Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
WEDNESDAY 18 OCTOBER 2000
MR MIKE
NEWELL, MR
DAVID RODDAN
AND MR
EOIN MCLENNAN-MURRAY
300. Obviously the difference in views which
were taking place between the Area Manager and Mr McLennan-Murray,
which we have heard about from various witnesses, meant that there
were instructions given, as we understand it, by the Area Manager
before the search. Why were the Area Manager's instructions not
carried out? Is there any evidence of breaches of security which
occurred over the two years prior to May 5th?
(Mr Newell) I think it might be most appropriate if
the former Governor answered that question.
(Mr McLennan-Murray) In relation to instructions not
carried out, I do not believe that is the case. Following the
security audit which was carried out in the establishment earlier
that year, an action plan was produced and we were following through
the elements of that action plan. Some of those elements required
additional resources, in my view, to enable us to do them. You
have to understand that if you say Blantyre House is a Category
C prison, you have to ask yourself what security provisions does
a Category C entail. It usually requires the outside fences to
be clad, it usually requires there should be S-wire, there should
be secure cellular accommodation, there should be a sterile area,
there should be a proper gate, there should be clean and dirty
areas for reception. None of these things are present in that
establishment and physically it is well below the requirements
of Category C. To suggest therefore that we should try and comply
with Category C standards, I think, is patently absurd. I have
heard Kirklevington Grange mentioned, and that is a Category C
prison, it has the same security deficits as Blantyre House and
it was not subject to a security audit because there is provision
in the security manual to allow that dispensation to occur in
recognition of the fact that resettlement prisons which operate
nominally as Category C clearly cannot meet the requirements.
So when there were the additional searching requirements imposed
upon the establishment by the Area Manager and he set targets,
I continually resisted these targets because I said they were
unachievable, I was not resourced to produce them and it was setting
a target I could not achieve; I would fail. I pointed that out.
There has already been mention of the staff repro-filing exercise
from the consultancy team which did not go ahead. I knew that
within our own resources I would not be able to come up with the
solution to overcome this problem which did not have a solution
locally; it just did not. So the targets which were set were imposed
upon the establishment. I did not disobey the order at all, I
set in train a series of actions that we would do our best to
achieve it, but in my heart I knew that we would fail. That is
the honest truth.
301. It has been said by the Board of Visitors
that you were being bullied. Have you any comment to make on that?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) It is a very difficult question
really to respond to. Perhaps it is more obvious to people who
are outside observing the situation than it is for the participants
themselves. I was under a lot of pressure in that my approach
and how I wanted to run the prison, I know, was at odds with the
Area Manager's. We had different philosophies. He wanted to exert
control over me, and it is fair to say I was resisting that control
because I could not see any rhyme or reason for it. That sets
up a tension clearly. I suppose the line between exerting managerial
control robustly and bullying is a fine line. I think if I am
able to stand back, having had the benefit of other people's observations,
I would say, yes, I was the subject of bullying. I resisted that
and perhaps that is why I am in the position I am in at the moment.
I can think of a number of occasions where there were specific
instances which I think could be defined as bullying which I and
other members of my staff were subject to.
Mr Howarth
302. Can you give us some examples?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I can, yes. The way I was referred
to sometimes or spoken about by the Area Manager was not in my
view professional. It did generate actually a formal complaint
from a member of my staff which I kept within the establishment
because I did not really want it to go out, I did not think there
would be any benefit in that. This was an occasion where the staff
felt that the Area Manager publicly humiliated me and undermined
me in front of the staff and they took exception to that. The
Area Manager while we have been in conversation and sometimes
in the presence of other people has said about me—his expression—that
"I am wired up to the moon."
303. Wired up to the moon?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Wired up to the moon, which really
is an indication, I think, he did not share my judgments on certain
elements of risk, if you like, and that perhaps I was not really
on this earth, so to speak; I had a different sense of reality
and naivety about me. That is his view and I guess he is entitled
to have it but I think you need to be careful how you express
such views in the custodial setting. There were accusations that
he had made against me and members of my staff. We have a number
of men who work out in the community and there was a train cleaning
contract which a number of men were involved with. One of the
non-prisoners working in that industry had either left or had
been sacked, I am not sure, but he went to the media and claimed
that prisoners were taking over the jobs, one of the prisoners
had been promoted as foreman and it was not right, so there was
a little flurry of activity in the local media about that. There
was a follow-up article which put the other side, and then various
members of the public wrote letters because it was an issue. A
particular letter was published which was a very supportive letter
and articulated the arguments for resettling prisoners and getting
them back into work very eloquently, and I and my management team
were accused by the Area Manager of writing this letter and pretending
we were somebody else, which I took great exception to and so
did the other members of my team. There were occasions where—I
choose my words carefully here—I was lied to. I would have
a phone call and something would be said to me like, "There
is an exposé in the Sunday People coming up this
weekend about Prisoner X swanning all over Kent with close associates
who are well-known criminally outside." Then demands were
made of me and all sorts of accusations were then made about why
I had let this prisoner out, or whatever. I would investigate
these matters only to find there was no such article coming out
and when confronted he would say to me, "That was just a
wind up." I see that as intimidation and exerting pressure
unnecessarily and I think it is quite calculated why it is done.
Mr Winnick
304. Calculated? Why?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) By the Area Manager.
305. Yes, but you say you know why it was done.
(Mr McLennan-Murray) To make me feel intimidated and
to try and make me feel more vulnerable and to weaken me.
Mrs Dean
306. To undermine you?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) To undermine me, yes.
Mr Winnick
307. To try and get rid of you?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Well, subsequently that is what
happened, but at the time I just saw it as a way of trying to
continually undermine and knock me down. Other members of my management
team have been subject to similar experiences and I know one of
them has formally put in a grievance procedure about it and we
are waiting for the outcome of that. As was said yesterday, these
are serious matters. So I was the subject of bullying. I think
on most of the cases I resisted. There are times when I caved
in because the pressure was such that I made decisions which I
did not believe were right, I believed they were wrong, but I
did them because at the end of the day I was frightened, I suppose;
frightened of losing my job.
Mrs Dean
308. Did you have any inclination of what was
going to happen on 5th May? Did you have any warnings or threat
you were going to be moved from being Governor?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) No. About four weeks before—and
I have the date in my diary—I bumped into someone who was
another senior manager in the service and he enquired how I was
getting on in my new position. I played dumb because I suddenly
thought, "Hello, what is this?"
Mr Howarth
309. When was this?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I can give you the date, I have
my diary here. (After a short pause) It was in the week
commencing 17th April. I cannot remember exactly what day it was.
I was up at Cambridge and that is where I bumped into this individual.
I could not coax out of him where it was I was, but I just knew
I had moved. I kind of let him know and he felt very embarrassed
and I said I would not say anything about it. I made one or two
additional enquiries through the grapevine and everything I heard
seemed to confirm these rumours.
310. What position was this bloke in the Prison
Service?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) A senior manager in the Prison
Service.
311. At headquarters?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) At headquarters.
312. Not at the Area Manager's level?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) A similar level but at headquarters.
313. So this was being plotted on high, as it
were?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) That is the only inference I
could draw from that. I noted that there had been a meeting scheduled
with the Area Manager earlier on in April which was a three-line
whip meeting, we all had to be there, but that had been cancelled.
When that meeting was rescheduled for 5th May and it was a three-line
whip meeting and all the management team had to be present, I
put two-and-two together and thought, "I know he is going
to tell me I am going to be moving from the prison." I mentally
prepared myself for that and I began to try and wind things down
a little. I did not share this extensively with my management
team. So I was prepared for that but what I was not prepared for
was the way in which it happened and the speed of it. I just thought
it would be a normal transfer, we would talk about where I was
going to go, what I wanted to do, it would be a career move. I
had no idea.
Chairman
314. In normal circumstances, are you able to
say, "I'm not sure this is a good career move for me. What
I thought I might do next is this or that"?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Yes. Earlier on, as part of I
suppose it comes under the category of bullying, I had been threatened
on numerous occasions with being moved from the prison over the
last two years.
315. By the Area Manager?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) By the Area Manager.
Mr Winnick
316. No one else? It was the Area Manager who
was the constant person?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Yes. After a time, when you are
continually told the same thing time and time again and it does
not happen, it loses some of its impact. Nevertheless, that was
the history of it. We had discussed it. He had said to me, "I
think you should go and be deputy governor of a big prison, then
you can learn how to govern a prison properly", sort of thing,
that was the inference. I will be quite frank with you, I treated
that with the disdain I thought that kind of remark deserved.
Chairman
317. When you went to this meeting on the 5th,
what were the actual words he used to indicate you were going
to have the governorship taken away from you?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I was expecting him to arrive
around 2 o'clock because he had had a meeting in the morning in
the training centre with a lunch—I think it was an NHS bilateral
meeting. I had visitors in the jail and I was with them and he
arrived at about 12.30 I think and my Head of Management Services
said to me, "There's something not right here, he seems to
be very nervous, I have left him in your office but I think you
should cut this short and go and see him." I did cut it short
and let others finish off with our visitors, and when I went in
he was standing up, and as soon as he saw me he just walked up
to me and thrust this envelope into my hand and said, "Sit
down, read it, it is bad news." I said, "Tom, I don't
need to sit down and read it", and I walked round to my desk,
I took my letter opener and I opened the letter. It was a short
letter from Ivor Ward, who is in personnel at headquarters. I
do not have it with me but I paraphrase, it was something like,
"On the written instructions of the Director General with
immediate effect you are being moved from Governor of Blantyre
House to Deputy Governor of Swaleside." It then said something
about I might be entitled to some expenses in terms of additional
travel expenses and I might want to take a few days' leave before
taking up my new post. So I read it, I went and sat down and just
said, "Why?" He told me it was a career move. I would
rather not repeat here what I had to say to him then but it was
a fairly forthright response from me.
Mr Malins
318. This career move, you were told about it
on what day exactly?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Friday, 5th May at about 12.30.
319. Would you normally expect to be consulted
about a career move?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) That has been my experience to
date. I have had six different postings, and every time there
has been a run-up period and I have often had discussions about
where I am going.
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