Examination of Witnesses (Questions 660
- 679)
WEDNESDAY 18 OCTOBER 2000
RT HON
PAUL BOATENG,
MP, MR MARTIN
NAREY, MR
JOHN PODMORE
AND MR
TOM MURTAGH
660. No, no. It is interesting that before May
an attempted escape failed but with your improved security the
one after May succeeded.
(Mr Narey) I am afraid the reality of Blantyre House,
as the previous Governor made clear this morning, is such that
there is a risk involved in that. It means the balance of security
must be right. I am not wanting to turn it into a Cat C prison.
I just want proper measures to be taken so the prisoners are supervised
when they are at work and they are searched when they come into
establishments, and things like that.
661. Yesterday we had evidence from a prisoner
at Blantyre House, who had a placement out in the community, due
for parole in about six weeks' time, and he had a paid job, about
£480 a month, with a guarantee of a job the day he walks
out of the prison at £22,000 a year plus a car plus expenses.
He has clearly done extremely well and you have stopped that placement
and jeopardised that relationship. What is the gain in the resettlement
policy that leads to that?
(Mr Narey) I know nothing of that case.
662. Well, take it from me, that is true.
(Mr Narey) Let me answer your question, Mr Cawsey.
Since May 5 we have had two job placements stopped. One of them
may be the one you referred to, I do not know. The other one has
been restored. Two more have been found and we are on the verge
of introducing perhaps as many as ten additional work places.
I am committed to the ethos of Blantyre House. I am committed
that prisoners will be given every opportunity to demonstrate
their fitness for release. I will look into the case you mentioned.[4]
I do not know about it.
663. I am pleased you are going to look into
that. Finally, because I do not want to take any more of your
time, other colleagues want to come in, can I say this: what do
you think the result of your decisions has been on the performance
of Blantyre House and the morale of the staff and the local authority
workers and the volunteers who were involved in this? How do you
think they feel about Blantyre House now?
(Mr Narey) I know from my own visit to the establishment
a few weeks ago when I spoke to all the staff and my numerous
discussions with members of the Board of Visitors, that morale
has been knocked and it is very important that we pick it up.
I put it to you, Mr Cawsey, the changes that have been made at
this prison where morale is supposed to have been destroyed are
that the senior management team has been changed, four prisoners
have been removed and not returned. You have the same staff, the
same prisoners and there is no reason at all why all that was
good about Blantyre House cannot continue. There is a greater
consideration and acceptance of the need to protect the public.
Some of the things which were happening I believe were unacceptable.
I am prepared to mention some of those now but there is a great
deal more to mention in closed session.
Mr Cawsey: Just to finish then—this is
not really a question, it is a comment for your ears as the Director
General—you can take it from me then, and I am sure colleagues
had the same experience, that yesterday we could not find anybody
who could have a single good thing to say about the post 5 May
regime.
Mrs Dean
664. What made you think that over 80 prison
officers involved in this search would be necessary? Why 80? Why
84? Why that number?
(Mr Podmore) Would you like me to run through the
breakdown of how that 80 odd was made up?
665. Yes.
(Mr Podmore) Clearly there was myself and other senior
managers that I have referred to. There was the need to run a
command suite in the education area. There was the dog team, which
routinely consists of ten dog handlers and 20 dogs, they have
two dogs each with different specialisms. The bulk of the staff—I
will not go into the full detail, the information is available
to you—consisted of the search teams. I have made reference
already to the fact the search teams were five teams of three,
15 staff. I know it has been described that we descended on the
place like rambo raiders descending from helicopters, body armour,
goodness knows what, that is complete and utter nonsense. The
searchers were in civilian clothing. They entered the building
and they liaised with the prisoners. They ascertained the co-operation
of the prisoners. It was 15 prisoners (sic) in the house block
who were doing most of the routine searches. They were later augmented
because of the time it was taking, because of the amount of equipment
available, by others. The other main group of staff were two teams
of what is termed C&R units, control and restraint teams,
two teams of 14. They were there as a precautionary measure should
there be any problems with the prisoners.
Chairman
666. Were they in uniform?
(Mr Podmore) They were in uniform. They were not in
riot gear. They did not have body armour, as has been alleged
continuously by the press, and I think by my own Association.
That would not be the normal way in which they were deployed.
The only time at which any member of staff donned any sort of
protective gear was initially. If you are familiar with the place
you will know there is a closed courtyard, overlooked by the cells.
At the start of the search it is routine to have someone outside
the cell windows to observe whether any kind of contraband would
be thrown out. It is reasonable for anyone in that kind of situation
who is overlooked by prisoners in their cells to wear some form
of protective clothing. All the other talk of body armour and
helicopters and SAS style raids is complete and utter nonsense.
Mrs Dean
667. Who was responsible for breaking doors
down? Which of these groups?
(Mr Podmore) That would have been at the hands of
the dog teams because they had charge of the equipment to do it.
668. Are you aware that we have been told that
Mr Shipton appeared once the medical room had been broken down,
certainly two hours after it had been opened by a team, saying
"Why did you not wait until we had a key"?
(Mr Podmore) I am not aware of that.
669. You are not aware of that. Did you say
at the briefing that the prisoners were in control of the prison?
(Mr Podmore) That is nonsense.
670. Either figuratively or not?
(Mr Podmore) Complete nonsense.
671. It was not said at all?
(Mr Podmore) No.
Mr Linton
672. I am looking forward to getting on to broader
subjects, such as trust and the resettlement ethos. I just want
to try to explain to Mr Podmore what our difficulty is about the
nature of this search. I think everybody completely understands
that some things were found as a result of this search which were
very serious, including the fact that several people had failed
to declare that they were prisoners on their insurance and also
the charity funds not being accounted for. I understand that is
now being investigated and as far as I understand it it is a question
of dishonesty. For a lock down search, and I am not subscribing
to any of these wild exaggerations that have been made about it,
even without all of those exaggerations there are half a dozen
things about it that seem unusual to us. Number one, the fact
that force had to be used and the keys were not found, although
admittedly keys had been left, which one must admit is strange.
Second, I would maintain that there were not very significant
finds as a result of it, certainly no positive tests on the drugs
which is almost unheard of in any category of prison. Third, it
was carried out at night and I do not understand why that was
necessary. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly of all, most mystifying
to us is that the governing Governor was not informed about this
in advance, which I think is very unusual. Fifth, it was felt
necessary for it to be carried out by an outside team You have
given very full replies to most of these points and maybe we should
not keep the subject going forever but the problem for us is there
are only two possible explanations for all of this. Either the
intelligence that you had was very poor and misleading, or it
was a disproportionate reaction. Mr Narey said in his report that
he did not feel that it was a disproportionate reaction. We are
left in a position where we cannot make all of the facts fit together.
The suspicion that we have, and I am really asking you to put
it at rest, is having instituted a search on intelligence which
then turned out to be that you got much less than you expected
for it, there would be a natural human tendency to want to look
for something to justify the scale of the search. I found in the
report on the management of Blantyre House some evidence that
maybe this is what is going on. I will just quote to you from
this report. This is not one of the bits that is in any way confidential.
It points out that "the argument often put forward because
nothing has been found to have gone wrong, or no more than one
might expect, does not hold water. There have been serious difficulties
at Blantyre House in the past six years." This is the bit
that worries me enormously: "We are sure that it is likely
that there have been ones of which we are not aware", almost
as though there was an attempt to find problems even though you
actually returned from the search with very little to show for
it. We just want to be assured either in the private session or
in some other way that there really was justification for a search.
We know there were some things found but a search on this scale
at night, with 84 people, not informing the Governor and with
the use of outside forces, in the history of lock up searches,
as far as we understand it, this was quite an exceptional search.
(Mr Narey) I think I should answer that, if I may,
Mr Linton. You are quite right, although I have identified the
things that were found here were still serious, we did not find
what we might have thought was there. I need to explain in closed
session the full concerns and the intelligence which led me to
make a decision on this. I do not think a decision to make a search
can be justified retrospectively on what you find. I have just
had at Full Sutton Prison, Wakefield Prison and Long Lartin Prison,
lock down searches for, in each case, more than 24 hours each
where we have conducted extensive searches and in none of those
situations found what we thought might be there. We do very many
more searches than those that are justified by what we find. The
decision has to be made, and I made the decision, to conduct this
search on the basis of what was known to me at that time, as I
will be able to tell the Committee in closed session. Because
I was aware that you might be sceptical about that intelligence
I have gone back to those sources and asked them and they agreed
to give me much greater and specific details, which I think you
will find convincing.
Mr Linton: I look forward to it.
Mr Malins
673. I will just tell you what really worries
me about this, Mr Narey, is when the Committee was spoken to on
16 May, being told respectively by the Minister and yourself that
there was "a quite frightening amount of contraband material"
and "large quantities of money". That is the sort of
phrase which in effect makes us think that there is a gold mine
of stuff that should not be there. When we see an internal document
confirming that cash was only £370, of which £120 was
the Chaplain's, nine mobile phones, bank cards, cameras, building
tools, a spirit level, hard pornography, we turn over to find
where the real stuff is and none is there. It is difficult to
avoid the conclusion that on 16 May we were not given the correct
picture.
(Mr Narey) I am sorry if you think that was the case,
Mr Malins. I do think those things that we found were very serious.
I have explained that already and I have tried to tell you why.
There were things there which prisoners could escape with, for
example the possession of a passport, and the Prison Service would
have been held up to ridicule. I accept and volunteer that we
did not find everything that we might have found relative to the
intelligence which was in my possession.
Mr Stinchcombe
674. Can I just ask a few further questions,
Mr Podmore, about the search and what the briefing was and what
the mechanism was. You have said that you never used the words
in the briefing that the prison was "under the control of
the prisoners"?
(Mr Podmore) That is correct.
675. Did you ever use the words "the prison
was awash with drugs"?
(Mr Podmore) I never used that phrase, refute it totally
and absolutely.
676. Did anybody use those words?
(Mr Podmore) Not to my knowledge.
677. Have you heard those words used at all?
(Mr Podmore) In relation to Blantyre House?
678. In relation to Blantyre House?
(Mr Podmore) No.
679. Why is it that when we went round the prison
yesterday so many of the officers to whom we talked had been told
by colleagues who undertook the search that they were briefed
that the prison was awash with drugs and under the control of
the prisoners?
(Mr Podmore) I cannot comment.
4 See Appendix 5. Back
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