Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360
- 372)
WEDNESDAY 18 OCTOBER 2000
MR MIKE
NEWELL, MR
DAVID RODDAN
AND MR
EOIN MCLENNAN-MURRAY
Mr Winnick
360. As you no doubt know, in an answer that
was given by Lord Bassam in the Lords it was said in reply to
a question from the former Member of Parliament for the constituency
in which the prison is situated, that your career move to a different
type of prison had been planned for some time. The decision to
effect this move was taken by the Director General of the Prison
Service. You were told of the actual date on 5th May. The interesting
point here is it says you were told on 5th May, as you have already
told us, but it had been planned for some time. What would you
say to that?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) That would accord with the—I
am reluctant to use the word intelligence—information I
received in April from another senior official. I had no idea
what the degree of planning was and what the final outcome would
be. I had no reason to think it would be different from what I
had experienced in the past, that I would sit down, talk it through
and we would agree on a suitable—
Chairman
361. It was a bad plan, was it not, because
it was withdrawn later.
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Yes, it was.
Mr Winnick
362. As I said, and quoted, and it states in
the Parliamentary answer, it been planned for some time, not just
a month previously. You were unaware of that?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I was.
363. Can I ask, finally, we are seeing the Minister
later today, what action, if any, do you think the Minister responsible
for the Prison Service should be taking over what has happened
at this institution?
(Mr Roddan) Mr McLennan-Murray, I strongly advise
you not to answer that question. From the Association's point
of view, clearly when you have finished your evidence you will
come up with some kind of report and conclusion and a set of recommendations.
Chairman
364. That is very likely.
(Mr Roddan) The power of the evidence you have received
obviously needs to be communicated to the Minister and we would
advise the Minister to consider it seriously. Over the last 48
hours a number of people have talked about seeing people being
interviewed about should X be sacked and should this happen to
Y. As an Association it is not our place to make those kind of
observations. It is a matter for individual responsibility and
for people to consider their own positions. What my President
and I would want to reinforce is that Martin Narey as Director
General has the very strong support of the Prison Governors' Association
in his task. We also believe that Mr Narey is entitled to be confident
in the level of support and the quality of support he receives
from his colleagues.
Chairman: Thank you.
Mr Howarth
365. Can I ask Mr McLennan-Murray just one or
two specific questions arising from the raid? Apparently there
were ten prisoners who had been out with their own cars whose
insurance was defective. One of those people, indeed, had a job
as a chauffeur, chauffeuring around personalities, and had that
prisoner been involved in a crash the insurance company would
have voided the policy. Do you have any comments to make on that?
With the benefit of hindsight, do you think that there was inadequate
supervision of the insurance arrangements?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Firstly, I think it is a very
serious breach. I am ashamed that it has happened. I am responsible
for that. I set up the system for actually rigorous checking of
insurance two and a half to three years ago, where I insisted
that every prisoner disclosed that he was a serving prisoner.
It crossed my mind if that was not the case there may be some
difficulty in any claims. I think I came to that conclusion, because
of the history of the establishment, where there had been a previous
driving incident, and I knew there was some insurance wrangle.
It is a valid criticism, and something that I take full responsibility
for. It has slipped and some prisoners were able to manipulate
things so they were not disclosing accurate information. I have
no defence against that and I regret that. I would also say that
I have read in one of these Reports that we did not check the
driving records of prisoners. Again, that is something that I
set up and we did check rigorously the previous driving records
of prisoners. I was the first governor in the service to set up
breathalyser testing. It was not the legal limit but zero tolerance,
because I thought it was an explosive cocktail to have alcohol
and prisoners driving. It would be indefensible if a prisoner
was ever involved in an accident under the influence of alcohol.
I took those responsibilities seriously. It was always my intention
to safeguard the public. I feel really bad. From that Report that
is the one thing that struck me.
366. It struck me, I have to say.
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I feel I have to say if the Prison
Service wanted to charge me for that, I would put my hands up
and say guilty.
367. It is big issue, but it is only one. What
about the bank cards? Can you explain the policy there? I think,
again, there has been some misunderstanding. When the Minister
responded, again to a Parliamentary question in the Lords, it
was said twenty-five bank/credit cards were found. There was a
clear policy on this and it was an acceptable policy.
(Mr McLennan-Murray) We used to insist that prisoners
set up bank accounts if they did not have one. There has been
lot of difficulty in prisoners setting up bank accounts and we
tried to negotiate a local arrangement so they could. This facility
meant they were not issued with a cheque book for some time but
they were issued with a cash card to withdraw small amounts of
money so as to give the bank greater control. I also instigated
a control. We saw the original document and have copies of their
pay slips and their bank statements. We could monitor what expenditure
was taking place. Using that process we were able to detect one
individual who was taking small amounts of cash on a regular basis
to buy drugs. He was dealt with appropriately and sent back to
closed conditions. Resourcing is the key to this. It was an attempt
to control, regulate and monitor what we set up. It is a big task.
I know that the Report has been critical of the attention to detail
that we paid to that but it was a planned activity in the same
way that Kirklevington have the same procedures in place. I do
not think they did the checking in terms of bank accounts.
368. What about the suggestion that there was
potential corruption of prison officers? The allocation of transfers
to Blantyre House. You may have heard the Chief Inspector say
earlier today he felt that the selection decision should be removed
from Blantyre House to the providing prison, if you like. Do you
agree with that?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Firstly, the corruption. People
buying their way into a place like Blantyre House, that was something
which occurred in the past, some six years ago, or longer than
that, possibly. They were the allegations anyway. I do not know
whether it was ever proved or not. We have a written selection
criteria list, that men have to adhere to before we will take
them. Staff from Blantyre House physically go out and check the
men that are being proposed by the sending establishment. The
sending establishment identify the men through the sentence plan
process or some other means. They say to us, Blantyre House, "These
are the men we want to send you". My staff go out and they
would check them against our published criteria. On many occasions
they would say, "This man does not fit, he is serving too
long, he has too long left to serve or too little left to serve",
and he would be discarded. We only selected men or took men from
a menu that was provided to us by the sending establishment. All
we were looking for was that the men they were putting up met
our published criteria.
369. Okay.
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I was confident that that process
itself was not being corrupted from the Blantyre House end. I
was given no information in my tenure as Governor to make me believe
anything else
Mr Howarth: Can I ask two very specific quick
questions, yesterday I gather you were at a tribunal to hear a
case against you?
Chairman: We cannot go into this in open session.
Mr Howarth
370. Let me revert to my first question, it
has been suggested to us that the raid that was conducted on 5th
May was not so much to find evidence of wrong doing in the prison
amongst the prisoners but was a fishing expedition to find evidence
to justify the decision made earlier in the day to remove you
from post. In the aftermath of what happened what do you think
of that?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I find it difficult to comment
on that.
Chairman
371. We respect that response. It is an important
point and we may get an opportunity later on today.
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I am happy to say something on
a related area.
Mr Howarth
372. The purpose of the question, forgive me,
is not in any way to get anybody to incriminate themselves. A
lot of people told us this. If Mr McLennan-Murray does not want
to answer, he does not have to answer. This is not an inquisition.
We are trying to get to the truth. Do the PGA want to respond?
(Mr Roddan) I must stress, you have received reports
that Mr McLennan-Murray has had no opportunity to comment on the
Prison Service. I want to make that point. It is clear from the
planning notes we have from Operation Swynford—we do have
the original notes—that they were not looking for a particular
item, as my President said earlier, a gun or something of that
kind. The briefing given to the staff about what they were looking
for appears to be vague. The complete prison was not searched.
People have made comment about the conduct of the raid. There
have been observations about the smashing down of doors when keys
were available and had they asked Blantyre House's own officer,
"Can we have the key, please", she has told us she would
have been able to say, "Yes". It is difficult to divorce
the raid from the removal of the Governor, because we cannot see
any other reason for it.
Mr Howarth: Thank you.
Chairman: Thank you very much Mr Roddan, Mr
Newell and Mr McLennan-Murray. If you feel able to do this, as
you are researching with Cambridge, would you be kind enough to
send us any published results of that? We would be fascinated
to see that. This Committee have a continuing interest in this
area, beyond this particular inquiry. Thank you for your patience
and help. We are now going to adjourn until 3.30.
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