you contact the prison police liaison officer in order that he can take details of your complaint and advise whether there is enough evidence to question him about the allegation. If the matter went to court I am unable to tell you what sentence he is likely to receive because any sentence passed would depend on many things such as his previous convictions and also his current length of sentence would be considered when deciding whether it is in the interests of justice to give him a further custodial sentence or prosecute him at all. Response provided by Reeds Solicitors
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Banks on Sentence
Robert Banks, a barrister, writes Banks on Sentence. It is the second-largest selling criminal practitioner’s text book and is used by judges for sentencing more than any other. The book is classified by the Ministry of Justice as a core judicial text book. The book has an app which is for Apple iPads and Windows 8/10 tablets and computers. It costs £99 (incl. VAT). The print copy costs £106. There is also a discount available when the print copy and app are purchased together and a large discount if the current edition is bought with the edition to be published at the end of April. If you have access to a computer, you can follow Robert on Twitter, @BanksonSentence and you can receive his weekly sentencing Alert.
www.banksr.com
Q I appeared in court for sexual activity with a child family member (a section 25 offence) and received a full discount for my plea. The child was my step-daughter, who was 17 years 10 months old. I was aged 37. The prosecution agreed there was no grooming and the offence was opportunist. The Judge said the range was 6-11 years before the plea discount was considered. I was sentenced to 4 years. I looked in Banks on Sentence and saw the range was 1-4 years. I sent a photocopy of the page to my solicitor and asked why I was not sentenced under this guideline. She said she would look into it and sent me a copy of the Sexual Offences Definitive guideline. This said the range was 4-10 years. It looked as if I was Category 1 (because of penetration) and Category A (because of a significant disparity in age). No other aggravating factors applied. Two months later, having heard nothing from my solicitor, I rang her. She said the Judge uses the guideline and not a book. She said she did not understand why the cases in the book indicated such low sentences and said the book was inaccurate. Can you please clear up the confusion? A I have not discussed this with your solicitor
but it appears she does not understand how guidelines work. I assume you were sentenced after 1 April 2014, so you should have been sentenced using the Sexual Offences Guideline 2014, which it seems is the one your solicitor sent you. You refer to an entry in my book which refers to a range of 1-4 years and to victims aged 16 or 17. This means that you and your solicitor were looking at a copy or photocopy of the 2013 edition of my book (or an earlier edition). The guideline there is clearly stated to be the Sexual Offences Act 2003 Guideline 2007. You ask if
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the guideline in my book is inaccurate. The guideline in the book was correct at the time it was published. Interestingly this old section 25 guideline does not apply to your case, as the guideline does not apply where the defendant is a non-blood relative and the other party is over 16. I am at a loss as to why your solicitor says the book is inaccurate when it appears she can’t spot that the guideline is clearly dated 2007 or that it did not apply to your offence at any time and so by inference a lesser sentence is appropriate. So how should you have been sentenced? It is important to start with the Sexual Offences Guideline 2014 at page 51, which deals with section 25 offences. If the Judge said the range in the guideline for the offence was 6-11 years, he was applying the wrong guideline. What guideline it was I don’t know. That range cannot apply to your offending. Your case was clearly a Category 1 offence, because there was penetration. If your step-daughter had been two months older, there would have been no offence under this section. As she was nearly aged 18, I think most judges would consider the culpability factor of ‘significant disparity in age’ would not apply in the same way it applies when there is a child aged 12-14. An aggravating factor listed is ‘ejaculation’ which I consider would have less weight than usual as the other party was a willing party.
discount from the starting point is appropriate. This was the approach taken by the Court of Appeal in R v B 2012 EWCA Crim 349 (a much more serious case than yours, where 3 years 9 months was substituted), R v Alderson 2012 EWCA Crim 1824 (2 years substituted) and R v Davies 2013 EWCA Crim 3166 (16 months). I will ask David Wells to write to you as it appears you may have a ground of appeal.
Q I have just been acquitted of joint-enter-
prise murder and convicted of manslaughter. I was on the other side of the road when it happened but the Judge said I was in the lead role. I fell out with my QC and was sentenced without a barrister. The Judge gave my co-defendant, who was convicted of murder, life with a 14½-year minimum term and my other co-defendant, who was convicted of manslaughter, 3 years. I have a manslaughter and a death by careless driving on my list of previous offences. The Judge said he would have given me a 30-year minimum term if I had been convicted of murder. I got life with a 15-year minimum term, which is the equivalent of a 30-year prison sentence. How can that be right?
A Your case neatly highlights three important principles of law. First is about joint enterprise. You don’t have to be next to the victim to be a lead defendant. The man in charge can shout across the road, “Kill him now” and be guilty of murder in a leading role. Second, the length of the minimum term must not be extended to reflect the risk to the public you pose. An Internet report says that you had a 10-year GBH sentence after you were released from your first manslaughter sentence. It also says you had another 10-year sentence for an attack involving 11 stab wounds. You were released from this sentence shortly before the latest killing. The risk factor may determine the issue of ‘dangerousness’ and so whether a life sentence is appropriate. However, when fixing the minimum term risk is not factor and is a matter for the Parole Board when they consider whether it is safe to release you after you have served the minimum term. Third, the Judge has to sentence you on the basis of both the guilty and the not guilty verdicts. An Internet report says in the latest offence you encouraged a teenage boy to
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attack the deceased. I don’t know the full facts but it looks as if the jury was not satisfied that you encouraged the boy to kill or cause serious bodily harm to the victim. The other factor is that you cannot be the lead defendant in the murder that your co-defendant was convicted of, as you were not convicted of murder. However, you could be the lead defendant in the activity. I think there are a lot of factors which I don’t know about, so I will ask David Wells to write to you. However, I am confident that a) the criteria for a life sentence were present and b) the minimum term was significantly lengthened to reflect your extremely relevant previous convictions (which is a different issue to the risk factor).
Update The judgment in the IPP case was issued on 18 March 2016. Thirteen defendants had asked for their IPP sentences to be set aside mainly because the statutory criteria for passing IPP was not satisfied. The Lord Chief Justice rejected all the appeals and emphasised the need for appeals to be lodged within 28 days of the sentence. There was nothing in the judgment to help those trapped in prison with wrongly imposed IPP sentences.
Asking Robert and Jason questions Please make sure your question concerns sentence and not conviction and send the letter to Inside Time, marked for Robert Banks or Jason Elliott. Unless you say you don’t want your question and answer published, it will be assumed you have no objection to publication. It is usually not possible to determine whether a particular defendant has grounds of appeal without seeing all the paperwork. Analysing all the paperwork is not possible. The column is designed for simple questions and answers. No-one will have their identity revealed. Letters which a) are without an address, b) cannot be read, or c) are sent direct, cannot be answered. Letters sent by readers to Inside Time are sent on to a solicitor, who forwards them to Robert and Jason. If your solicitor wants to see previous questions and answers, they are at www.banksr.com.
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I also think with the age of your step-daughter, most judges would consider that a child sex guideline is not helpful or that a substantial
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44 Jailbreak
her friend and was complaining about Dad. “He was trying for hours and he still couldn’t get it up! It was erect one minute and the next floppy!” I heard her saying.
© Fotolia.com
The Earwig Hunter Prison Widow When I was eight years-old, I was told by my parents that I was an earwigger. Apparently my brother was an earwigger and so was my sister. Whenever my Mum had friends round for a coffee, she would say to me, “Stop earwigging and go and play upstairs in your room please!” No one explained to me what an earwigger was. I knew it wasn’t an illness otherwise
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my Mum would have taken me to the doctor’s right? When I was ten, a teacher at school asked me what religion I was. I told her I was an earwigger… A few days later, Social Services ushered me in to a room and asked if I stuck pins in my dolls? They also wanted to know if I went camping at Stonehenge with my parents and whilst there did I do a bit of Morris Dancing around fires with my face painted. When I started high school I
met Noreen who later became my best friend. It was down to Noreen that I eventually found out what an earwigger was. She too was an earwigger. From then on I decided to make earwigging a hobby. Some of the things I overhear are funny and pretty much disturbing at the same time. I overheard my Mum talking to her friend in the kitchen one day. I was earwigging from the top of the stairs. She was having a coffee with
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time when they are wearing their watches on their bloomin ankles!” Perhaps the tagging people need to redesign the devices as they are confusing our lovely old age pensioners?
I’d learnt about sex education at school and thought, ‘hey up, a divorce is on the cards here!’ Her friend simply asked her, “So what are you going to do?”
One day whilst visiting Garth Prison, I sat outside near the visitors centre because it was a scorching day. I grabbed a coffee and went deep in to thought.
Mum replied, “I’ll just have to throw the bloody tent in the bin!”
An old gentleman and what appeared to be his son sat alongside me. The old man asked his son how ‘he’ was, meaning the prisoner they were about to see.
During adulthood, I made earwigging a career. Long journeys when prison visiting can be tedious so I’d take a notebook and see what I could earwig. I was once on the number 8 bus on-route to Strangeways and was sat behind an old lady and her daughter. Two lads were waiting to get off at the next stop when the old lady pointed at them and whispered to her daughter, “What is wrong with the youth of today?” “What’s that Mother?” Her daughter replied. “Well look” she tutted, “How can those boys look at the
His son said, “He’s fine, he’s clean now you know”. “Oh right, so are prisoners allowed a bath when they see their families?” He smiled. I looked over at the son and he looked at me with that mutual understanding that whoever they were visiting had detoxed. One of my favourite earwigging experiences was when I was at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. A guy with a strong Mancunian accent was using the word, ‘big lad’ whenever
he greeted a fairground ride operator. He was saying, ‘thanks big lad’ and ‘how you doing big lad.’ There was absolutely no malice intended, he in his own way was just being polite. But I saw him near the miniature train ride and he got on it with his kids. The operator walked up and down the carriages checking if everyone was secure. The Mancunian guy said, ‘thanks big lad’ to him. Thankfully the dwarf who was operating the train didn’t take offence and all was well. In fact no one batted an eyelid. Some people are comic geniuses without even knowing it. Just the other day I was stood outside Cash Converter and a young man came out of the shop with two PlayStation Games. He commented to his pal, “Wow I’ve got a bargain! They were five pound each and I managed to get two for a tenner!” I am now looking for professional prison earwigger’s as I am pretty certain that some things overheard on prison landings are little gems! Go on, try earwigging for a week and see what you find!
Jailbreak // Creative Writing 45
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for our stories - he is determined that we are all going to write short stories it would appear. We had a group discussion about what we look for in a character. Not sure why but James Bond came up a lot, it was decided however, that the villain is usually the more interesting character. We talked about stereotypical characters and also discussed how important it is that we can ‘see’ these characters. A bit like reading a book and ‘casting’ actors into any future screen play. (My ‘counting sheep’ method if I can’t sleep). Reading about a character, their flaws, their good points etc enables the reader to imagine that person; it was agreed that it was important not to give too much of the character in the first instance, thereby not leaving yourself the opportunity to develop their ‘personalit y’. Main points of developing your character: l Decide if they’re going to be the goody or baddy in your story;
© Fotolia.com
Diary of a creative writer Lucy Forde
Lesson One There can be nothing more daunting than one’s first day at school, or in my case back at school. The smell of school hasn’t changed in the nearly sixty years since I took my first tentative steps into school and my teacher M iss Bannerman (who wore her cardigans back to front, a small memory that has stayed with me). No chalk dust now, of course, no mum to spit on a hankie and wipe whatever dirt I managed to acquire on the walk to school - I was the child that could get dirty in the bath! No turning back to see mum pretending she had dust in her eye as her first born took those giant steps, they could have been tears of relief of course; no, just me checking I’d locked my car,
making sure my phone was off and that I’d remembered the paperwork and, most importantly, my pad and pen. I drew the line at the ‘Frozen’ book bag my granddaughter offered to lend me. After wandering round a maze of paths and corridors - moaning that I should have brought a ball of string as a guide as well - I eventually found my classroom. Our tutor introduced himself and sensing that I was heading for the back of the class made me sit at the front! When the rest of the group arrived we each had to introduce ourselves and say why we were doing the course - couldn’t come up with anything witty, just that I wanted to do something for me, oh how boring. First lesson was all about forming characters
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l Give them a quirky hobby/mannerism/etc for example a bad guy could love his pet rabbit - something the reader wouldn’t expect; l Don’t worry too much about ‘back story’ - it gives you the opportunity to develop them, warts and all, as the story unfolds. We were given a sheet with questions to help
Shock horror, we were given homework!!! To write a short story! The story could be anything under 1000 words long but preferably under 200 words. It is important with a short story to have a definite beginning, middle and end. I actually found that it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. In a flurry of enthusiasm - not likely to be repeated and certainly not left over from when I was at school - I did my homework the next day and not the night before (or the morning of) class. You can read my story below, I’ll let you know what the reaction was.
Editorial note Can you write a story in 200 words? If so send it to us at our usual address. Mark your letter ‘story’.
The Funeral “His wife”; Olivia heard the distress in the statement and sensed that it came from the very pregnant young woman sitting with Simon’s fellow officers in the pew behind her. As the Army Chaplain continued with his eulogy, realisation dawned on her; the late night meetings ‘so I’ll sleep at the mess’ phone calls; the interminable weekend manoeuvres and yet she had spotted other officers in town but hadn’t thought to question him, it had always slipped her mind by the time he got back; the ‘you won’t enjoy it’ receptions that he always attended without her; the uncomfortable shuffling of his brother officers not wanting to meet her eye when she had taken her seat in the front row of the garrison chapel. Olivia joined her in-laws as they followed the coffin out of the church and waited in the porch to greet the other mourners as they filed out. She held the pregnant girl’s hand, a little too firmly maybe, turned to Simon’s parents and introduced them to their grandchild and its mother.
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us develop a character (if you’d like an idea for this please write in to the paper for my attention) - we had to give them hobbies, something quirky about them and three words to describe them. It was actually harder than I thought it would be and a lot of scribbling out was involved! We were then introduced to flash fiction and given some examples of short stories, very short stories! Craig told us of many competitions that we could enter with short stories from 50 words to 2000. He clearly has far more faith in our skills than us - or certainly me.
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46 Jailbreak // Fitness
Relax the Back The Prison Phoenix Trust
1
Happy Cat Breathe in
Insidetime April 2016
www.insidetime.org Almost all of us get back pain at some point in our lives, and it can make you miserable. Long periods of bang up lying on your bed and the stress of jail don’t help matters! Lying still with the feet flat on the bed or floor and the knees bent is probably the best thing to do if your back has gone “ping!” But you can start to help yourself once you’re not in great pain, with some gentle exercise. These yoga moves will stretch and release your back in all its directions. Go slowly while doing these. Listen to your body. If anything feels wrong, do it more slowly or just go to the next move. Try them out and see if they help. These movements are also good for when your back is not hurting, to keep it strong and supple.
2
Angry Cat Breathe out
Change your thinking... Change your life Terry Williamson
Move between these two movements, flowing with the breath ten times.
3
Side Stretch With your feet wide apart, bend your right knee and rest your forearm on it. Use the other arm to stretch up and over. Take five slow breaths here. Repeat on the other side.
4
Sitting Twist Sit with your legs crossed and twist to your right. Hold for five deep breaths and repeat on the other side.
The inaugural London marathon was in 1981 and 7,747 people were fortunate enough to take part in what has become a global, iconic event. Last year in 2015, there were 37,800 participants and they included hundreds of people in various weird and wacky fancy dress costumes, teams of people pushing large objects and the oldest runner was the grand old age of 90. And he was over a decade younger than the oldest ever runner, Fauja Singh who was 101 when he completed the full distance. So it begs the questions... what does it take to run a marathon and more specifically what has changed in the last 30 years to make it so accessible to everyone? Notwithstanding, we have clearly had advances in nutrition and physical training but I’m not convinced everyone is eating avocados, drinking coconut water and tracking their heart rate zones with a smart watch.
6
5
Down Dog Get your hips as high as you can. Build to ten slow breaths.
Hare Sink down so your buttocks are on your feet and your back is stretched out comfortably. Have your knees wide. If your sitting bones don’t reach your heels, put a pillow underneath. You want to be relaxed, not holding yourself in the air. Stay for ten slow breaths, paying attention to how your back feels and knowing that you have done something good for yourself.
First of all let’s cover off the basics. If you speak to any elite athlete, in any sport and there will be common themes they will talk about in the context of performance. Determination, effort, commitment and consistency to name a few - and these are great characteristics needed to achieve anything in life. However as a performance coach who has worked with a wide range of successful individuals from all walks of life I come across one element that is critical to this success. You have to 100% believe it is possible. Let me give you an example. Before the 6th May 1954, most of the planet
thought that a sub 4 minute mile was nigh on impossible. Many athletes had come so close for such a long time it was genuinely believed to be out of reach of the human body. But one person had a different mindset and just after 6pm at a windy racetrack in Oxford, Roger Bannister recorded a 3m59.4s in front of 3000 spellbound spectators - and changed the world. Within days this record had been broken again and again by other athletes. Why? Because now they knew it was possible and they believed they could do it. Before it was unreachable, intangible and a lingering element of doubt hung in the air. Now they had seen it with their own eyes and the impossible had become possible in the blink of an eye. Too often in our own lives we hold on to self-limiting beliefs that weigh us down and before we know it we have accepted our fate. We make elaborate excuses that are linked to our environment, our background and our circumstance to reinforce this negative behaviour. Henry Ford famously said, “If you think you can, or you think you can’t you are probably right” and you can choose what to think, at any time, in any place. Even in prison. So it’s worth learning from your past so you can embrace your present and keep looking forward. Change your thinking, change your life.
Terry Williamson is a sports performance, psychology and Life Coach at InSearchofBrilliance.com
Eddie Izzard completes 27 marathons in 27 days marathon on the last day to complete his challenge beneath a statue of Nelson Mandela in Pretoria. The comedian’s endurance feat raised more than £1.35m. If you want a free book and CD to help you set up a regular yoga and meditation practice write to The Prison Phoenix Trust, PO Box 328, Oxford OX2 7HF. The Prison Phoenix Trust supports prisoners and prison officers in their spiritual lives through meditation and yoga, working with silence and the breath. The Trust supports people of any religion or none. We also run weekly yoga classes for prisoners and staff.
Comedian Eddie Izzard completed his challenge in South Africa to run 27 marathons in 27 days for Sport Relief. The 54 year-old needed to run a double
“That was very, very tough,” Izzard told reporters as he swigged from a celebratory bottle of sparkling white wine. The 27 marathons were intended to reflect the 27
years Nelson Mandela spent in prison before becoming South Africa’s first black president. Over the 707-mile route, Izzard battled through dehydration, heat exhaustion and sunstroke. “It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Thank you to everyone who has donated [and] don’t do this at home”, said a very tired Izzard. BBC
Jailbreak // Fitness 47
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Get the body you want Inside & Out If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t run, then walk, if you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.
Marathon Training Focus Program When preparing for a marathon people tend to ditch the weights in favour of getting the miles in. While this will be beneficial for increasing endurance, this may lead to injury. If the body’s muscles aren’t conditioned for the impact, stress will be absorbed elsewhere, including bones and connective tissue.
Maintaining a strength program is critical for improving running efficiency for the marathon ahead. Distance running breaks down the muscles in the body and can result in loss of strength, which in the end can slow you down. With a tailored training program, this muscle breakdown can be assisted, and strength can
be maintained through long-distance and endurance training. Each of the 4 phases below has a different focus, allowing for a total of 16 weeks. Your Training Focus should mirror and support the Marathon Focus to help you finish your marathon goal feeling strong.
Martin Luther King Jr
Phase 1 (weeks 1-4)
On 24th April at 9am people will be taking to the streets for the London Marathon 2016. Each person will be running for their own personal reasons - maybe to face a new challenge, get fit, raise money and awareness for a charity, step out of a comfort zone, make new friends, sense of accomplishment or inspire others. But a marathon isn’t only defined as a long-distance running race, it can be any long lasting difficult task, which could be a prison sentence. Imagine trying to run a marathon without any practice or preparation. In prison you also need to be physically fit and mentally in a good place no matter how long the sentence. It’s a test of endurance not a sprint. We can all find excuses not to do things in life, but we should take inspiration from British astronaut Tim Peake, who is running the marathon on the International Space Station, while orbiting the Earth at 400km. Strapped to a treadmill, he will be able to follow the streets of London on an iPad. This really shows there are no excuses, in a cell or in space, anyone can do it!
Marathon Focus: Base Training Focus: Stability
Dick Beardsley and Inge Simonsen crossing the finish line hand in hand at the first London Marathon in 1981, a gesture which has come to symbolise the spirit of the event. The three victors were followed across the finish line, by 6,252 other runners (out of 7,747), many attempting the marathon distance for the first time. As Beardsley famously said afterwards: “What does it matter who wins anyway? As far I’m concerned anyone who finished this thing is a winner” - a sentiment that stands today. not too late to get involved. The marathon is 26.2 miles in distance, which is 1,660,032 inches. An average stride being 30 inches, it takes 55,334 steps to go the distance. Good luck! Hope you heard the radio show ‘Check Up’ on National Prison Radio. I was invited in to discuss how exercise can help keep people calm and reduce aggression. The first part went out in March talking about breathing techniques. The next part goes out on Tues 5th April, midday and 6pm repeated on Sunday 10th at 10am, going through some simple cardio, which will help you with your marathon training!
The charity he supports is The Prince’s Trust, who I turned to when I was starting up the Cell Workout business. They help young people get into jobs, education and training, with invaluable business advice and guidance. I didn’t make the ballot this year, but I plan to run for the Samaritans next year, which do such an important job for people in prison and on the out, providing support to anyone in emotional distress and struggling to cope. I wasn’t a listener during my time, but knew people who were. They do an amazing job to help those feeling up against it in prison, (although sometimes called upon for a burn). So what would be your reason for running the marathon and who would you support? Why not start training to run your own marathon or even give it a go on the day, following the action on your TV? Whether you run, jog, march, walk on the spot, or a combination, its
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and keep your fitness questions coming in. L. J.
During the Stability Phase, the focus isn’t on the weight lifted, but rather on form and execution. The priorities should be practicing and mastering bodyweight movements including single leg exercises, like lunges and single leg squats. Both exercises will strengthen the hips and prepare the muscles to handle the increased pounding on the ground. So while it may be tempting to up the weight, keep the weight light and practice mastering the movement. Runners should focus on high repetition sets (12-15 reps) with little rest time (30-45 seconds) in between exercises.
Phase 2 (weeks 5-8) Marathon Focus: Aerobic Endurance Training Focus: Strength During the Strength Phase, the focus is on bilateral exercises like the barbell squat and barbell deadlift. Whereas unilateral exercises may be the focus in the Stability Phase, it’s important to choose exercises during the Strength Phase where the weight can be loaded up to a challenging intensity. Instead of opting for higher repetitions, choose a load that is challenging for 5-8 repetitions. The increase in intensity also requires a longer rest period (1-2 minutes).
fibres and help you maintain strength while not putting wear and tear on the muscular system. These bodyweight plyometrics can also serve another function of improving running form, muscle and tendon stiffness. Since the focus is on form and intensity and not volume, sets and reps should be relatively low (2-3 sets of 3-5 repetitions) and rest times should be fairly long (2-3 minutes) between exercises.
Phase 4 (weeks 13-16) Marathon Focus: Taper Training Focus: Maintenance & Recovery During the Taper Phase, with the hard work done, its time to give your body some time to recover, while still maintaining a high level of fitness. You will also want to focus on stretching to promote recovery. In the last 10 days before a marathon, any exercise that is too strenuous and taxing can have a negative effect. Focus on short runs, stretching and move back to bodyweight movements like press ups, pull ups, squats, and lunges. For those who still want to use additional weight, it’s important to keep the load light and avoid hitting failure. During this phase, go back to a higher repetition scheme (10-15 reps) while keeping sets moderate (2-3 sets) and rest times short (45-90 seconds).
Phase 3 (weeks 9-12) Marathon Focus: Peak Training Focus: Power During the Power Phase, runners should stick to full body movements and perform them quickly and explosively. Exercises like squat jumps, box jumps, and plyometric press ups are perfect since they still activate muscle
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48 Jailbreak // Reading and Radio
The power of Shared Reading Margaret Meyer reads with prisoners on the PIPE at HMP Hull Everything remembers something. The rock, its fiery bed, cooling and fissuring into cracked pieces, the rub of watery fingers along its edge. The cloud remembers being elephant, camel, giraffe, remembers being a veil over the face of the sun, gathering itself together for the fall. Taken from What The Heart Cannot Forget by Joyce Sutphen The extract from the poem above is the most recent used in our group and the opinions and discussion ranged from loss, love and life cycle to questions like are we the inescapable product of our past natures and nurtures and is it, to quote Tennyson, “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”. However, as well as this poem I would like to celebrate something else. We are coming up to the three year mark in our shared reading group at HMP Hull PIPE. Group members have come and gone for various reasons but we have always managed to establish and maintain a core group. Four group members last year successfully completed a mini shared reading facilitator course. This is run over six week s by t he Reader-inResidence and involves an
introduction to the basic skills of facilitating a shared reading group with a view to those ‘qualified’ being able to run their own groups outside of the formal Reader in Residence led sessions. All four ‘graduates’ have had or will have an opportunity to run a group, or part of a group, observed by the Reader-inResidence. Whilst leading to a deeper understanding of how a shared reading group works, this mini course has also helped to build on skills already developed from regular attendance in a shared reading group, including listening, reading aloud, empathy, tolerance and the confident expression of opinions. In addition to The Reader’s regular monitoring and evaluation of group members I asked my group to jot down their thoughts about shared reading without the formality of a tickbox form. Admittedly most forgot to do this but their regular commitment assures me that they enjoy it and get lots out of the chosen literature, the reading aloud and ensuing discussions. One resident who responded to this request was one of those who had completed the mini DIY shared reading course and below are some extracts from what he wrote - all of which demonstrate how much can potentially be gained from shared reading in a prison setting and by building on skills through committing to other activities such as the DIY shared reading course.
He wrote: ‘It helps us understand ourselves through reading about and empathising/ relating to the characters’ [in the literature we read].
The other ‘Big C’ This month we’re talking about Hepatitis C
‘It also increases my respect for others, their ideas and opinions’.
Hepatitis C is a virus which damages the liver. If it’s left untreated it can lead to serious health conditions, including liver cancer and liver failure.
‘It has taught me that listening is as integral to good communication as talking’. ‘It is a remarkable learning tool and a relaxing, enjoyable method to aid in people’s personal development’ Notably, in a different context this same prisoner remarked that shared reading is the one afternoon in the week when he can imagine he is not in prison. If you have not yet tried shared reading perhaps such observations will persuade you to take the plunge. Need we say more! By the time this article goes to press all of t hese ‘DI Yers’ w i l l have moved on in their prison progression and I am sure they will put these new found skills to good use even if that does not involve the actual facilitating of shared reading groups.
Margaret Meyer is a practitioner with the Reader Organisation The Reader organisation is an award-winning charitable social enterprise working to connect people through great literature. In weekly sessions, a practitioner reads aloud a short story or extract and a poem. Anyone in the group may choose to read too: some do, others don’t. In this way, connections are made with thoughts and feelings; some people reflect on these privately, others are more vocal. Either is fine. The emphasis is on enjoying the literature.
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Insidetime April 2016
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Prison officers enter NPR studios National Prison Radio has recruited two extremely helpful prison officers to answer your questions about prison life. Perhaps there’s something on your mind, something troubling or frustrating you, or something you really don’t understand about how prisons work. NPR’s Ask An Officer prison officers Sonja and Paul may be able to help. Every month they come in to the National Prison Radio studios to answer your questions and giving their advice. Anyone can write in with questions, it doesn’t matter what it’s about. Ask an Officer gives you the space to ask questions you might find it hard to talk about. It could be something very personal, it might be that thing about the prison system which has always confused you, or it could just be something that’s bothering you. So far Sonja and Paul have answered questions about why prison officers do the job? What to do if you’re worried about the conduct of a member of staff? How to get the most value out of the officers on your wing? And it’s not just questions about officers we’ve received - Sonja and Paul have given advice on HDC applications, transfers, prison guidelines, absences from work and much more. If you’ve got something you’d like to ask them, send your thoughts and questions to Ask an Officer, National Prison Radio, HMP Brixton, London, SW2 5XF. And tune into PRIME TIME on the last Wednesday of the month at midday and 6pm to hear them answered.
Which prisons are ‘taking over’ National Prison Radio? National Prison Radio likes to get out and about, and visit as many prisons as possible. We run regular NPR Takeover Days, where we record and broadcast our key shows in one lucky prison. If you want us to visit your prison, write to us and tell us why. National Prison Radio, HMP Brixton, London SW2 5XF
Monday 11 April YO Takeover On The Road comes from HMP & YOI Rochester Tuesday 12 April HMP Exeter Takeover Day Tuesday 26 April HMP Channings Wood Takeover Day
The Hepatitis C Trust estimates that at least 10% of people in prison have Hepatitis C. The actual figure is probably higher. You can only catch Hepatitis C through blood to blood contact - for example through sharing the equipment to inject drugs or have a tattoo. It can also be transmitted through sharing razors and toothbrushes. It’s possible to contract Hepatitis C through sex where blood to blood contact is possible. You can’t get Hepatitis C from sharing a cigarette, food or drink, hugging, kissing or shaking hands. If you know you’ve got Hepatitis C, or you think you might be at risk, you can get tested and treated in prison. There’s nothing to fear, because there are new, highly effective treatments with minimal side effects, which can take as little as eight weeks to clear the virus. To hear more about why you should get tested and treated for Hepatitis C, tune into Porridge, Check Up, Prime Time and Sound Women on National Prison Radio from Monday 4th April. And if you want to share your own experience of Hepatitis C - maybe you’ve had it, or know someone who has - you can write to us at National Prison Radio, HMP Brixton, London, SW2 5XF. Sharing your experience might help someone else who’s worried sick about Hepatitis C. Remember, if you think you have put yourself at risk in prison you can always request a test. The sooner you get tested the sooner you can access treatment. Speak to your prison healthcare team or call the Hepatitis C Trust’s free confidential helpline on 0800 999 2052. You don’t even need to add the number to your pin.
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l A spelling mistake in an online bank transfer helped prevent a nearly $1 billion heist last month. The hackers breached Bangladesh Bank’s systems and stole its credentials for payment transfers. They then bombarded the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with 36 requests to move money from the Bangladesh Bank’s account there to entities in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Four requests to transfer a total of about $81 million to the Philippines went through, but a fifth, for $20 million was held up because the hackers misspelled ‘foundation’ as ‘fandation’, prompting a routing bank, Deutsche Bank, to seek clarification from the Bangladesh central bank, which stopped the transaction. At the same time, the unusually large number of payment instructions and the transfer requests raised suspicions. The transactions that were stopped totalled $850-$870 million. Bangladesh Bank has said it has recovered some of the money that was stolen, and is working with anti-money laundering authorities in the Philippines to try to recover the rest. Reuters
Do you know?
l If you like your bugs to look like Battenberg cakes, then this little guy is the one for you. Let us introduce you to the Rosy Maple Moth. With bright yellow and pink coloured wings and body, the moth looks a lot like he’s been designed by Mr Kipling. You know, the guy who makes those exceedingly good cakes. Or perhaps it’s an ever so slightly more elegant distant relative to Mr Blobby, who knows? The Rosy Maple Moth, or Dryocampa rubicunda, is native to North america. The females are slightly larger, with a wingspan of up to 50mm. The Metro
l Remember Jeremy Meeks, the criminal whose mugshot had people swooning? Well, now he’s out of jail and ready to leave the thug life behind, as the 30-year-old is now a model. The next time you see him might be in the pages of Vogue or GQ, as he has been signed to White Cross Management and is ready to start his new career. His mugshot racked up more than 100,000 likes after it was posted on the Stockton Police Department’s Facebook page in 2014 when he was charged with possession of a firearm. Women offered to pay his bail and let him hide out at their houses, despite Meeks being a married man. He told ABC last year that he had been putting in time at the gym to be ready for his close-ups when he left prison. ‘I eat healthy. I do a lot of push-ups, pull-ups, dips, burpees, and I stay very active,’ he said. His agent is also excited about the former prisoner’s future. “We have a lot in store regarding Jeremy’s new career,” Mr Jordan said in a statement. Metro
l Brian Earl Taylor, 21, broke out in song during his court sentencing for unlawful imprisonment and carrying a concealed weapon in the USA last month. In an impassioned plea to the judge, he riffed upon the melody of the Adele ballad, ‘Hello’, to apologize for his crimes. “Hello there, your honour, I want to say I’m sorry for the things I’ve done and I’ll try and be stronger in this life I chose, but I want you to know - that door, I closed. And your honour I’m sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry”. Despite his moving performance, Taylor was sentenced to two years in prison for carrying a concealed weapon and 18 months to 15 years for the unlawful imprisonment charge. CitiFM
l Hi-tech mapping on driverless cars means vehicles know where they are to within 10cm - ordinary GPS maps used in regular vehicles are accurate to within about 6m. Forbes
l The phrase “put a sock in it” began as a way of saying that the gramophone was too loud. Because gramophones didn’t have volume controls, people would stuff socks in the horn to decrease the volume. Metro
l According to a new report from the New York Times, cereal is dying a slow, soggy death for one reason: millennials just don’t think of it as a solid breakfast option. Why? Because it’s too much damn effort! The New York Times reports: ‘Almost 40 percent of the millennials surveyed by Mintel for its 2015 report said cereal was an inconvenient breakfast choice because they had to clean up after eating it.’ Fair enough, scrubbing off cereal flakes stuck to a bowl with milk is tough. Teenagers like to save that wrist power for selfies and Facebooking. Metro
l A woman is facing a court appearance after being filmed driving a car with a tree wedged into its front. Police in Roselle, Illinois, said the tree was thought to be around 15ft tall. After police stopped the driver at around 11.10pm on 23 January, they noticed that the airbags had also been deployed, possibly from hitting the tree. She was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and will appear in DuPage County Court on 15 April. Sky News
l More than 450 billion Oreos have been sold worldwide since they were introduced by the National Biscuit Company in the U.S. in 1912, but nobody seems to know where the name came from. Metro
l The mummified body of a German adventurer has been discovered on his abandoned yacht - which silently drifted around the world for years. Manfred Fritz Bajorat, 59, was found by two fishermen off the coast of the Philippines. His body was discovered near the radio telephone, as if he was trying one last desperate mayday call. The tragic sailor has also penned a haunting final message to his wife Claudia, who died from cancer in 2010. The note read: “Thirty years we’ve been together on the same path. Then the power of the demons was stronger than the will to live. You’re gone. May your soul find its peace. Your Manfred.” It is not clear how long he had been dead and for how many years his yacht had been drifting, but no reported sightings of him have been mentioned since 2009. Dry ocean winds, hot temperatures and the salty air helped preserve his body. He was identified by paperwork found on the vessel. The Mirror
l A woman has literally been left red-faced after dying herself bright pink when she misused a bath product from Lush cosmetics. Abi Shenton’s skin was left “fluorescent pink” for three days after she mistook a bath bomb from the toiletries company for soap. Ms Shenton (pictured) tweeted Lush saying: “Are your products supposed to stain the human skin a florescent shade of pink?” Lush told the Independent: “We are as red in the face as Abi at the idea that one of our bath melts has been mistaken for a soap.” The Independent
l A goat has been arrested for trespassing in India’s Chhattisgarh after it was found grazing on the lawn of a local magistrate. The landowner called the police to deal with the animal eating his flowers and grass, and the authorities quickly took him into custody. The goat was released shortly afterwards, and his owner took his place in jail. The incident occurred on 8 February, but the goat was “granted bail” by the next day. The goat faces the same charges as his owner, meaning up to seven years imprisonment if found guilty. The Mirror
l Britain is hit by about 20 to 30 earthquakes big enough for people to feel each year, and hundreds more are registered by sensitive equipment. The largest recorded tremor was monitored near Dogger Bank, in the North Sea, in 1931, registering 6.1 on the Richter scale. British Geological Survey l The £50million apartments in The Shard are the highest residences in Europe, with a penthouse 735ft above the ground. However, they do come with sea views... at least, they do on a clear day. Saga
Jailbreak // Do You Know? 49
l Facebook paid £4,327 in UK Corporation Tax in 2014 but the Taxman paid £27,000 to Facebook for adverts telling people to pay their taxes. Channel 4 News
l Police have confirmed the death of DJ Derek (Derek Serpell-Morris), the veteran DJ from Bristol who went missing in July 2015. A nationwide search to find the 73-year-old was halted in March when a member of the public found human remains near Cribbs Causeway shopping centre, Bristol. DNA tests have confirmed his death. The police are not treating his death as suspicious. The DJ, who was formerly an accountant for Cadbury and had lived in St Paul’s, Bristol, since 1978, was a staple at local bars and clubs, and at Glastonbury festival. As well as his status as Britain’s oldest DJ, he was known for playing a combination of 1960s rocksteady, reggae, ska, dancehall and soul music. The Guardian
l A video has emerged of a man stealing a snake from a pet shop, by stuffing it down his trousers. Surveillance video shows the thief lifting a $200 python out of its glass tank before surreptitiously putting it down his jeans. After hearing that the two foot long black pastel ball python was missing, store owner Christin Bjugan spotted the man while reviewing CCTV footage. She told Fox News 6 that the operation might not have gone so smoothly if it had been a Monday. ‘He’s lucky it wasn’t feeding day. Feeding days are on Mondays. And they’re very hungry,’ she said. The Independent
50 Jailbreak // Inside Poetry
Insidetime April 2016
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Star Poem of the Month
Aggression
Congratulations to this months winner who receives our £25 prize
Mark Humphries - HMP Wayland
What a Mess Simon McCormick - HMP Kennet Down the block in cell 1-9 Waiting for me meds Time after time Later and later what’s going on On me bell on and on Ya get the gist now come on What a mess we’re living in Pads are flooded, sinks are blocked Everyone down here, losing the plot Wait a minute, stop Landings a pool, not a table Moved from cell to cell so I’m not stable Middle of the night you see A bright light night clock Checking to see you alright
© Fotolia.com
© Fotolia.com
Aggression like a stagnant pond Lays deep and still Yet it’ll tear you apart It sounds like the whine of a dentist’s drill Ringing in your ears Until they bleed Aggression tastes like petrol and cream Shaken not stirred A bitter taste in your mouth The touch of aggression on your skin Stings like a nettle Needing to be left alone But scratched at and itched again The odour of aggression burns your nostrils Like vinegar and chilli flakes boiled The aroma creeps through the air Aggression hurts and kills It tears families apart Handle life with care
Tired
Time Inside
Neil Barnett HMP Oakwood
Mole Ills
Mark Jones - HMP Kirklevington Grange
Denzil Davies - HMP Erlestoke
I’ve always said don’t wish your life away And it’s more important in tender years But as I sit here alone today A whole new philosophy suddenly appears
I’m not a dog or a pig or a cat I’m no wild animal, no, nothing like that I’m not a mole, but I live in a hole I’m IPP and it’s time we were FREE!
I’m tired of being hot I’m tired of being cold I’m tired of not knowing I’m tired of getting old
I’d trade a day, a week, a month, a year And my previous point of view To bring that time the same step near To the time when I can be with you
Never had no Glock, ‘sawn-off’ nor no flick’ Ain’t no terrorist, no danger to public I’m not a mole, but I’m in a black hole I’m IPP it’s high time we were FREE!
Segregation cellular confinement In the block I am rhyming Here’s my meds f*ckin timing 10 milligrams olanzopine keep me insane Especially down the block when ya lose ya brain
I’m tired when I’m asleep And when I am awake I can’t wait until it’s over Please, soon, for goodness sake!
To hold you and feel you next to me Is a prize I hope long to gain It is a prayer I utter constantly My glimpse of sunshine through the rain
Over tariff mental torture, makes us so unwell Obscene stress of knock backs - “Again? F**king Hell!” We are not moles but they keep us in holes We’re IPP - now we should be FREE!
Written these raps spitten these bars Lookin’ out my window Starin’ at the stars
I’m tired of the gym And of education too I don’t want to go to work Because I know that I’ll see you
I’ve sowed a kiss each and every day I keep them enclosed in my heart They’re next to the words I want to say And growing each day we are apart
So many suicides, alone in their cells Contributing factor was known very well They were not moles, but they died in their holes Those IPPs really should have been FREE!
I’m tired of people wanting things They’re always asking me No, I’ve not got anything! I’m tired just leave me be
To love and be loved is a precious gift To be in love is on a higher plain Each and every hour I wish for this To be with you and in love again
This wouldn’t be done to any other primate So for DECENCY’s sake just give us a date We’re not chimpanzees - but we ARE on our knees We IPPS - you know that we should be FREE!
So keep my love and keep yourself for me Whilst this time we are patiently bide Until we resume our place together for eternity And made sense of this time inside
I’m not a Lord, politician or judge Solomon’s wisdom calls for an end to this fudge Event Horizon precedes black holes in space Gravitas, gravitate - ‘G’ is also for GRACE!
Days pass by nights get darker Red sticker next to my name, they call a marker High risk prisoner but don’t know why Shed a tear, shed a cry Feel insane, don’t know why Ya get the gist so moving on I say again on and on
Every time I write I feel I’ve relieved stress I find it better to get it off my chest So don’t let your emotions take over your brain Write it all down Keep yourself sane Do yourself a favour Release your pain And you understand that these words are true So why not have a go It’s all down to you Emotions are so high Yours stress levels weak So get it off ya chest Find someone to speak
I’m tired of being happy I’m tired of being sad I’m tired of being lonely I think I’m going mad
© Fotolia.com
I’m tired of going out there And giving it my all But most of all I’m tired Of just being here at all
My French Poodle Barry Britton - HMP Rye Hill
I’ve learnt the hard way I was really weak then I started talking Then started to speak Now I feel stronger And not the weak There’s people out there who will really listen Don’t leave them guessin’ let them hear you out Some people find it easy if they scream and shout But deep down let ya emotions break out I’m a celeb now let me out Inside time shout
© Fotolia.com
I love my little poodle And I know that she loves me But we have a major problem And it’s this you see She can’t speak English And my French is pretty bad I get upset when I think about All the talks we could have had We have to use sign language But it’s not the same That we can’t chat like normal I think that’s such a shame But we seem to manage somehow To convey what we’re trying to say One of us needs lessons though © Fotolia.com That will come another day
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Insidetime April 2016
Procrastination P Lumsden - HMP Edinburgh I’ll put off dying Until tomorrow Try writing something That I shall know Is rose-sweet and charming I’ll climb Everest Or Cheop’s peak Be the best At the lamentably poetic Survive one last tempest! I’ll give up smoking And wasting precious days Every captive liking For nefarious ways Turns dreams into sun rising
Until Barbie Drinkwater-Burke Until you sat there praying, the guilty verdict won't come ... Hoping, anticipating, willing ... For a decision that's not made by mum. Watching from a bench whilst your baby boy is sent down... Heart torn in two. .mind a mess, whilst the jury just look on and frown. Until you have to face that day you first see him behind bars Knowing after an hour or two parents have to leave and drive off in their cars ... That feeling of leaving your child scared; upset and alone The only form of contact is when they are allowed to call home The feeling of trying to pick them up, tell them you empathise Knowing you'd never cope if you had to try their shoes on for size The feeling of going to bed each night, when you've hoped the day away Praying you could blink and it's over and they were home to stay The thing about a prison sentence is it’s not just the offender that's punished The family endure each moment until on their return you feel nourished The feeling of failure you experience when they are gone There's nothing you can do even though you are his mom The bright side is its not forever he will be back in your arms someday Until that moment all you can do is let him know we are only a phone call away
Oh What a Show! Nicola Cope - HMP Full Sutton I am different from most people I know To some people I’m just like a circus freak show I lived a lie for most of my life Trying to be ‘normal’ I’ve even had a wife Doing this only made me feel worse I thought the only way out is ending up in a hearse
A Furry Fiend Hugh Kunz - HMP Leyhill A mouse came to my cell today And with a hip and a ho ran away Tweaked its nose and without a sound Ran under the bed along the ground Chased after it with my walking stick A little bit faster step after stick Wish I had a cat I could call To help put an end to this holy war When I threw my missile at the furry fiend It ran out the door and escaped being burned Because hell has no fury like a woman scorned Or a man made to look so foolish By one so small
Bars n Stripes J C - HMP Lewes Prison bars, with fallen stars Milky ways, in prison days Kaleidoscopes with tattooed throats Smartie tubes and coloured coats
Jailbreak // Inside Poetry 51
But after a lot of thinking and doubt I packed my things and walked on out My friends and family hated me for this I went far away and blew them a kiss So at long last Nicola was born, oh what a joy To be a woman is what I wanted from when I was a boy Well I thought that with time people would come around So I just carried on and stood my ground None of them did they just had hate and rage But I don’t care because I am a woman and will live happy to a ripe old age.
A Painted Ship Would you like to be a published poet?
Frozen walls, all the same Horrid lays, can you blame!! All the way they race to say Same old script different day
Then write to:
Sesame seeds, n battered crunchies Sugar n spice and you’ll get the munchies Alarm bells n searching cells Nothing found, no one tells
Set your thoughts free!
‘Poetry’, Inside Time, Botley Mills, Botley, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 2GB
Joseph Brown - HMP Full Sutton Rough and tumble river bubbling in my veins Kaleidoscopic memories I can’t explain It’s something like a painted ship Floating on a clear blue canvas full of clouds Blurring my horizons when I turn the page And neon screams my name out loud Even as the hands of time are bending space That multi-channel nothingness is in my face But this is what I wanted so I can’t complain Stirring in my senses feels like pain When neon screams my name out loud Caught up in this constantly reflective mood Feeling like the only monster in the room Floating on a clear blue canvas full of clouds When neon screams my name out loud
© Fotolia.com
‘Brain-Fried’ Rice D J B - HMP Wymott They call it mamba, NPS, Spizzle, Phish, or Spice! And it’s took over the system, the effects are not nice Healthcare are run ragged, called out all over the jail Elevated heartbeats, red eyes, and cons looking pale It could be a pipe, a waterfall, or a fat one pop They’re alright for five minutes, and then they drop! Spew everywhere, body poppin’ around the pad floor Someone phone the mambulance, and shut the cell door It comes in letters, on visits and over the walls And gets split straight up and put into balls It’s a gram for a oner! That’s not even a lid! You’re a crafty man! I can see what you did! Just once a week it comes around to canteen day And debt heads hit the backs, when they can’t pay And then they end up with a ‘habit to feed’! Heroin addicts have even stopped smoking their ‘gear’ What’s going on there then? To me that sounds queer! Who’s got the power? And on what wing? Get on him then will ya, and sort out a thing Will you send it for us? Make sure it’s a fat ball! Now give us your details, and I’ll make a call Let’s have a scream and send someone under There’s always a victim who’ll make the blunder Smoke the whole joint for free, that’s the deal! Next thing he’s dancin’ like a chicken, and sounds like a seal They say he was off his head, ‘I know’, ‘I seen’ But MDT’s everywhere are coming back clean Now the block is full of people doing their ‘rattle’ And it’s killed off the prison, it’s a losing battle The governors and security’s heads are shot Because they can’t detect it. It’s not like the pot! u We will award a prize of £25 to the entry selected as our ‘Star Poem of the Month’. To qualify for a prize, poems should not have won a prize in any other competition or been published previously. Send entries to: Inside Time, Poetry, Botley Mills, Botley, Southampton, Hampshire, SO30 2GB. Please put your name, number and prison on the same sheet of paper as your poem. If you win we can’t send your money if we don’t know who or where you are! By submitting your poems to Inside Time you are agreeing that they can be published in any of our ‘not for profit links’, these include the newspaper, website and any forthcoming books. You are also giving permission for Inside Time to use their discretion in allowing other organisations to reproduce this work if considered appropriate, unless you have clearly stated that you do not want this to happen. Any work reproduced in other publications will be on a ‘not for profit’ basis. Please note poems for publication may be edited. When submitting your work please include the following permission: this is my own work and I agree to Inside Time publishing it in all associate sites and other publications as appropriate.
52 Jailbreak // Prize Winning Puzzles
Insidetime April 2016
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Read all about it!
Caption Competition
1. Which female tennis player has recently been banned for failing a drug test? 2. Which group have been advised to stop touring to save the singer’s hearing? 3. Who won the Australian F1 GP? 4. Which cosmetic company are planning to move their HQ to UK? 5. The author of Hotel du Lac died aged 87 this month, who was she? 6. Who knocked Arsenal out of the FA Cup? 7. The Beatles producer died in March, what was his name? 8. Which newspaper claimed the Queen wanted out of Europe? 9. How much did Sports Relief make on the night (18th March)? 10. Parents are lobbying for the introduction of which vaccine to all ages? Answers to last months News Quiz: 1. Henry & Imogen, 2. England, 3. Daughter, 4. Scotty T, 5. Sperm whales, 6. Viola Beach, 7. Jeremy Hunt, 8. Virgin, 9. A bag lady, 10. Leonardo Di Caprio (Revenant) & Brie Larson (Room)
Last Months £25 Winner Tracy Shaw HMP New Hall
A £25 prize is on offer for the best caption to this month’s picture. What do you think is being said or thought here?
Fonesavvy providers of ‘landline type numbers’ for mobile phones.
Proud sponsors of Inside Time’s PRIZE quiz ‘Read all about it!’ If you don’t want callers to be disadvantaged or put off by the high cost of calling your mobile - just get a landline number for it. Calls to mobiles don’t have to be expensive! Full details are available on our main advert in Inside Time and at www.fonesavvy.co.uk
Please let me go first, I’m bursting!
Father’s Day 19th June Last Months Winners Bradley Thorpe HMP Parkhurst (£25) Daniel Randall-Coles HMP Winchester (£5) Jack Rogers HMP Aylesbury (£5) The winner will receive £25 and the two runner ups £5. See blue box to the right for details of how to enter.
Send your message (20 words max) to Inside Time and we will publish as many as possible in a special Father’s Day section in the June issue. All messages received will appear on our website. Include the name and address of your dad and he will receive a copy of the newspaper. Entries must be sent to Inside Time ‘Father’s Day’ Botley Mills, Botley, Hampshire SO30 2GB. Closing date 19th May and don’t forget to include your full details too.
Inside Knowledge // All the answers are within this issue of Inside Time - all you have to do is find them!! The first three names to be drawn with all-correct answers (or nearest) will receive a £25 cash prize. There will also be two £5 consolation prizes. The winners’ names will appear in next month’s issue. 1. How many people are self-employed? 2. Who has been signed to White Cross Management? 3. Who said it was vital for former prisoners to “leave their past behind bars?” 4. Which event was a moving testament to the creative power of words? 5. Who has joined The Clink Charity as Group Communications Ambassador? 6. Who was commended for developing a remarkable fly-tying unit? 7. What is supposed to be reasonable and proportionate? 8. Who was sentenced to two weeks in 2006 for taking part in an anti-Trident protest? 9. How many people participated in last year’s London Marathon? 10. How many prisons in England have become smoke free since the smoking ban? 11. How many SIM cards were recovered at HMP Elmley last year?
Answers to last months quizzes PATHFINDER
CROSSWORD Across 7. Duodenum 9. Iambus 10. Stoa 11. Dentifrice 12. Leslie 14. Chi-Lites 15. Treaty 17. Angels 20. Starving 22. Peyton 23. Gravy train 24. Woad 25. Pawnee 26. Admirals
Down 1. Quotient 2. Edna 3. On edge 4. Civilian 5. Embroidery 6. Quiche 8. Monica 13. Lee Trevino 16. Thirteen 18. Sao Paulo 19. Iguana 21. Tarzan 22. Panama 24. Ward
SUDOKU
Family Love Support Target Freedom Goal Brothers Sisters Wife Sons Daughters Outside Work towards Attainment Rehabilitation Partner Respectability Together Friends
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
1. Nepal 2. Canada 3. Type O 4. 1928 5. Polynesia 6. dreamt 7. horrendous and hazardous 8. Mock Turtle Soup 9. Blue Moon 10. electronic 11. Thailand 12. Jupiter
CATCHPHRASE
WORD MORPH
1. Over my Dead Body, 2. Right Under the Nose, 3. See Eye to Eye, 4. Looking Out for Number One, 5. Be-Line, 6. Home is Where the Heart Is
cork core care mare
ANAGRAM SQUARE 1 S
O
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2 P
I
Z
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A
3 O
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4 C
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A
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5 K
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THE RIDDLER 1. Teapot, 2. Stuffed, 3. Name, 4. Hole, 5. Sponge, 6. Riverbank 7. Carpet, 8. Mary, 9. Humorous 10. Footsteps, 11. Silence, 12. Glove, 13. Time, 14. Mirror, 15. Three
ANAGRAMS 1. Gwyneth Paltrow, 2. Winona Ryder, 3. Sigourney Weaver, MIND GYM 4. Jennifer Aniston, 5. Gillian Anderson, 6. Halle Berry, 7. Nicole 1. 1000, 2. 1100, 3. 5120 Kidman, 8. Angelina Jolie, 9. Catherine Zeta-Jones, 10. Kate Winslet
How to enter
12. Who was offered a ‘Frozen’ book bag for their first day back to school? 13. Who was in the riot on Long Lartin’s B Wing? 14. What is a symbol of ‘old ways’? 15. What should you check thoroughly when you are new in prison?
Answers to Last Month’s Inside Knowledge Prize Quiz 1. Kevin’s, 2. Alex Carr, 3. James Timpson, 4. HMP East Sutton Park, 5. Femi Martin, 6. John McAvoy, 7. 2014, 8. HMP Leicester, 9. 34, 10. Matrix Legal, 11. Japan’s 12. Carla Riozzi, 13. Rachel Whitehead, 14. Approved Premises, 15. Tara Levy-White
Our three £25 Prize winners are: Andrew Logan HMP Preston Amy Southall HMP New Hall Marc Christie HMP Wayland
Plus our £5 Consolation prizes go to: Paul Hirst HMP Haverigg Ben Leapman HMP Elmley
Please do not cut out any of these panels. Just send your entry on a separate sheet of paper. Make sure your name, number and prison is on all sheets. Post your entry to: Inside Time, Botley Mills, Botley, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 2GB. You can use one envelope to enter more than one competition just mark it ‘jailbreak’. CLOSING DATE FOR ALL COMPETITIONS IS 21/04/16
Specialist Appeals & Prison Law Solicitors Our experienced and established teams can help with: | Appeal convictions and sentences | Appeal IPP/EPP sentences | Appeal extended determinate sentences | Criminal Cases Review Commission applications | Variation/Appeal of Sexual Offences Prevention Orders | Prison law Funding | Legal aid available for those with limited funds | Private paying fixed fees available, with telephone consultations available on request Accreditations include: | Members of Criminal Appeal Lawyers Association | Association of Prison Lawyers | Manchester Prison Law Practitioner Group Initial enquiries to Appeals Correna Platt or Alison Marriott Prison law Mike Pemberton Wigan Investment Centre, Waterside Drive, Wigan, Greater Manchester, WN3 5BA call email
0333 344 4885 or
[email protected]
www.stephensons.co.uk
Specialist insurance for non-standard risks Getting insurance is expensive enough without the added burden of a criminal record, bankruptcy or voided policy to disclose. We recognise that your past is not necessarily a guide to your future, whatever your circumstances.
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Jailbreak // Just for Fun 53
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Insidetime April 2016
Crossword
Inside Chess by Carl Portman
The Riddler
I was asked if I could give the moves leading up to the position in February’s puzzle. Unfortunately I am not able to find the game in the database or online so I cannot do this. Sometimes, games are played and only the final position is ever submitted. I am also asked to annotate whole games for inmates and I would really love to have the time to do this. You know by now that my chess work with prisons is voluntary and already takes up a lot of my time - which I am always delighted to give. It does mean though that I cannot do all the things I want to do so if I don’t annotate a game please don’t take offence. Where I can I will reply to people, I am sure you understand. Good news though - I won’t let you down in terms of writing my chess column for you to (hopefully) enjoy.
Across
Down
1. The difference in value between a country’s imports and exports (7,2,5) 10. An ornamental hairnet usually worn at the back of the head (5) 11. — Heyer, popular author of romances set in Regency England (9) 12. Landlocked African republic with Bujumbura as its capital (7) 13. In classical mythology, the Muse of music (7) 14. The smallest city in Yorkshire (5) 16. A person who tends to shrink from social contacts and to become preoccupied with his/her own thoughts (9) 19. King of Argos, leader of the Greek army in the Trojan War (9) 20. Colloquially, a master of ceremonies or compere (5) 22. A pungent sauce made from the fruit of Capsicum frutescens (7) 25. — Caldwell, American novelist whose works include “God’s Little Acre”(7) 27. Elderly people with outmoded ideas (3,6) 28. “The paths of glory lead but to the —”(Gray: Elegy) (5) 29. British film director whose films include “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover”(5,9)
2. Biblical writings not forming part of the accepted canon (9) 3. Elizabeth —, Canadian-born beautician and cosmetics manufacturer (5) 4. Knowing, perceiving, or conceiving as an act or faculty distinct from emotion and volition (9) 5. Milton —, former prime minister and president of Uganda (5) 6. 1984 film with Clint Eastwood as detective Wes Block (9) 7. A fragrant essential oil obtained from petals (5) 8. The world’s highest mountain (7) 9. A line on a map connecting places of equal atmospheric pressure (6) 15. Danish nuclear physicist awarded the Nobel Prize in 1922 (5,4) 17. State of the USA in which Memphis is the largest city (9) 18. A rolled and filled tortilla with chilli sauce (9) 19. Northamptonshire home of the Spencer family where Diana, Princess of Wales, is buried (7) 21 Historic city that is the administrative centre of Devon (6) 23. A low oval basin used especially for washing the genital area (5) 24. Willow with pliable twigs used in basketry (5) 26. The eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet (5)
GEF BAD CHI Neil Speed is a former prisoner who came up with the concept of GEF BAD CHI whilst in prison. GEF BAD CHI by Neil Speed is published by Xlibris. RRP: £12.35 Using the letters G,E,F,B,A,D,C,H & I fill in the blank squares. Each letter A-I must appear only once in each line column and 3x3 grid.
I keep getting asked about the 50 move rule. Well, it seems that some inmates think there is a 16 move rule, or even 21 or some such number. Let me clarify that the fifty move rule applies in chess as follows. If fifty consecutive moves have been played where neither player has moved a pawn or captured a piece it shall be a draw. Now let me be clear here. That is 50 moves for each player! You see, when you make a move in your own game you are actually technically only making a half-move. In chess a move is completed only after one move by each player - or a half ply move. Thus you have to make 50 of these each. So in real terms if for example you had a king and rook and your opponent had just a king, if there is no checkmate within 50 moves the game would be drawn. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and ideas about what to include in a book about chess in prisons.
1. What word looks the same upside down and backwards?
8. What sits in a corner while travelling all around the world?
2. What kind of fish chases a mouse?
9. What is round on both ends and ‘hi’ in the middle?
3. Your mother’s brother’s only brother-in-law is asleep on your couch. Who is asleep on your couch?
10. What do you call a dog that sweats so much?
________________ ________________ ________________ ________________ ________________
________________
11. What do you call a rabbit with fleas?
________________
4. What’s the difference between here and there?
________________
12. What rains at the North Pole?
________________
5. What goes up and down without moving?
________________ 6. Take off my skin and I won’t cry, but you will, What am I?
________________ 7. What doesn’t get any wetter, no matter how much rain falls on it?
________________
13. What kind of apple has a short temper?
________________ 14. What do you do with a dead chemist?
________________ 15. Feed me and I live, give me something to drink and I’ll die, What am I?
________________
Answers to all puzzles are in the next issue. Only Puzzles on the ‘Prize Winning Puzzles’ page have prizes for completing.
Wordsearch // Spring is in the air Tom Winckley HMP Ashfield (A8835DE)
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 A
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For this month’s puzzle I am really looking for just one killer move. Material is level and it is white to move. How can he win material? This will be easy for some and more difficult for others. A chess magazine (Donated by Chess & Bridge of London) as your prize if you are first out of the hat. Write to me with your answer care of The English Chess Federation at The Watch Oak, Chain Lane, Battle, East Sussex TN33 OYD or you can email me at
[email protected] and they will forward it to me. Please note that you should always write to me at the ECF not via InsideTime. The solution to March’s puzzle was that after white carelessly played 1Re1xe7 I then played 1…Ng6-f4+ winning my opponent’s queen. The winner will be announced. Congratulations to David from HMP Elmley who was the winner of February’s problem.
S G T R D F Y A D S L O O F L I R P A S
Y E S R F T S O R F E T A L G G P N E P
A A R X Z Y A D R E T S A E C A S N A R
D S U E D V G H M K T P R O S B E E S I
I T B D A F F O D I L A Z S B A S S T N
April Fool’s Day Blossom Bluebell April Fool’s Day Budburst Blossom Cinco de Mayo Bluebell Crocuses Budburst Daffodil Easter Bunny Cinco de Mayo
L E D E R L C V N Z I C O B G D U T E G
O Y U S R T L G C N I V R T D R C L T C
H U B O H B A E B Z E A T H Y T O I I L
K R Q L H O S O B R Y S Y F A G R N E E
N H W H O B W V J E U D I H D H C G A A
A F E E A S T E R B U N N Y S O A S S N
B H R F V H S Y R O M L Z C D S P B T I
G J Y H B A O O Z S U N B E I F R U E E
N O I T A R G I M T Y H M B V J I N R N
I B U N N E Y H D G N A T H A D H N E I
Easter Day Lent Easter Eggs March EquinoxEquinox Migration Fasting Fasting Mother’s Day Good Friday Nestlings Good FridayPalm Sunday Hare Lambs Hare Passover Late Frost Lambs Rainbow
R G O O D F R I D A Y E F Z D H C D G H
P T H F E Q U I N O X X L X T D R H G S
S B M A L B N C M O T H E R S D A Y S N
Y H N Y A D N U S M L A P C G B M Y N U
Y R A D G B N B Y A D S E G R O E G T S
St David’s Day St George’s Day Showers Nestlings Spring Palm SundayBank Holiday Passover Spring Clean Rainbow Sunshine
St David’s Day Crocuses Late Frost St George’s Day Thanks to Tom Winckley - HMP Ashfield for compiling this Daffodil Lent Wordsearch. If you fancy compiling one for us pleaseShowers just send it in max 20Bunny x 20 grid and complete on a grid. we Easter Marchwith answers shown Spring BankIfHoliday use it we will send you £5 as a thank you! Remember to include your Easter number Day and prison with Migration Spring Clean name, your entry. Easter Eggs Mother’s Day Sunshine
54 Jailbreak // Just for Fun
Insidetime April 2016
www.insidetime.org
In this month...
Mind Gym
1 April 1891
136 × 3 / ÷2 / + 6 0 / - 6 0 / × 2 =
The Wrigley Company was founded in Chicago, USA. Originally selling soap and baking powder. In 1892, William Wrigley Jr, the company’s founder, began packaging chewing gum with each can of baking powder. The chewing gum eventually became more popular than the baking powder and Wrigley’s reoriented the company to produce the gum.
__
65
÷2
=
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12
×5 / ÷6 / +250 / ×2 =
__
/
×3
/
-45
/
×14
Submitted by Matthew Windsor - HMP Stoke Heath. Start on the left with the first number and work your way across following the instructions in each cell. If you would like to submit similar puzzles we will pay £5 for any that are chosen for print. Please send in a minimum of three puzzles together with the answer!
1 April 1976 Apple Computer was founded in California, USA.
1 April 2006 The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was formed in the UK. (It was replaced by the National Crime Agency in October 2013.)
Sudoku // Medium
13 April 1866 Birth of Butch Cassidy, American outlaw in the Old West. Leader of the Wild Bunch gang of train robbers and bank robbers.
13 April 1936 British footballer Joe Payne scored a record 10 goals in one match, playing for Luton Town against Bristol Rovers. This record still stands in the Football League.
14 April 1986 The heaviest hailstones ever recorded, weighing about 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), fell in Gopalganj, Bangladesh. 92 people were killed.
17 April 1951
© MW Released life sentenced prisoner
The Peak District National Park was established. It was Britain’s first national park.
Anagrams // Food & Drink 1. RAW INERT MEAL (7,5)
17 April 1986
_________________________
The 335 Years’ War between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly ended with the signing of a peace treaty. The war had been long forgotten and many people regarded it as a myth until historical records were unearthed which showed they were technically still at war.
2. AWFUL RECOIL (11)
Wrongly convicted of a crime?
17 April 1986 British television journalist John McCarthy was kidnapped in Beirut, Lebanon by the militant group Islamic Jihad. (Released August 1991.)
Lost your appeal?
The first Miss World beauty contest was held, in London.
Chernobyl disaster, Ukraine, Soviet Union. The world’s worst nuclear power plant accident. 31 people were killed in the explosion and fire, and leaked radiation spread across the western Soviet Union and Europe.
29 April 1991 Bangladesh was hit by one of the deadliest tropical cyclones ever recorded. 138,000 people were killed and 10 million left homeless.
_________________________ _________________________ 5. CRIED (5)
_________________________
21 April 1916
26 April 1986
3. IN REAL EGG (6,3)
4. A MOTTO (6)
19 April 1951
William (‘Wild Bill’) Carlisle, one of the last train robbers of the American West, was arrested in Wyoming and sentenced to life imprisonment (on 10th May). He escaped in November and was recaptured in December after being shot while attempting to rob another train. He was released in 1936 and received a full pardon from the Governor of Wyoming in 1947.
_________________________
6. RICH EAT OK (9)
What next?
_________________________ 7. CHANGE MAP (9)
_________________________ The CCRC can look again If you think your conviction or sentence is wrong apply to the CCRC
• • •
It won’t cost anything Your sentence can’t be increased if you apply You don't need a lawyer to apply, but a good one can help You can get some more information and a copy of the CCRC's Easy Read application form by writing to us at 5 St Philip’s Place, Birmingham, B3 2PW. or calling 0121 233 1473
Prisoners in Scotland should contact; The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, 5th Floor, Portland House, 17 Renfi eld Street, Glasgow, G2 5AH. Phone: 0141 270 7030 Email:
[email protected]
8. A SUGAR SAP (9)
_________________________ 9. RE A JUG ON ICE (6,5)
_________________________ 10. COOL CHEAT (9)
_________________________ Answers to all puzzles are in the next issue. Only Puzzles on the ‘Prize Winning Puzzles’ page have prizes for completing.
Jailbreak // Just for Fun 55
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Insidetime April 2016
Celebrity Quotes
Pathfinder // League 2 Football Teams Pathfinder League 2 Football Teams
“I’ve vowed to remain single and celibate for a whole year. It will be hard but I’m really going to try. I need to get to know myself” Olly Murs “I’m stood there with no coat, no phone, in the toilet in Downing Street, thinking what do I do? I can’t walk out, my bum is out” Holly Willoughby on her number 10 wardrobe malfunction “There will be consequences if the United Kingdom is to leave the EU” French President Francois Hollande
“I’m saddened about what I’ve seen from Manchester United over the past year or two. It’s like a bunch of strangers have been thrown together. When you play for United and put that jersey on you feel 10ft tall, you see some of these players now, they look like they’re shrinking with the jersey on” Roy Keane
“I am looking forward to the death of rap, I’m looking forward to music coming back to lyrics and melody, instead of just talking. I don’t have the cultural background to appreciate being a gangster” Kiss Frontman Gene Simmons
General Knowledge Quiz 1. In which country is the world’s largest McDonalds Restaurant?
8. Name the stock-market trader who sent Barings Bank into bankruptcy.
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2. Which US store chain is named after the first mate in Moby Dick?
9. What does a numismatist do?
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11. After which actor was Mickey Mouse named?
4. Which instrument did Louis Armstrong play?
__ __ c __ __ __ / __ o __ __ __ __ 12. Which mythological figure flew so close to the sun that the wax on his wings began to melt?
_________________________ 6. On which street do Bert and Ernie live?
__ e __ __ __ __ /__ __ 7. One tablespoon = how many teaspoons?
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Accrington Hartlepool AFC Wimbledon Leyton Orient Barnet Mansfield Bristol Rovers Morecambe Cambridge United Newport The object is to try to fi gure out the well-known saying, person, Carlisle Northampton place, or thing that each square is meant to represent. Crawley Notts County Dagenham Oxford United Exeter Portsmouth
Catchphrase
10. What does a philatelist do?
_________________________
5. What is Triskadekaphobia?
O
_________________________
3. Which Beatle’s first girlfriend was Thelma Pickles?
__ __ __ m __ __ __
M M
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Rearrange the letters in each row to form a word. Write your answers into the blank grid. The first letter from each word, reading down, will spell the mystery keyword.
1 T
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B
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2 N
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B
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3 G
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4 Y
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14. Name the ghost who appears at a banquet in Shakespeare’s Macbeth?
If you fancy compiling an Anagram Square for us please just send it in 5 x 5 squares, complete with answers shown on a grid. If we use it we will send you £5 as a thank you! Remember to include your name, number and prison with your entry.
must Answers to all puzzles are in the next issue. Only Puzzles on the ‘Prize Winning Puzzles’ page have prizes for completing.
J D Solicitors Malthouse Chambers 30 Walsall Street, Willenhall WV13 2ER
SOLICITORS
FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS IN THE SOUTH EAST WE ARE A RESPECTED ‘LEGAL 500’ FIRM FRANCHISED BY THE LEGAL SERVICES COMMISSION AND OUR DEDICATED AND EXPERIENCED TEAM IS AVAILABLE TO HELP YOU IN ANY AREA OF LITIGATION
All aspects of prison law, including adjudications, parole, DLP, categorisation, Judicial Review
Anagram Square
2
Can you morph one word into another by just changing one letter at a time? It isn't quite as easy as you think!
CLARKE KIERNAN
All aspects of criminal law, including Appeals/CCRC/Confiscation Orders.
Thanks to Scott Wareing HMP Preston for compiling this Pathfinder. If you fancy compiling one for us please just send it in either 15 x 15 or 12 x 12 squares, complete with answers. If we use it we will send you £5 as a thank you! Remember to include your name, number and prison with your entry.
__ __ __ / __ __ g __ __
_________________________ __ __ __ q __ __
PRISON LAW DEPARTMENT Catherine McCarthy
Leyton Orient Mansfield Morecambe Newport Northampton Notts County Oxford United Portsmouth Stevenage Wycombe York
1
Word Morph
13. What is the capital of the Netherlands?
Accrington AFC Wimbledon Barnet Bristol Rovers Cambridge United Carlisle Crawley Dagenham Exeter Hartlepool
CIVIL DEPARTMENT Tafadzwa Chigudu
Legal aid available for Housing problems, due to your remand or looking forwards towards release. Including threat of possession of your home and advice on eligibility for local authority housing following release.
FAMILY DEPARTMENT Jennifer Mundy
All aspects of matrimonial and children disputes, including proceedings involving the Local authority. Divorce, domestic violence, cohabitation and Civil partnerships. All aspects of financial disputes.
Prison Law Specialists Serving the East and West Midlands • • • • •
Parole Applications and Reviews Licence Conditions and Recalls Categorisation and Transfers Cat A Reviews and Lifer Panels Sentence Planning and H.D.C.
For free professional expert advice. You can ring, write or e mail us with all your prison law issues. Please call our Prison Law Team:
01902 632123 24hr Emergency No: 07971 194 042
2-4 Bradford Street Tonbridge Kent TN9 1DU Tel: 01732 360999
[email protected]
DO YOU FEEL ABANDONED AND LET DOWN BY THE SYTSTEM? HELP IS FINALLY HERE!!!!
Immediate & professional representation in criminal law, prison law & personal injury matters such as: Appeals against Conviction and/or Sentence Appeals against Joint Enterprise Convictions Appeals against IPP Sentence Appeals against Deportation Recall/Re-categorisation Judicial Review Confiscation Cases Crown/ Magistrate Court Representations Injury Compensation Claims Confiscation/Asset Forfeiture/POCA Post Tariff Parole, Lifer Panel and Adjudication Representations THE ATTORNEY YOU CHOOSE DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE Contact Lucy or Patrick today at: DILLEX SOLICITORS 107B RIPPLE ROAD BARKING, IG11 7NY PHONE: 02085913351 24 HOURS MOBILE: 07572 086247
56 Jailbreak // National Prison Radio
www.insidetime.org
What’s on National Prison Radio // April 2016 National Prison Radio is currently available in prisons across England and Wales. We broadcast 24-hours a day, seven days a week, into your cell. If your prison has National Prison Radio, you can listen through your TV by using the tuning buttons on your remote control.
A perfect solution for mobile phone users wishing to reduce costs for those who call them.
All packages are Pay-As-You-Go. • No minimum term or hidden charges! • No mystifying bundles! • No catches or gimmicks!
***Try trialmembership membershipfor forjust just£1 £1--no noobligation! obligation! **Try aatrial Enter the the code code ‘itlovefonesavvy’ ‘itlovefonesavvy’when when you you sign sign up up Enter
Simple solutions tailored to the individual requirements of our customers.
Step 1 Step 2
They need to write a personalised message
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Please note restrictions may apply in some geographical areas.
Fonesavvy - the brainchild of a former prisoner.
Get your loved one to upload a photo from their phone or PC
Hi Son, How are you doing. We really miss you and can't wait for you to be home soon. Stay strong. Lots of Love, Mum and Dad
Your loved one pays just 99p and we will print and post your photo as a postcard to any prison in the UK.
To: Joe Smith
A1234AB HMPS DOVEGATE Uttoxeter, Staffordshire ST14 8XR From: Mum and Dad
Upon his release, what started as a business plan created in a prison cell became a reality - the only service of its kind. Now Fonesavvy customers throughout the UK receive calls from people in prisons, hospitals and many other situations where keeping the callers’ call charge to a minimum is vital. Perfect for self employed people who are out and about all day
www.fonesavvy.co.uk for more info.....
Insidetime April 2016
