Examination of Witnesses (Questions 421
- 439)
TUESDAY 4 NOVEMBER 2003
MR GRAHAM
MARTIN, MS
SOPHIE BRYSON
AND MS
RUTH HEWITT
Q421 Chairman: We apologise for keeping
you waiting. Thank you for coming to help us to look into the
question of separation of the paramilitary prisoners at Maghaberry
on which obviously you have views. I would like to start by asking
you in particular: what are the feelings of the ordinary prisoners
about the changes which have happened or are about to happen?
Mr Martin: Chairman, would it
be helpful if, at the outset, I set the scene for ourselves and
to take a minute to do that? As you will have read, in fact we
are part of the Board of Visitors. There are 20 members altogether.
We are drawn from a very wide cross-section of society. We find
ourselves in a very peculiar situation at the moment in that uniquely
we have found ourselves under threat as a result of the activities
which we discharge in the prison. We come here today with a little
bit of apprehension about the nature of what we might want to
say to you. We are obviously concerned to ensure that we give
you a good flavour of the rather unique perspective that we have
of what goes on in the prison because of our interaction not only
with the prisoners but also with staff at a time in the Prison
Service's history of great difficulty and much concern. At the
outset, I just want to make the point that we would be very anxious
that in what we say we have an opportunity of looking at it before
it comes to the public.
Q422 Chairman: One of the reasons
that we have decided to hold most of this inquiry in private is
exactly the reason that you have alluded to. We are aware that
there are some sensitivities and I will give you the assurance
that you will be invited to look at the transcript of your evidence
for any parts of it which you think should not be made public.
Obviously we have to make the decision in the end but we will
listen to your views on that with respect and attention and hopefully
we can reach agreement. We normally can. Please do not feel inhibited
by that. To go back to it, really this is about the feeling of
the ordinary prisoners and then, after that, the feelings of staff
about these changes. We have got a pretty good handle about how
the staff feel. We spent yesterday at the prison. We talked, obviously
to the Governor but also to all the governor grades and we went
round the prison talking to various members of staff at all levels.
I think we have that pretty clear. I do not think anything you
tell us will differ from what they have told us. What about, with
your unique contact with prisoners, the ordinary prisoners? How
do they feel about it all?
Mr Martin: Their particular position
is that they feel compromised to a large extent by the concentration
there has been on solving this problem with the separation issues.
They are obviously very concerned that the regime that they have
had previously has been, to a large extent, reduced, in some places
it has disappeared altogether. There are major problems, as you
know and as you are aware, over staffing and difficulties presently
about industrial action and so on. There is a whole range of difficulties
which has left the senior staff in the prison with really a monumental
problem of finding a balance between what they are expected to
do in relation to the segregation issues and, at the same time,
running an establishment which is in accordance with the stated
objectives of the service. Our particular concern is for all of
the inmates, and our particular emphasis, as you know, is on the
welfare of all prisoners. We do have a major concern at the moment
that what are sometimes euphemistically referred to as ODCs, ordinary
decent criminals, are caught in fact in a situation where they
have a much reduced regime and that the normal processes which
go on in the prison, and which develop the emphasis on rehabilitation
and so on, have tended to be sidelined for the present. Our anxiety
is that in the near future, as these processes do develop, that
could become worse because of the staffing difficulties and because
of many other issues and difficulties that are arising in the
prison on a day-to-day basis.
Q423 Chairman: Do you think that
separation, which is now going to happen, will make prisons safer
for prisoners and staff?
Mr Martin: That is a very difficult
question to answer and one that might benefit from having a crystal
ball because there are so many competing issues in there. We have
a number of opinions about that. We were concerned that there
could be a deterioration. The whole emphasis on this was one of
safety. We are not at all convinced that if the situation deteriorated,
safety could be contained. We believe that there is a recipe there
for very considerable difficulty in the future if perchance things
go horribly pear-shaped.
Q424 Chairman: You have said to us
that the fear of a Maze-type situation developing is prevalent
throughout the prison. How difficult is it going to be for the
Governor and his staff to hold the line where they have decided
to move now as opposed to being, as many believe they are, on
a slippery slope? I mean the line of the new regime and the compact
and all that? What is the separation that is in place? There is
not much point in trying to turn that clock back now, I do not
think.
Mr Martin: I think the Governor
and staff have done their best to create a situation where the
segregation and separation, whatever you call it, can work, but
it depends very much on the impact that any outside influences
in the future might have. I think that they have done their best
with a bad job. In many ways, they are between a rock and a hard
place. It is something that they are trying to cope with. If the
situation were still a stable situation, then you could more accurately
probably predict what might happen in the future. The difficulty
is that there are other factors in the equation; for example,
the political factors, which might be brought to bear in the future.
I think the great fear of staff is that there would be a gradual
erosion of the arrangements that are in place at the moment in
the direction of more and more compromise and, as a result, there
would ultimately be a Maze-type situation evolving over time.
That is a major fear that they have.
Q425 Chairman: You say that they
are making the best of a bad job. Do I interpret that to mean
that you would have wished that they did not change the regime,
that they would not implement the separation, and that they were
carrying on with the integrated regime which they had before?
Mr Martin: To answer that question,
perhaps one of my colleagues would want to interject something
as well. The difficulty is quite a complex one. Obviously, there
was a need to deal with the situation as it developed, but there
is the attendant difficulty that goes along with that. Sophie
Bryson might usefully comment on that.
Ms Bryson: I just wanted to say
that I felt that the scale of the preparation for the paramilitary
wings is what surprised me and a lot of other Board members. Perhaps,
yes, separate living conditions may be needed to be provided.
That could be argued, but whole separate facilities for education,
for visits, all the things that are being looked at now, that
really did surprise me. It did not seem to be the essence of the
Steele Report that wanted separate living conditions, because,
as you know, prisoners maybe feel unsafe having showers or going
for their meals, the everyday things that you do in a residential
house. But when I read the Steele Report, I did not imagine, and
I think other members of the Board felt likewise, that it would
be on that scale and that the most modern facilities in the prison
would be given over to the paramilitaries while the other prisoners
are now overcrowded in the old houses, which Her Majesty's Inspector
has said were unsafe and needed to be replaced only last year
so that we now have overcrowding in the square houses. My worry
is that even in the next few months before they get these other
things up and running, that dissatisfaction among the ordinary
prisoners over the lack of education and lack of time out of the
cells is going to erupt.
Q426 Chairman: That is your fear?
Ms Bryson: Yes.
Q427 Chairman: Do you want to add
to that?
Ms Hewitt: As Sophie has outlined,
there is the practicality; this is what we are finding on the
ground in the prison as we actually go in and speak to prisoners.
We are free to wander around and talk to anybody. There have been
occasions when the members of staff responsible, hardworking and
committed members of staff, have said to us, "Would you speak
to so and so", and then they have brought somebody maybe
out of the Loyalist community, maybe not even in the Loyalist
community but from that side of the community, and I have made
sure that we have spoken to someone from the other side of the
community. There is a wait-and-see attitude amongst the prisoners.
There is a feeling that they, the paramilitaries, the separated
people, are getting everything, that apart from anything, they
are getting staff. The officers on the landing, the SOs and POs
on the landing, are telling us that they have eight staff for
120 prisoners, whereas around the corner they have eight staff
for 23 prisoners. This just dramatically affects everything in
the prison. There can be all the idealistic programmes and plans
and futures but if they cannot address the staff issue, to get
staff into the prison to look after the prisoners, there is absolutely
nothing that can be delivered but the lock turned in the keyhole
of the door and prisoners on a 23-hour lock-up. This is just breeding
tremendous insecurity and a wait-and-see attitude. We have even
had people say to us, "We will wreck up the house. We have
almost been advised to wreck up the house, as it is the only way
you get anything in this place". It is just horrifying and
it is worrying to grapple with this sort of scenario developing.
I am not here speaking in technical, professional language. I
am just trying to say that this is developing within Maghaberry
and it is quite common within the prison population. They sit
in their cells and try to work out how they can make their own
lot better all the time. There is developing this wait-and-see
attitude and "if things get worse for us and better for them".
It always them and us. I think we would not be happy about controlling
that. It is going to be very difficult to manage.
Q428 Mr Luke: We visited the prison
yesterday and had an extensive tour of the prison. I think we
would agree with you that the actual degree of separation being
implemented currently at Maghaberry Prison goes further than that
envisaged by the Steele Report. Do you think that this is a sensible
decision or an overreaction to the situation in which there was
a need, or seen to be a need, for management to contain the situation
as it developed during the summer?
Mr Martin: Whether or not it was
a sensible decision, I think perhaps history will tell when it
is eventually written about this. I think it would be very difficult
for us to try and figure out whether it was or was not. There
were major issues and difficulties for the Government, and there
were major problems emerging that were to impact wider than the
particular matters that were going on in the prison, but I will
not get caught up in those at the moment. We have just a concern
that the exact words in the Steele Report were that the Government
should never again concede complete control. That little phrase
worried us substantially; there was almost an implication there
that at some stage in the future there might be a move to cede
some control, but not complete control. * * *.
Q429 Mr Luke: Now we go on, and obviously
the decision has been taken and you have seen it, to what is being
implemented on the ground. Do you think that the management team
at the prison is receiving the practical support it needs from
the Prison Service and the Government in this?
Mr Martin: If I can answer that
question in a slightly more elongated way, it is difficult for
us to be precise about that. What we do notice is that there are
very substantial tensions between Prison Service Headquarters
on the one hand, the prison management on the other hand, and
the Prison Officers' Association in the middle. We have commented
on that in some detail in our response to you. Industrial relations
generally are in a very serious state. It must be obvious to everybody
even just listening to the sort of debate that arises on television
and on the radio about issues that are occurring. Our concern
is that that is so fundamental to a resolution and to stability
in the future that resources very urgently need to be deployed
in whatever measure is required. It does not seem to us that there
would be a requirement for a very substantial measure of resources
but rather an identifying individuals who can handle that kind
of situation. We believe, and of course we are looking at this,
as has already been pointed out, perhaps in a superficial way,
that it cannot be beyond the wit of man to organise industrial
relations in a better way which would encourage a joined-up approach
between the unions and management. At the moment, they are at
daggers drawn, and that is going to complicate the situation very
substantially over time. You are hearing at the moment about potential
industrial action. Our view is that just maybe it was not necessary
for that to happen if the thing had been handled differently.
I am afraid we are not implying any criticism because these people
who are dealing with this are dealing with very difficult situations.
In our response we tried to paint a picture of opportunity, of
thinking about other ways of dealing with the situation that might
be more helpful in the future. One of the concerns we have is
the disparate nature of management within the Prison Service.
On the one hand, you have a prison Governor and his team figuring
a way of working on a day-to-day basis; on the other hand, you
have Prison Service Headquarters; and in the middle the Prison
Officers' Association, and all the various pressures that are
brought to bear as a result of that, which does not ever appear
to get together in a way that would be a model in other areas
of industrial relations. It simply does not seem to happen, for
whatever reason we cannot figure. We have suggested, and it was
very difficult in the short space that we had available to us
on two or three pages of A4 to draw out the notions that we were
trying to generate about corporate governance, the need for more
accountability in the system and the need for more direct accountability
by senior management. That might have the effect of improving
or creating an environment where you could improve those industrial
relations much faster and to a much greater extent. Perhaps the
time is not just right to develop that sort of idea, but it is
an idea that we believe bears close inspection. It has worked
in many other areas of the public sector, and there is no reason
why it cannot work in the Prison Service.
Q430 Mr Swire: You have expressed
strong reservations about the allocation of the newest accommodation
to form the separated quarters. Realistically, was there ever
an alterative if the safety of both the prisoners and staff was
to be assured?
Ms Bryson: When I asked about
that in the prison, it was pointed out to me that surveillance
in the new houses was much better, and obviously that is a fac
tor that they could see. You visited yesterday and I think and
you would have seen the open plan; people can see what is going
on much more easily than in the old houses with their staircases
in corners and so on. I suppose it would be difficult to run a
safe regime for paramilitaries in those old houses, and so perhaps
not; perhaps that was the way it had to be. It surprised me.
Q431 Mr Swire: You have already referred
to this during the morning: what are the implications for the
ordinary prisoners of the allocation of these two newer houses
and what steps need to be taken to ensure that the accommodation
needs of the ordinary prisoners are also met?
Ms Bryson: It is very hard to
say because they are squashed in now, all the remand prisoners,
in Foyle House. There is a lot of doubling up. Erne House, which
was set up as a lifers' house I understand now has a non-lifer
section in it. It has had a very great knock-on effect on the
ordinary prisoners. I feel perhaps that management are not paying
enough attention to that aspect of it; they are spending all this
time and money adapting it and neglecting the other side of things.
That is a personal view.
Q432 Chairman: Do you have a view
as to whether or not the ordinary prisoners will welcome the removal
of the paramilitaries from their midst? Is there an upside to
this at all? Will they be happier?
Ms Bryson: I think possibly, yes.
There are strong characters among those who have been removed,
who maybe have been putting pressure on others, yes, but, on the
other hand, once there is a larger house to fill, pressure may
be brought to bear for people to move into and it maybe would
not be their first wish to do so. This is what starts it, that
pressure will be brought to bear outside in the community, and
so on, that people should move into these houses because the space
is here and we must fill it.
Q433 Chairman: * * *?
Ms Bryson: * * *.
Ms Hewitt: * * *.
Q434 Chairman: * * *?
Mr Martin: * * *.
Q435 Mr Clarke: The evidence would
suggest that the dispute started because of conditions and the
disputes were centred around the grievances of ordinary prisoners.
It may be that the paramilitaries may feel that resentment to
get separation. You are in a position where you have spoken to
the OCDs, as they are called, the ordinary decent criminals. What
is your view as to what they are saying, or what are they saying
to you about what is happening ? What is the common complaint
to you as to separation and its impact?
Ms Bryson: Interestingly enough
on remand prisoners, when I was talking to somebody, he said he
was not going to decide yet whether to apply because when his
case came up in court it might look bad if he had affiliated himself.
In general, I think they are genuinely surprised at the speed
and the scale of it equally and they are keeping their options
open until they see what kind of regime it actually is and if
it is as Mr Maguire wants, a very strictly run regime, and almost
isolating people, then maybe they will find that they do not fill
the houses. This is a transitional period. People are keeping
their options open. That is what I have come across.
Q436 Mr Clarke: The reason I ask
is that if we are not careful we will concentrate so much on the
compact and on how the separated regime is going to be run that
we will neglect the reason for the unrest in the first place and
not concentrate on the regime left for the ordinary prisoners.
The risk of unrest takes us back to square one where we started.
Is that a fair assumption and would you want to comment on that?
Ms Hewitt: I think that is the
big assumption. That is the bottom line here. We are looking at
all of this. I think the vacuum that has been created by taking
23 on one side and then we almost got an impression of trying
to recruit prisoners from the Loyalist side to balance this. Actually,
it is hard to express your concern, is it not? You just wonder
what the underlying politics and dynamics of the situation are.
At Maghaberry we were all trained on the mantra that an integrated
prison is a safe prison, regardless of the rights and wrongs of
the decision. I think that is ingrained in all of us, and that
is what we would rather have. Even if you look at Maghaberry,
you have a vulnerable prisoner unit where you have some pretty
unsavoury characters with backgrounds in both communities, with
17 isolated on a landing in one of the houses and a dreadful regime.
As soon as a prison officer is needed, officers are taken from
there and the house locked down. We have been through the segregation
issues on many levels, drugs on the landings and all those things,
and still we come back to the management, that an integrated prison
is a safe prison. I personally, and it is only personal because
there will be various views on that, have to ask: were the numbers
involved quantified carefully enough and is this the action that
has been taken out of proportion to the problem? I do not know
the answer to that. I am sure that is what is exercising you.
I have to keep asking myself that and I have to keep protecting
the integrated prisoner and this regime. Maghaberry over the last
ten years has been a forward-looking prison under the exemplary
guidance of Martin Mogg and his team. In leadership terms, there
have been several governors there who really would stand up nationwide
in the sort of work that they want to pioneer there, and they
are still at it and they are still hopeful about it. We can see
wheels coming off. It is scary.
Q437 Mr Clarke: In looking at the
evidence you have provided to us, it is not a question of separation;
it is a question about the ordinary criminal, that the standard
service being offered is almost non-existent with doubling up,
lack of access to education and to workshops. The problems are
still there; they have got nothing to do with separation. They
are to do with the way prison is being run. Is that fair?
Ms Hewitt: Would you repeat the
last sentence?
Q438 Mr Clarke: The problems that
you have raised in your evidence have nothing to do with separation,
have they? They are really about the problems that exist at Maghaberry
for the ordinary criminal, the way the prison is being run, the
problems with the POA and management?
Ms Bryson: For instance, education
was running well in the early part of this year, I would say.
What is happening now, and I was speaking to one of the teachers,
is that they have not been able to contract their teachers for
the autumn season and so they have lost potential teachers who
are taking jobs elsewhere and so on, but education was running
well in the prison. The privileged scheme, the Prep as we call
it, was running well and beginning to make a difference, but these
things have been thrown into chaos by the summer activities,.
And so I think perhaps there is an element of truth in what you
say, but things were beginning to come together in a more progressive
way.
Q439 Mr Beggs: It has been suggested
that loss of remission may be reintroduced as a punishment administered
by an independent tribunal. Given the Board's past experience
in determining loss of remission, does this seem sensible?
Mr Martin: We have had a chequered
history of involvement in this particular area, as you know. This
is one of the residual functions, residual in the sense that it
apparently has changed substantially the nature of the BoV involvement
in the adjudication process and the loss of remission and so on
that could follow from that sort of thing. You have asked a very
difficult question. I would have a personal view that the situation
needs to be overseen and monitored. The involvement of an outside
judicial dimension seems to me to be sensible. I am not sure whether
necessarily all of my colleagues would agree with that because
we do have quite a number of views represented on that kind of
issue in our Board, but I think on balance the majority of members
would probably favour that kind of approach. There obviously needs
to be a sanction available to the Governor and the non-availability
of that could reduce his ability to manage effectively what is,
by all accounts, a very sensitive set of circumstances.
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