Examination of Witnesses (Questions 720
- 733)
THURSDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2003
MR MARK
LEWIS AND
MR JAMES
DUFFY
Q720 Mr Bailey: That would lend credence
to the proposition you put, that in effect the political decision
was made beforehand that there with no point in adopting proposals.
Mr Duffy: As well as that the
roof-top protests that follow afterwards, the second and third
ones were totally and utterly avoidable. An officer had a prisoner
come to him two days prior to the second protest saying that prisoners
were going to go on the roof, the prisoner came back to him again
on the morning in question and said "they are going on the
roof". The officer put in two security information reports
but nobody took any action. They were allowed out in the yard
after they had been on the roof when the security work had not
been done and they gained access to the yard again, they should
never have been in the yard.
Q721 Chairman: Who authorised that?
Mr Duffy: I do not know.
Q722 Mr Bailey: On the basis of the
separation so far are things better or worse?
Mr Duffy: At the moment things
are not the best. The wings where the paramilitaries are quiet
because they have what they want on stage one. The problems we
have within the prison is not enough resources, we need officers
to be recruited, we need officers to come in for these areas but
they have no intention of recruiting officers.
Q723 Mr Bailey: Will it be fair to
say it is the lull before the storm?
Mr Lewis: Very much so.
Mr Duffy: This is phase one. Phase
two is when they go to Bush and Roe, that is when things start
to speed up because their numbers will be coming in and they become
more bolshy. They then move on to phase three, which is the dangerous
phase, where they split into their factions and they either want
their own wing or their own house.
Mr Lewis: Ultimately they will
move for the removal of prison staff from those areas.
Q724 Chairman: We have all seen the
pattern of what they seek to achieve. What was the date of this
incident with Mr Gallagher and the Mr Shrouki?
Mr Lewis: Sunday past.
Q725 Mr Clarke: Most of my questions
have been answered. Ordinary decent criminals, their views on
separation are not favourable, are they?
Mr Duffy: No. Like you they would
like to see a predictable regime.
Mr Lewis: Some of them are frightened
of it. If you were an ordinary decent criminal and I was a paramilitary
and I wanted to enlist your support, if you are a big strapping
fella, I am going to say to you "need your help, we want
to take a prison officer hostage, you are going to help us. The
reason why you are going to help us is you know who I am and I
know where your Mum lives and we do not want anything to happen
to your Mum". They will exert the same pressure on people
within their own community to come on board to help them.
Q726 Mr Clarke: My final wrap up
question is you paint a picture which would suggest that there
is more trouble ahead?
Mr Duffy: Most definitely.
Mr Lewis: Categorically so.
Q727 Mr Clarke: Do you wish to place
on record your views as to where the most likely source of that
trouble is to be, from the ordinary decent criminals or from the
separated/segregated paramilitary prisoners? Would you try to
give us an indication or a clue as to how those actions may surface
and what they may be? What type of action can you foresee happening
that could make the situation worse?
Mr Lewis: I believe, as Mr Duffy
has explained to you, when your problems will really start will
be February when they go into the areas that have been redesigned
for them. The areas have been quite cleverly designed with control
in mind. Prisoners will be extremely resistant towards this control.
We suspect they may damage it. This is simply a prognosis, I believe
the first thing they will do is that they will damage the camera
system so they cannot be observed.
Q728 Chairman: Are they in a position
where they can be damaged?
Mr Lewis: Yes.
Mr Duffy: Some of them, yes.
Mr Lewis: One of the things you
do as a prison officer when you go into an area is you examine
all of the potential areas of safety and also all of the areas
of potential escape. I walked round, it has been well designed
to contain and control but if you knock out the camera systems
and you cannot be observed there will be a potential to take staff
hostage, there will be potential to seriously damage an officer.
Mr Duffy: There is tamper devices
on the new cameras, as soon as they attempt to tamper with them
that will be tagged up.
Q729 Chairman: Electric ones!
Mr Duffy: I presume so, sir.
Mr Lewis: I believe they will
actively and vigorously campaign to recruit either by pressure
or other means. The idea is to increase the numbers within their
own areas. When they feel they have sufficient numbers they will
then start to physically fight us.
Mr Duffy: They will want recognition
of their own rank structure. If they do not get that we are quite
sure they will attempt to assault staff in the new houses.
Mr Lewis: We must have a regime
where we can control these people physically and psychologically.
Without that you may as well give them the keys of the jail.
Mr Duffy: If they cannot get at
the staff on the landings they will attack them outside.
Q730 Mr Clarke: We must also have
a regime for ODCs.
Mr Lewis: We need to make the
regime better.
Mr Duffy: I concur 100%.
Q731 Mr Clarke: Are you confident
we can, as Steele says, provide a regime for ordinary criminals
that is attractive?
Mr Duffy: We can do that but we
are back to a resource question.
Q732 Mr Clarke: That would include
a return to work, workshops being open, a return to education,
all of the things that at the moment are being restricted?
Mr Duffy: Braille was one thing
that was being restricted, we came back to the management with
an option for getting braille back on and management accepted
that, and braille is back on. We fully concur with what you say,
it will include education and workshops but our problems come
back down to resources being provided for safe staffing levels
to be maintained, if they cannot be maintained and we cannot deliver
a basic regime in the house then if we cannot deliver a basic
regime then everything else falls like a set of dominos.
Q733 Chairman: Mr Lewis and Mr Duffy,
thank you very much, you have been very helpful and frank. It
was November 16 this incident happened.
Mr Lewis: The entire incident
is now recorded because I insisted on it being recorded in all
of the official journals. There is also a video / audio tape of
the incident.
Chairman: If you can let us have a record
of that that would be very helpful.
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