Examination of witnesses (Questions 120
- 143)
WEDNESDAY 13 MAY 1998
MR FINLAY
SPRATT and MR
JIM SMYTH
120. So in terms of the timescale and the
support element, when would that have been?
(Mr Spratt) Well, I think Mr Mogg lost the support
of staff in the Northern Ireland Prison Service when they looked
at the disgraceful behaviour on the Spotlight programme
which was broadcast in Northern Ireland where Mr Mogg actually
sat and said that he was naive. Well, that totally devastated
us.
121. If only for my purposes, when are we
talking about? We are in May now, but when are we talking about?
(Mr Spratt) I am trying to recollect. January
time, I think it was.
122. So really within weeks of him coming
into post as Governor of the Maze?
(Mr Spratt) Yes, and great emphasis was laid at
the time on the new management team at the Maze. Effectively it
was not a new management team because in actual fact Mr Mogg was
a Director of Prison Operations responsible for all prisons in
Northern Ireland up until October when he went down to actually
take over the Maze.
123. If I can ask you to turn to page 45
of the Report, what I want to do, Chairman, if I can, is just
simply look at the paragraphs on that page and the page over.
Firstly, confidence in the Chief Executive and Governor, and no
doubt you are very familiar with that part of the Report.
(Mr Spratt) Yes.
124. At paragraph 7.10, "The POA expressed
a lack of confidence in the Chief Executive". Could you just
expand on that, please?
(Mr Spratt) I think in fact they are talking there
about "expressed a lack of confidence in the Chief Executive",
but it does not mention Mr Mogg there.
125. It does in the next sentence.
(Mr Spratt) Yes. Well, again I met the Narey team
and I made it quite plain to the Narey team that we have lost
confidence in the Chief Executive and Mr Mogg.
126. So if you could deal with Shannon,
what was the problem with Shannon?
(Mr Spratt) Well, we felt that prison officers
on the ground have been seeing things in the Maze develop over
this last number of years where Mr Shannon and Mr Mogg would visit
the prisoners in the blocks and they would go down and talk to
the prisoners, but they would never discuss with any of the staff
what was going on. In fact there were many occasions where I have
had phone calls saying, "They were down here and they totally
ignored me", so they did not even give the officer the time
of day, so they have seen all of this going on and the main fact
was that it was undermining because they did not know what was
happening. We all know now what was happening, but at that time
they did not know what was happening and we could never understand
when we made reasonable suggestions to Mr Shannon and Mr Mogg
about how we could address the issue of control of visits, address
issues to secure visits, they were totally ignored and we could
not understand it. I even asked the Chief Executive whether he
would write a letter to the prisoners in the Maze and make it
quite plain to them, "Look, if you don't get up from your
visit when you are called, you will lose your next three visits",
but he would not do it. That is quite a simple thing to do, but
he would not do it, he just would not do it.
127. So if I can just encapsulate and tell
me if you agree with this, Mr Spratt: there was a lack of communication
and a lack of trust and it seemed that the senior management would
not communicate with you and would not trust what you were saying
to be inputted into the system?
(Mr Spratt) Absolutely.
128. Is that right?
(Mr Spratt) Absolutely.
129. So that is Shannon. Do you have anything
else to say about Shannon? You have made the point that he was
purely Civil Service.
(Mr Spratt) Well, I will give you another example
of Mr Shannon. We had a difficulty at the Maze when in fact 13
officers were suspended. We had a responsibility under prison
rules to carry out the searching of prisoners' accommodation and
it just never happened in the Maze, so they decided one night
because there was a bit of pressure coming on and questions were
being asked, so they decided one night at five o'clock, "We
will carry out a search", so what do they do? To all the
officers who were due to go home to their wives and families they
said, "You are not going home tonight", just out of
the blue because they were not capable of carrying out the search.
The officers said, "I am sorry", and they tried to use
the framework of the agreement which we have with them where the
procedures are laid down to follow in an emergency, so they suspended
the 13 officers. In fact they wanted to sack them and I moved
in and I said, "How dare you. You made an agreement with
us. You did not follow the agreement", and then I said, "Had
you followed that agreement, I would have said yes, that the officers
are totally at fault". Now, I went down to Shannon in the
Northern Ireland Office, man to man, and I said, "Look",
and he said, "Look, I have to be seen to support my governors",
and I said, "So you are prepared to support your governors
at the expense of 13 officers when you know it to be wrong?"
I went down and I defended the 13 officers and they made themselves
look complete idiots. The charges happened to get out and the
media got a hold of it in Northern Ireland and made a whole bloody
laughing stock of the Northern Ireland Prison Service, so how
much more fair and straightforward can you be than that?
130. So a lack of confidence in what though?
In simple terms, what issues are there?
(Mr Spratt) I say this with the greatest respect
to you, gentlemen, in the room here. Mr Mogg was brought into
the Northern Ireland Prison Service from the English Prison Service
and he had not the first idea of what was going on in Northern
Ireland. Now, I have no reason or any ideas as to why he was sent
out, but I think that has been shown down through the history
as to why he was there, but he came into the Northern Ireland
Prison Service and he had not a notion of what it was about, and
he has even actually said himself and admitted it on TV that he
was naive. Well, we have been about dealing with paramilitary
prisoners in Northern Ireland and we can be naive at times, but
to bring somebody in who does not know the first thing about them,
and they manipulate the system, my God, they manipulated it, and
we have seen over a period of time the security measures which
were dealt up, we have seen the whole lot crumbling in the Maze
Prison, security gates being stood down, fences being stood down,
and we just could not believe it, and no matter what we said,
no matter what we said, it was just the POA making trouble.
131. You said in answer to one of my colleagues,
and I wrote this down, that in the Maze from Mr Mogg you had a
pile of orders that could not be carried out and could not be
delivered.
(Mr Spratt) That is correct.
132. Could you expand on that?
(Mr Spratt) Well, we have governor orders going
back in time when we used to be in control of the Maze and they
are still in force in fact. They are still applicable to prison
officers and the reality is that we cannot deliver on them.
133. Why—in terms of what the senior
management will let you do?
(Mr Spratt) Yes, because over the years prison
officers have attempted to deliver and the first thing they got
from the paramilitaries was, "Remove that one from that post",
and the next thing he was taken away. We have had officers who
have been assaulted in the Maze Prison who will never work again
and nobody has ever been held to account for it. They will never
work again. They have been put out on medical retirement and they
will never work again. Therefore, we have always said, and when
the inquiry team came in following the digging of the tunnel,
we said to them, "Look, come up with a system. Accept what
you have got and let's manage it because we can take resources
out of there and put them in Maghaberry". I have argued for
quite a number of years that we are taking prison officers away
from the coal-face at Maghaberry, at Magilligan, at the young
offenders' centre to suit the Maze when all we are doing is bluffing
everybody. My argument was, "Look, if you remove special
category in 1978", and I think at the end of 1982, but the
reality is that we still have it and we have had it down throughout
the years and we threw resources into the Maze that we did not
need to throw in. It should have been put into prisons to provide
a service and, as somebody mentioned earlier on, we could have
had an open prison, we could have had all these things, but all
the resources were thrown into the Maze. And the strange thing
about it is that when Mr Mogg was Director of Operations, in our
debate and our negotiations on the framework document he always
said we had too many staff in the Maze. Now all of a sudden this
year for our pay rise he made it 130 officers. I said to Mr Mogg,
"You have always said, `You have too many. We'll have 130
out of you and we will maintain the delivery of service to prisoners
at Magilligan and Maghaberry'." "Oh no," he said,
"I haven't enough." So all of a sudden we do not have
enough prison officers.
134. Looking at the report at 7.11, the
large paragraph at the end, it says: "The Maze is better
run and a more secure prison under Martin Mogg's management than
it was a few months ago. With the Chief Executive's reform ——"
and it lists a few things. Do you agree with that?
(Mr Spratt) No, I do not.
135. Could you indicate why?
(Mr Spratt) I believe that the Governor who was
there previously was not given adequate support to do the job
he did and he found himself in the position—and I do not
know the politics, I can only repeat what I have been told, seen
by officers on the ground—where Mr Mogg and Mr Shannon visited
the prison, went down the wings and talked to prisoners and he
sat in his office. So I do not believe it has been managed any
differently because it is interesting to note, we have had the
murder of Billy Wright, we have had the digging of the tunnel,
we have had the escape of Averill.
136. So in terms of your men, now, a few
weeks ago, a few weeks before that, is there any difference in
your mind that there is any difference in management after the
events that the Narey Report looked into?
(Mr Spratt) Yes. I have to be fair. Somebody said
had I anything good to say about the management of the Northern
Ireland Prison Service. Yes, it would appear that they are now
getting to grips with the problem in the Maze Prison. They are
now carrying out more searches and that is going on. There seems
to have been a bit of a boost of morale recently but this escapade
last week really sank morale and if you had been at the Maze Prison
on Monday morning you would have seen that. But yes, certainly,
they seem to be getting to grips, because I think it is now in
the public domain. The public are watching what is happening in
the Maze and the public are no longer going to be fooled that
we are supposed to be delivering this when in reality we are not.
I think everybody in the Northern Ireland Prison Service, and
myself included, are conscious of the fact that we must deliver.
We have a job to do and until such time as whatever happens in
the peace process, we must get on and do that job.
137. If you look at page 47, the summary
of recommendations, have you any comments on how efficient or
effective those recommendations are or not?
(Mr Spratt) I do not really go down with them.
I think this Director General thing that I think Mr Shannon has
looked at himself is a wee bit too grand a title for the small
organisation that we have got. Certainly governors should work
in the blocks. I do not have a problem there. I do not think we
need the Director General to send people in from England and Wales
to provide the staff and carry out comprehensive——
We have actually the resources within our own organisation. We
have the expertise and we have the capabilities. It is only a
matter of setting those people to work and getting the job done.
So I do not think we need to be going outside the Northern Ireland
Prison Service. Again, yes, I think the Chief Executive should
consider whether sickness absence is being effectively managed.
We believe in certain establishments it has not been effectively
managed and we would have to say that. I certainly think that
Mr Mogg, in our opinion, should never have been in the Maze. He
should certainly return but most staff are saying, in light of
what has been said last week, they believe they have no confidence.
Whether or not they can build up that confidence again, I know
people can say things in anger at the time it happens and maybe
through time bridges may be able to be mended in that respect.
But I said from the outset to Mr Mogg, "I think you are foolish.
You cannot do two jobs," and that was a very foolish decision
to send Mr Mogg into the Maze and also expect him to retain responsibility
for all the prisons in Northern Ireland.
138. In terms of the Belfast Agreement and
what might be the future and certainly in terms of the prison
delivery, I asked Mr Shannon and Mr Mogg could they assure this
Committee that your members, the average prison officer on the
wing, have been told what the future holds, what the politics
behind the future mean and what it means for their future employment,
and, in effect, we were assured that was the case. Is that the
case?
(Mr Spratt) Yes, again something good to say about
the management of the Prison Service. They have put out letters
to talk about the extent of release but in that letter they said
that at this point in time they could not indicate what the scale
was going to be. I met the Chief Executive on the 11th, in fact
on Monday, and they are talking somewhere in the region of a possible
redundancy of 100 prison officers in year one of the two-year
lead-up and possibly 600 redundancies in year two. We have a policy
within the pay and conditions code which is applicable to all
civil servants. I have said quite clearly in my opinion that is
not applicable to prison officers in Northern Ireland. We have
to set up special packages for them because prison officers in
Northern Ireland down the years have had to take on houses. We
have had people who have had to move and take on additional responsibilities.
We have mortgages because we just could not live in any community,
we select where we live, and I can assure you they will have no
problem in getting 700 prison officers in the Northern Ireland
Prison Service to take redundancy, provided the terms are right,
because many of our officers are burnt out. They have been at
it now for 20-odd years and up until we removed overtime work,
for every week an officer was effectively working two weeks because
he was working for 14 or 15 hours a day. But, yes, Mr Shannon
has consulted with us. I have asked to see the Minister who has
assured me he will set that out, and what I am saying quite clearly
is, we realise there will be redundancies but we are looking to
be treated with respect and a bit of dignity. We are in an unfortunate
position as a trade union. Normally a trade union can go to the
management and argue and fight about redundancies. We are in a
position that we cannot do that. We cannot argue about the redundancies
because we are seen then to be opposed to the peace process. We
cannot complain about it. So we are in this dilemma, that we have
to depend on the generosity of the Government and of politicians
as to how we are going to be treated, and I would like to think,
gentlemen, that you will recognise the contribution that prison
officers in Northern Ireland have made to peace down throughout
the years, because if you look at the statistics that are always
produced, the Prison Service in Northern Ireland is the forgotten
body that has been involved in this conflict. I looked at a book
not so very long ago when they talked about the facts of murders
and they talked about the RUC, they talked about the IRA. The
Prison Service did not feature. All I am saying is that we will
be looking to be treated with respect and dignity because there
is no place that we can get a job in the community in Northern
Ireland. For a start, employment prospects are bleak. We are looking
for training programmes, that we get the opportunity to retrain.
We have many prison officers who were electricians, plumbers,
joiners, who may want to go back to their own trade, so there
should be something set up. All we are saying is, treat us with
respect and dignity. We will do the job until such time as we
are no longer required.
Mr Livingstone
139. Can I assume from your earlier comments
that you would not be in favour of further reducing contact between
officers and prisoners in the Maze, to develop the logic of the
present position, that there is minimal contact, to bring it down
to the point where basically the only contact is made when it
is required?
(Mr Spratt) Mr Livingstone, that is the reality
of the Maze. The prisoners, in fact, have established that themselves
over the years. They have never wanted contact with prison officers.
As a prison officer of 20-odd years, I always enjoyed the relationship
with working with prisoners, but unfortunately, in a paramilitary
context they put the barrier up, not us, because they do not want
their colleagues to be seen talking to prison officers. They like
to control their own destiny and be in control of their structures.
So they put the barrier up, not prison officers.
140. Earlier when you talked about the last
Labour Government's decision to treat all prisoners equally, do
you not accept that the consequence of that when we got to the
hunger strike was a huge propaganda defeat for the British state
globally?
(Mr Spratt) Again I am not into the politics of
the thing, but I have never seen much sense in the fact that down
through the years we have had all this trouble and I think where
we have suffered and managed in the Northern Ireland Prison Service,
we have always been reactive, we have never been proactive, and
I think a lesson has been learned. Whether or not people feel
it is propaganda is something that they have to consider, but
I know one thing, we suffered, as prison officers, the brunt of
it and we have many colleagues dead as a result of that, unfortunately.
141. Drawing on your experience—and
clearly it is not possible to be specific on this—what would
you assess is the scale of abuse that prisoners suffer from rogue
officers? Could you quantify it? Is it worse than in, say, prisons
in England and Wales?
(Mr Spratt) No, I have never accepted that, in
actual fact, prisoners in Northern Ireland have ever been abused
in normal conditions. When people riot then obviously the adrenalin
gets going on both sides and everybody is involved in a fracas
and so it is very hard, and certainly in those circumstances people
get hurt. But in the normal day-to-day running of the prisons
I do not accept that ever any prisoner was abused, and I tell
you why I say that.
142. Not even verbally?
(Mr Spratt) Well, I think you need to go and work
in the Maze and you will find that the prisoners could beat you
at the verbal language more than we could. We are certainly not
experts on it. They are certainly one-up on us there, but certainly
I would not accept that. I will tell you when that actually came
to light. There were many complaints about people being extradited
back to the Northern Ireland Prison Service where they suffered
abuse and degradation and so on, and I think in fact the Spotlight
programme highlighted the real situation in the Maze and in
fact it was the other way round and it was the prison officers
getting the abuse, and I think that sums it all up.
Chairman
143. Mr Spratt, and of course I include
Mr Smyth in what I say, I think I can say on behalf of the whole
of the Committee that the evidence you have given to us has been
as articulate and comprehensive as any we have taken during this
session of Parliament and we congratulate you on it. I think again
I speak for the Committee if I thank you for the discipline and
courtesy with which you have addressed all Members of the Committee
by their surnames, which is not, I have to say, a characteristic
which is universally observed by witnesses who appear before us.
Any capacity of mine to influence the course of events is necessarily
indirect, but I would want to close this session with a tribute
to the Northern Ireland prison officers and the service which
has been rendered in the course of the last 30 years and, if I
may say so also, I would like to pay tribute to your own closeness
to your own Association and to the manner in which you represent
them.
(Mr Spratt) Thank you.
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