Examination of Witnesses (Questions 640
- 659)
WEDNESDAY 18 OCTOBER 2000
RT HON
PAUL BOATENG,
MP, MR MARTIN
NAREY, MR
JOHN PODMORE
AND MR
TOM MURTAGH
Chairman
640. They had a lot of personal gear, is that
what you are saying?
(Mr Podmore) Yes. I am sharing with you what they
were saying.
Mr Cawsey
641. That was what I asked you to do. I am grateful
for that. Do you think there was a feeling of "what was all
that about then"?
(Mr Podmore) You would have to ask them. I cannot
speak for them. I am sharing with you the main bit of feedback
that I got back from the staff that I spoke to.
642. Mr Narey, related to this drug issue, since
these changes have taken place at Blantyre House, which you have
authorised, the drug situation at Blantyre House now is very much
worse than it was before that raid.
(Mr Narey) That is news to me, Mr Cawsey. Why is it
very much worse?
643. You are the Director General and I think
six months down the line you should know.
(Mr Narey) Well tell me your evidence to say that
the drug situation is very much worse.
644. Talking to prisoners and inmates at Blantyre
House yesterday.
(Mr Narey) Yes.
645. Some of them were saying for the first
time in their experience of Blantyre House heroin was available
for sale.
(Mr Narey) I can promise you, Mr Cawsey, if heroin
is available for sale in Blantyre House now, certainly it was
more easily for sale before the events of 5 May. Certainly, although
the prison is still relatively insecure, as far as secure prisons
go, there is considerably more searching going on in that prison
than previously. There has been the removal of certain prisoners
who might have been involved in those activities.
Chairman
646. No heroin was found prior to 5 May.
(Mr Narey) No. I did not say that. Mr Cawsey said
that heroin is now available in the prison.
647. Yes?
(Mr Narey) I am saying if that is true, and I am not
sure if I believe it, I am saying if it is available now it would
certainly have been more easily available on 5 May.
648. On what do you base that?
(Mr Narey) Because security has been improved since
5 May.
Mr Cawsey
649. But it has not, has it? You have had more
abscondence and escape. What sort of security are you talking
about?
(Mr Narey) I will tell you the sort of security, Mr
Cawsey, the security which makes sure that we take away the nonsense
of when I go to a prison, to Blantyre House, and hand my mobile
phone in, yet prisoners do not, they take them straight into the
prison. When prisoners go into a prison I expect them to be searched,
they were not being searched.
Chairman
650. Mr Narey, you know why that is. This gets
to the nub of what this is about. You know the emphasis that was
put on trust there.
(Mr Narey) Yes.
651. It may offend. Certainly it offended Mr
Murtagh.
(Mr Narey) It did not offend me.
652. If you are going to run a regime which
is based on trust, you are going to have different levels of security
from your bog standard cat C prison.
(Mr Narey) Indeed and trust is very important. I am
fully committed to the belief that prisoners can change. I would
not have spent all the years that I have in this service if I
did not believe that. You have to pepper that with some realism
about temptation.
653. Yes.
(Mr Narey) You must do that. A measure of trust in
Blantyre House, if I may, Chairman, was that ten prisoners were
so trustworthy they did not insure their cars; two others did
not have MOTs. We would have had a very different view if a child
had been killed in Tunbridge Wells.
Mr Cawsey
654. Mr Narey, not for the first time today
you are misrepresenting findings from Blantyre House, whether
maliciously or just through lack of information I have not quite
decided. Is it not the case that with some of those people who
did not have—and I accept did not have—valid insurance
of their cars that was because the brokers had said it was valid
but it was actually a disagreement between the broker and the
insurance companies which neither the prisoners nor indeed the
staff at Blantyre House could possibly have known?
(Mr Narey) A rather larger number than ten had not
identified to their insurer they were serving prisoners. My information,
and I can check it, is that ten, in the event of an accident,
would not have been insured.[2]
Chairman
655. I am sorry, that is not the evidence we
have had. We have had evidence given to us that some of those
who for example simply gave their address as "Blantyre House",
when the insurance companies were phoned up they said "We
know from the postcode it is a prison". Some insurance companies
take it and some do not. Please do not just telescope all these
things together. It does make a difference.
(Mr Narey) My belief, my information—I will
check it—is that ten of the prisoners were not insured.
I heard Mr McLennan-Murray express considerable regret about that
this morning and he was quite right to do so.
Mr Cawsey
656. All I am saying is I think you are misrepresenting
the degree to which the prisoners were misleading or abusing the
trust. You were using that as an example of abuse of trust.
(Mr Narey) I am trying to demonstrate, Mr Cawsey,
that if you run a regime such as Blantyre House—and Blantyre
House is very different from Kirklevington and Latchmere House,
it is much higher risk, there are more serious prisoner/criminals
there, serving longer sentences—it is a high risk operation,
risk management is central, you have got to be realistic about
that.
657. I accept that entirely but can you explain
to me, if your changes are to improve security why have there
been the abscondence and escapes since these changes were made?
(Mr Narey) My understanding—again I will have
to look at this[3]—is
that we have had one escape since May 5. A few weeks before May
5 there was an attempt to escape, a serious attempt to escape,
by three prisoners and those prisoners were apprehended and transferred
to other prisons. I draw no conclusions but in fact there were
three serious attempts before May 5 and one escape subsequent
to May 5.
658. There have been some absconders as well?
(Mr Narey) There have been absconders before as well.
659. Not in the same quantity. It has declined
considerably in the six months since you made the changes.
(Mr Narey) In the six months since May I understand
there were five absconders, about the same number as previously.
I do not measure the effectiveness of prisons on their popularity.
If prisoners choose to abscond I do not think "Well we must
be doing something wrong".
2 See Appendix 5. Back
3
See Appendix 5. Back
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