Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 199)
TUESDAY 17 OCTOBER 2000
MR CHRIS
JOHNSON, MR
K R FORRESTER, MR
JOHN DELANEY,
MR NICHOLAS
BERTRAM, MR
J R ILLINGWORTH AND
MR CHARLES
DARNELL
180.—and especially the former governor,
who really put the thing the other way around, and was arguing
the case that you actually do not need that level of security
because the thing works on trust which is a two-way street.
(Mr Delaney) But you need to be a character in the
business of management. You cannot tell somebody what to do as
easily as you can in the Army, and here you are in an army. He
ran it like a business and put the trust in them because people
are going out of the gate and there has to be trust, otherwise
for example five or six people have disappeared since these new
people whereas there was a maximum of four, as I understand it,
in the previous four years. In the last three months, we have
had four absconded and one escape from here.
181. I think Jim Semple, the first governor,
made the point that it really needed a separate set of rules for
establishments like this because they do not neatly fit into the
normal run of Category C prisons. Perhaps every prison at this
stage of a prisoner's sentence ought to have a resettlement function,
it would make far more sense, but that is not the answer, is it?
(Mr Bertram) The lad who just went over the fence
recently was positive for an opiate MDT, so there is empirical
evidence rather than just taking people's word for it.
(Mr Johnson) And he came after the raid.
(Mr Bertram) That is right. They are getting here
now and they are simply not unpacking that closed mentality, which
is what happened under Eoin and the other governors; they got
out of that mentality and got into doing their best here, getting
a job, getting out from here, staying out of trouble. That broke
the recidivism rate and that is what it should be about. Prison
does not work but Blantyre House did. There are no more victims
now. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence here, people come in
to teach pottery, to play football, these are people who did not
return to crime. There are no more victims in that chain of events
for them. That is what this place is about and it should be about,
but if it is allowed to continue the way it is going, you are
going to have a recidivism rate the same as all the others.
182. The impression you and your colleagues
have given us all day is that you are very pessimistic about this
getting back on track.
(Mr Johnson) There is a definite feeling that they
are destroying this place by stealth. The type of people who are
coming here now are not what they were 12 months ago. It is interesting
what Martin Narey said, I suppose he is insinuating that the career
criminal used to come here.
Mr Winnick
183. What you are saying, in effect, is that
the prisoners who are coming here now under the new management
are those who are likely to be the sort of people who will not—
(Mr Johnson)—take up the opportunities.
184.—take up the sort of policy which
has been in this institution for some time?
(Mr Johnson) They will not give a monkey's if they
are back at Maidstone tomorrow.
185. So it is a deliberate policy?
(Mr Illingworth) I feel that yes, very strongly.
(Mr Johnson) They have the lowest roll count for four
years.
(Mr Darnell) We have been told by senior staff members,
who shall remain nameless today, that they have been told that
the selection criteria no longer applies for Blantyre. Go and
get anybody. Don't be selective any more. Take who you can take.
The purpose, we believe, is that the raid failed to destroy Blantyre,
they are now going to destroy it from inside. People will not
only not adhere to Blantyre's ethos, they will disrupt the ethos
even further.
(Mr Johnson) Security is paramount in their mind now.
Almost 70 per cent of us here are D Cats, low risk.
186. The prison officers were saying that they
suspected, because of doubts about what is going on here, there
are fewer prisoners applying to come here.
(Mr Johnson) There is a question mark over Blantyre,
of course there is. If it is not resolved quickly, we will lose
Blantyre forever.
(Mr Illingworth) I feel this was the jewel in the
Prison Service's crown. For some reason they want to bring it
down. I just cannot work it out, as I put in my letter to you.
When I sent that letter I felt, from when I first started out,
I have had the "hang `em and flog `em" mentality of
prison officers, and when I came here it was just enlightened
to have the governor sit down and ask you what your goals were
and how to achieve them and to instil that trust, when in the
last two and a half years I had me walking behind a prison officer
opening gates and shutting them to allow me to walk around.
187. Is it the case that very often somebody
would come and sit in the canteen and you did not know he was
the governor?
(Mr Illingworth) Yes.
(Mr Delaney) He would come and sit and have his lunch
with you.
188. Do this lot do it?
(Mr Delaney) No. I have not even met or seen whatever
his name is—Chris Bartlett.
Mr Cawsey
189. Reading your written submission, you were
in a position where you had a good position with the guarantee
of a well-paid job when you reach parole very shortly, and when
Mr Bartlett took that position away you have written to him and
you have had no response or chance to speak to him?
(Mr Delaney) I not only wrote to him, the company
not only wrote to him, they also wrote and told him they would
give me—as thank God they still are—that job when
I am released. The governor did not just not reply, he did not
have the courtesy to acknowledge receipt of the letters. How will
we know, when I was given a letter to say, "There is nothing
wrong with your job, we are just not giving it to you any more"?
That is not what you do in any walk of life, I would not have
thought. If I may just take a few minutes of your time—this
is not about me—this is something that somebody gave me
today which really sums up this problem. This is a lifer here
called Michael Leggs (sic) and he was working successfully with
a very large public company called ANC. I have actually photostated
this because I thought you might be interested. They were asking
for a reference on him. It says, "Michael has been employed
with this company for some considerable time in the capacity of
warehouse supervisor. He is an integral member of our team, working
in a busy but friendly environment. His role is to initially supervise
that all parcels have been efficiently despatched ....",
et cetera, et cetera. "The role that Michael plays demands
honesty and utmost trustworthiness as he handles upwards of £500,000,000
parcels daily. He has the keys to our building and full knowledge
of our alarm systems which may indicate to the board ...",
that is the Parole Board, "... our faith in his integrity.
ANC has been recruiting rehabilitating prisoners from Blantyre
House for several years and we have a 100 per cent track record
in the results produced by these men. I am a qualified stress
consultant ...", the man who wrote this, "... and therefore
able to offer counselling services to these inmates when they
feel the need to speak about their circumstances although we always
respect their privacy. It has been our experience that all our
employees on life terms are, without exception, extremely remorseful
as their cases are usually domestic and we also find them sadly
lacking in self-confidence coupled with guilt that society is
looking down on them. We try in our humble way to restore these
men's faith in themselves by offering them back their self-respect
and making them welcome as part of our team. Michael was a classic
example of this type of inmate. His remorse was not only for his
original perpetration, but also for the fact that he did not handle
his original parole well, and now having matured mentally, lives
for the opportunity to rejoin society where he can live out his
remaining years ....", et cetera et cetera. "As his
family is domiciled in Harlow, Essex, we have arranged that a
sister depot in that area would accept him on transfer ...".
That was what he was working as. I do not know the exact dates
but after this new regime came in, they gave him notice to quit
this job. He carried on for two days and then had a heart attack,
he says because of the stress of losing the job. All his previous
life he has worked in transportation. You can see they thought
highly of him, he thought highly of the job, this place took it
away from him.
Chairman
190. Was he told why?
(Mr Delaney) No, according to him, he was not told
why. He had insurance on his motorcar and he had put Blantyre
House, not HMP—you know about insurance.
191. Yes.
(Mr Delaney) The insurance company concerned said
they knew it was a prison because they only look up the PO numbers,
so they know it is a prison, and it is of no concern, it is still
insured, the company still insures his car. That was why they
said he cannot drive but he actually carried on going to that
job by train, then they stopped it.
192. Whereabouts was he working?
(Mr Delaney) Tonbridge or Tunbridge Wells—Tunbridge
Wells. He has no employment, he does not get unemployment benefit
because he is a serving prisoner, that I would have thought has
not done him a great deal of good.
193. Can you let us have a copy of that?
(Mr Delaney) I have done copies.
194. Is he still here?
(Mr Delaney) He is still here.
195. Is he better?
(Mr Johnson) No, he is not well. He is a worrier,
obviously.
196. When is he due to get parole?
(Mr Bertram) He is waiting to get it at the moment.
(Mr Delaney) He should be getting it within months.
He has been in prison many, many, many years.
197. How long does that Parole Board take, as
a matter of interest?
(Mr Bertram) It used to take over a year but they
have now implemented a fast stream system which takes six months,
but most of us here have been waiting eight, ten months.
198. Is that something we might look at, do
you think?
(Mr Bertram) The lifer system? You will have a problem.
The lifers here cannot work a full week. At the moment I have
to fiddle my job, take time off on sick, et cetera, just so I
can get a day to go on my town visit. The fixed termers can work
six days, or they have six days temporary release, which is five
days working and one day to go home with the family. The maximum
you can get, which you can only get in the last two months of
your sentence, is five days as a lifer. You start off with three,
then you get four, then five, but these are people, like myself,
who have been in the best part of 20 years and they are the people
who most need to get a full-time job. Before I got stuffed into
Unipart, I was a team leader on the railways, responsible for
a dozen men. I can produce equally glowing references from my
previous employer. This was up in London. All they want is for
you to be placed next door to Blantyre House so they can nip out
and check you are there. The trust has all gone completely. Although
trust is not tangible, you cannot weigh it, you cannot measure
it, the 5th May shows there was not that kind of abuse here. If
you raided a local junior school, I would hate to see what you
would find in the lockers there. A bit of cannabis, some credit
cards and a mobile phone.
199. The story was, as you all know, that the
intelligence was so worrying—awash with drugs and criminal
activities—
(Mr Johnson) Do you know where the intelligence came
from?
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