Examination of Witnesses (Questions 520-524)
PROFESSOR MONICA
MCWILLIAMS,
MR EAMONN
O'NEILL AND
DR LINDA
MOORE
4 JULY 2007
Q520 Mr Fraser: Is the evidence you
have (in terms of the evidence you have just given) in terms of
the difference between us and the rest of Europe or is this just
hearsay, because I have heard a different point of view when I
have sat on committees in the Council of Europe as to our ability
to implement our obligations?
Dr Moore: There would be different
concerns in different countries, and certainly Monica mentioned
that I was recently on a visit to a prison in Warsaw, for example,
and this may be an anecdote but it shows how different countries
do things differently. We were watching visits and I asked why
were the visitors not being searched coming in and the governor
was saying, "Have you no respect for human rights in your
country? Visitors haven't done anything. How could we possibly
search a visitor?" So there are different issues in different
countries. We are particularly concerned about the issue of children
and there is clear evidence that Britain is locking up more children
than other countries, but in terms of deaths in custody I do not
have figures to hand for you on Europe.
Q521 Mr Fraser: Two questions specifically
on healthcare. This report says the transfer of responsibility
for prison healthcare from the Prison Service to the Health Department
provides a unique opportunity to bring about positive change in
prisoners' healthcare. Can you explain what those opportunities
are and tell us some of the things you see happening?
Dr Moore: Some of the things that
we see happening—and we were able to sit through the last
few minutes of your previous visitors' evidence, the IMB, and
certainly we share their concerns around prescribing. It is something
which came up in the research of women coming in on one prescription
and then it being reduced. So we would hope that there is continuity
between the care that people are getting and the prescribing that
they are getting in the community. Communication is an important
issue, so we would hope that there will be more communication
between prison health services and health services in the community
over individual prisoners. We would also hope that in terms of
clinical governance it will be an opportunity to improve those
issues and that there will be greater accountability in terms
of clinical governance.
Professor McWilliams: We have
actually met with the Director of the Eastern Health and Social
Services Board to communicate our findings and to see how we could
best help to take forward the recommendations now that the Health
Service is taking over the provision and we are continuing those
meetings with short leave and detention, just as the policing
group will be meeting the head of the trust which has responsibility
for Maghaberry and for Hydebank. A number of issues were raised
by the IMB. There is only one psychiatrist and you heard him speak
about the issue of personality disorders, and Dr Moore picked
that up earlier. It is our belief that these women—and I
have no doubt the men—are entering custody rather than places
of care as a consequence of being of harm to themselves or others,
and personality disorders is a big issue because of the mental
health legislation. The Bamford review also in Northern Ireland
mental health provides an opportunity for the Northern Ireland
Assembly to address this through new mental health legislation,
to actually bring this issue in and not have it excluded, so that
psychiatrists in future will be able to address this. You also
heard them say that there is only one place outside Northern Ireland
and we have had to take a number of cases in relation to that.
It is called Caselles in England. It is very expensive but it
is not in Northern Ireland and the issue for us there is that
it is time we addressed this issue. The Prison Service has addressed
it with the Director-General and I understand also the governor
in Maghaberry is addressing this, what can we do about the issue
of people with personality disorders, and we certainly hope that
the provision of more psychiatrists and cognitive behaviour therapists
inside the prison will help. It needs to happen soon, but it can
be picked up in the community. Brian Coulter concluded his report
yesterday which he sent me, the Prisoner Ombudsman, on the issue
of the young man who died through an epileptic attack and there
he raised exactly the same issue you heard earlier about the practice
of reducing the medication. He actually has come to the conclusion
that the medical practitioner was inexperienced in doing that,
and indeed the neurologist came to the same conclusion. Given
that we have such a high number of people with epilepsy inside
prisons, this is an issue. Are the people trained? Are they the
best placed? Is the healthcare different from what would be provided
outside? Is it of a different and lower standard? It is my belief
the Health Service have some very serious issues now to address.
Chairman: We will certainly be taking
all these points into account. We will be taking some of them
up on Monday when we are at Maghaberry. Thank you very much. Could
we move on to Mr Campbell?
Q522 Mr Campbell: Just a couple of
brief questions on the issue of prison conditions. It has already
been alluded to in passing, I think, about the buzzer problem.
In relation to Magilligan and Hydebank Wood, you have made, as
I say, passing reference to the issue of a single buzzer for use
in emergencies. In-cell sanitation at both locations appears to
be a problem. If you could quantify that or grade that in terms
of the seriousness of it, where would you put it? How serious
is it?
Dr Moore: There is not a hierarchy
of rights in that sense, in that if not having the toilet in the
cell is potentially a breach of Article 3, depending on the person's
circumstances, then that is a very grave breach. Clearly, with
regard to the right to life, if a person dies that is a very grave
breach. What we want to avoid is the Prison Service saying, "Look,
there's only a limited amount of money. Do you want this, or do
you want the toilets in the cells, or do you want the buzzers?"
What we are saying is that these are fundamental human rights
which need to be met and that that will cost money. If you read
the report here, certainly in terms of the toilets in the cells
in Hydebank Wood it is a very serious issue for the women. As
we said here, we are very alarmed about the issue of the buzzers
in Magilligan.
Q523 Mr Campbell: If the issue became
one of trying to provide proper in-cell sanitation at Magilligan
and at Hydebank Wood (particularly at Magilligan, but both) and,
because of cost factors, the provision of limited rebuild, which
may or may not be entirely satisfactory, would you be saying that
that would be sufficient to meet the requirements or would you
be saying, "In our opinion, it is bad enough to warrant a
complete and total rebuild at both sites"?
Professor McWilliams: Hydebank
is a separate issue. If you are asking about Hydebank, what we
have called for is a discrete and separate facility for the reasons
we have already explained. The concern is, as Mr Fraser has already
pointed out, that in terms of the Council of Europe's standards
it is a very dangerous situation to have a buzzer doing two things,
one to tell you that your life is threatened and one to tell you
that somebody urgently needs to be let out, particularly during
the night, to go to the toilet. The Prison Service itself is saying
it is having to make all kinds of decisions in that situation.
We are saying that as it currently stands it has to be changed.
Dr Moore: If you are asking whether
Magilligan is inadequate, then clearly yes, it is.
Chairman: But your concern is not with
the expensive buildings, and so on, your remit is to see that
a certain standard of human rights, as you interpret it, is provided
and if that is infringed then you say so, and we of course have
to take that into account, evaluate that and make our recommendations
accordingly. Mr Murphy, did you have any final questions?
Q524 Mr Murphy: Yes, Chairman. You
have actually covered most of the points I intended to raise.
However, if you could perhaps clarify two further points? One
is that strip searching by its very nature is degrading, both
to the prisoner and I am sure to the staff. Mr O'Neill commented
on the perhaps inappropriate and unnecessary use of strip searching.
Under what circumstances would you agree that strip searching
would be necessary?
Dr Moore: We have said in our
report here that it should be on the basis of individual assessment
and only where either the safety of the person who is being searched
is threatened or someone else's safety is potentially threatened.
What we are arguing is that it should not be routine or random
strip searching, that it should only be where individual risk
assessments deem it necessary.
Professor McWilliams: Again, in
terms of Mr Fraser's response, we have attempted to look at it,
and indeed it may be something the Committee wants to take on
board, to make that comparison with prisons elsewhere. Again,
my experience in Dochas was that I was extremely surprised because
it was a women's prison, but I asked that question and when we
went to visit Dungavel, which is the holding centre for detainees,
there is no strip searching. So it is only when you do those comparisons
that you become accustomed to what you expect to be custom and
practice, until you realise that it is actually not proportionate,
nor indeed has it anything to do with the standard of being of
absolute necessity. So again we make this point to the Northern
Ireland Prison Service: would it not be much better to have a
risk assessment protocol in place than to be doing this on such
a routine basis? What we have found is that individuals are coming
in for very short periods of time and, as you can imagine, due
to the culture of Northern Ireland, and indeed for others, to
be strip naked—and although the Prison Service say it is
a half and half search, a half body search, quite frequently that
is not how they feel because they often feel that it is a complete
strip search—it is one of the things that comes across in
the report as being hugely traumatic at reception to have that
for women who have never crossed a prison door and may be in for
defaulting on a fine, for a t.v. licence, or whatever. Our point
on that was that surely in this day and age we should be starting
to risk assess those individuals? I know it is to keep drugs out
of prison, but again we need to do a proper risk assessment.
Chairman: You make a powerful point and
you make it very eloquently. Thank you very much indeed. You have
given us clear evidence. Your views are very emphatic, as one
would understand, and we appreciate the work you are seeking to
do and we will obviously take most carefully into account what
you have said today and what you have said in the report, specifically
about the women's prisons, and if there are other points which
occur to you which you feel you should have told us or we should
have asked you, we will be dealing with this inquiry for some
little time yet and any supplementary evidence can be sent to
the clerk. Thank you very much indeed, and I wish you a very safe
flight home.
|
