Examination of Witness (Questions 160
- 163)
TUESDAY 17 OCTOBER 2000
MR JIM
SEMPLE
160. Who?
(Mr Semple) The Director General of the prison is
responsible for the culture of the organisation, no-one else.
Tom Murtagh, is his appointment, not anybody else outside the
service.
161. The Director General?
(Mr Semple) Absolutely yes.
162. What would you say about the Area Manager?
(Mr Semple) The Area Manager is the Director General's
appointment. He has a controller in between. Certainly the Director
General would be looking very hard at the advice to the Area Manager,
from whom I believe these days must be called the Director of
Operations.
163. You see we have heard evidence that the
previous governor was subject to bullying by the Area Manager.
This is my concluding question. Do you have any comment on that?
(Mr Semple) Yes, I have. I am not surprised by what
you have heard. One has close personal friends, that is the nature
of the service, who are governors elsewhere who have said in a
social setting to me, people who I would regard as quite tough
personalities who actually belong to the middle ground of sound
progressive, not excessive, who perhaps might have come the way
of Blantyre, but maybe not, they find it a struggle to hold on
to what they believed in under his management.
Chairman: Thank you for that, Mr Semple. Again,
do please let me thank you for coming here today and giving us
your time and your views with such conviction and eloquence. Now,
may I make the speech that I was going to make at the start of
Mr Semple's evidence. We are going to have to ask you to vacate
the room because some of the prisoners who want to come and talk
to us do not want to appear on television and, under our rules,
when we enable these proceedings to be televised we have no power
to give them directions as to what they will film and what they
will not film and, therefore, show. The film that they are taking
is available on request to other broadcasting organisations. We
think it perfectly right to respect the request that some of the
prisoners have made to us. Can I thank you all very much for your
attendance here today and your interest. You are all very welcome
to come to the second part of this inquiry in the House of Commons
tomorrow. We kick off at 10.30 in room eight.
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