Examination of Witnesses (Questions 700
- 719)
THURSDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2003
MR MARK
LEWIS AND
MR JAMES
DUFFY
Q700 Chairman: When do you think
you are going to start the separated regime?
Mr Duffy: They expect to be Bush
and Roe very soon, by the beginning or mid February.
Q701 Chairman: There is time to get
the training done.
Mr Duffy: There is time to get
it done. How we are going to release those staff is going to be
a problem, that is going to be another additional burden on us.
Q702 Mr Bailey: From comments you
have made it is fairly obvious that the Prison Service estate
effects your ability to work properly. The Steele Review Panel
found that it was inadequate in a number of ways, what would you
say were the inadequacies of it?
Mr Lewis: It is not big enough.
Ultimately we need new build. The four old-style residential accommodations
are falling into disrepair. The two new ones were built to hold
a maximum capacity of 96 prisoners. A cell is smaller than the
Home Office recommends for one prisoner in mainland GB. We are
now talking about putting up to two prisoners in those cells.
Over-crowding is creeping up on us.
Mr Duffy: We have 676 prisoners
in the prison today.
Mr Lewis: There is talk, I say
talk, because I have seen nothing substantive, that a K block
will be built on the rear of the prison estate where the old prison
gardens were.
Q703 Chairman: What is a K block?
Mr Lewis: A K block is a K shape
configuration.
Q704 Chairman: I suspected it was
but I wanted to get that on the record.
Mr Lewis: It is a bigger version
of a H block. A full size K block can hold up to 300-325 prisoners.
Q705 Mr Bailey: What is the advantage
of a K block as opposed to a H block?
Mr Duffy: More control. It is
back to the old Victorian style, if you are in the centre you
can look down the legs. The old style houses are square, subsequently
you are very limited in your vision, you have officers working
down either landing neither of them within sight of each other,
neither can respond if there is trouble to back each other up.
They are totally unsuitable. There is no camera coverage in the
old ones. In Bush and Roe the work that has gone on is excellent,
we are seeing an additional 40 cameras per house.
Q706 Mr Bailey: That brings me on
to my follow up question, in effect what steps are being taken?
You have mentioned some, what other steps do you think could be
taken?
Mr Duffy: The Governor himself
has said that he wants the segregated prisoners to be looked at
as a prison on its own within the prison. There will be no movement
from that area, he is looking for a new build for visits, for
legal visits, video-link and chapel, church, within that area.
All that still has to be built. He is also looking for five aside
football fields if it is at all feasible to be built within that
area and everything to be contained within there and 24 dog patrols
everything. If he can do that and keep them all in that area he
can hopefully run the rest of the prison as a normal prison.
Q707 Mr Bailey: That is interesting.
Presumably that would incorporate facilities that are not there
for the other prisoners—
Mr Duffy: That is 12 months down
the road.
Q708 Mr Bailey:—and, shall
we say, further incentivise prisoners to go for paramilitary and
political status.
Mr Lewis: Precisely. A very worrying
thing. If I was an ordinary prisoner who had been conforming and
behaving and doing my sentence, getting my sentence in and I see
people are getting better concessions, what I perceive to be better
treatment, better visiting arrangements, not being made to go
out to work like an ordinary prisoner, having more leisure time
I am going to say to myself, "it is easier to get my sentence
in an environment like that".
Mr Duffy: The governor concurs
with us, under no circumstances does he want the segregated prisoners
to have a preferential regime to ordinary prisoners.
Q709 Chairman: They do at the moment.
Mr Duffy: They do at the moment.
When he moves them into Bush and Roe he does not want that to
be seen as a more favourable place to go than what ordinary prisoners
have, that is why the tight control movement will not be attractive
for ordinary prisoners to go in, they are able to go to work,
which in Bush and Roe they will not be.
Q710 Mr Bailey: A counterbalance
factor would be that there would be more control of movement?
Mr Duffy: There has to be, otherwise
you lose control very rapidly.
Q711 Mr Bailey: Going back to the
start of the protests, these arise in the first place, as I understand
it, as a reaction to doubling up in Bush and Roe. I understand
in your submission you did put alternatives.
Mr Lewis: We implored them not
to do it.
Q712 Mr Bailey: You put in alternatives.
What has happened as a result of the alternatives that you put
to them?
Mr Duffy: Our alternatives were
not taken on board in any shape or form. To create the separation
they opened Foyle House, which is what we said that we could do
without any expense on taxpayers' money. Because of the overtime
we are paying £10,000 a week when that area is open. They
opened the old committal landing because from 18 June 2002 we
asked the governor what his contingency plan was for overcrowding.
We said, "we are getting to a situation where if we are over-crowded
we have no vacant space". One of the areas that needed to
be reopened was the old committal landing, the governor has done
that, to free space on Lagan one and two to put dissidents in.
He has moved prisoners up on to Bann three and four, five and
six to make space for dissidents on Bann one and two. The problem
he has now is he has no vacant accommodation. The only vacant
accommodation we have because of the closure of one house for
security work is on Lagan one and two and Bann one and two, we
have spare cells there.
Mr Lewis: Recently we had a situation
where approximately 90 ODCs as they are known within the prison
system, Ordinary Decent Criminals, became so frustrated with what
they perceived the paramilitaries were getting they wrecked about
90 cells in one residential house in frustration because they
were being locked up all of the time to take staff away to man
paramilitary areas. Quite a substantial amount of damage has been
done. If they keep doing this we have nowhere to house people,
we simply have nothing left to fall back on.
Q713 Chairman: We were told at one
stage, and I would like your view on this, whilst the separation
has happened in Bush and Roe if those house are not full, which
they will not be, the Governor—
Mr Duffy: We will have severe
accommodation problems
Q714 Chairman:—will put ordinary
prisoners in there.
Mr Duffy: He said that he is not
going to do that.
Q715 Chairman: Has he said that now?
Mr Duffy: Yes, he has. He also
said that remand and sentenced will not be on the same landing,
they will be on separate landings.
Chairman: That is news, that is a change
from what we were told. Okay. If that has changed that is good.
Q716 Mr Bailey: I have problems insofar
as I was unable to make the visit to Maghaberry so I do not have
a mental picture. Forgive me if I say something that seems to
be a bit silly, going back to the sequence of events, the initial
protests were about doubling up.
Mr Duffy: Yes.
Q717 Mr Bailey: Following the impact
of those protests the paramilitaries saw the potential for pursuing
a stronger agenda?
Mr Duffy: The agenda had been
going since April 2001, it was not just doubling up in Bush and
Roe, it had started and all of the signs were there from April
2001, it was on their own website.
Q718 Mr Bailey: In effect would it
be reasonable to say that if your proposals had been adopted to
prevent doubling up this whole process may not have been even
started or at least would have been retarded.
Mr Lewis: That would not be an
unfair conclusion, sir.
Q719 Mr Bailey: What reasons did
they give for not adopting the proposals that you put forward?
Mr Duffy: None.
Mr Lewis: They simply said no.
Mr Duffy: In our submission you
have the minutes of the meetings.
Mr Lewis: It is all in your folder.
There was no reasonable explanation given, just "we are not
doing that".
Mr Duffy: One of the things we
said was about additional staff being required and training being
stopped, they have had to stop training now.
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