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Probe launched into 'dodgy' prison inspections
Mark Blunden19.10.09
Staff at two London prisons could face discplinary action after claims inmates were moved between the jails to ensure they received positive inspection results.
The high-ranking employees at both Wandsworth and Pentonville Prisons are said to have transferred the prisoners before the inspections carried out by the Chief Inspector of Prisons.
The Prison Service launched an investgation after the chief inspector Dame Anne Owers said she had received information about the scheme moving difficult prisoners.
The inquiry will look into claims that a small mumber of prisoners were moved between the two category-B prisons - the UK's largest two jails - in May and June.
Both have recently been praised for improving standards but Owers is set to publish two scathing reports tomorrow (Tuesday) which will criticise the regimes at the prisons, which have both been hit by overcrowding and budget problems.
A meeting was held last week by the Prison Service over whether to bring gross professional misconduct charges against the staff involved.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw issued a statement which said it was “neither policy nor acceptable practice temporarily to move prisoners during inspections”.
He said that Phil Wheatley, director general of the National Offender Management Service, had commissioned a formal investigation into information brought by Owers, “concerning the temporary transfer of prisoners in anticipation of HMCIP (Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons) inspections of two prisons”.
Mr Straw added: “The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Stephen Shaw, has also drawn our attention to the transfers.
“The Chief Inspector will make her own judgments in her inspection reports on the prisons but it is neither policy nor acceptable practice temporarily to move prisoners during inspections.
“The terms of reference for the investigation are to investigate the circumstances surrounding the temporary transfer of a number of prisoners between HMPs Pentonville and Wandsworth immediately prior to the HMCIP inspections of each prison.”
He added that the investigation would examine who proposed and authorised the transfers; the rationale for the transfers; and the circumstances of the actual transfers themselves and whether those transfers took place in line with policy requirements relating to the well-being of prisoners.”
Wandsworth is Britain's largest prison with more than 1,500 places while Pentonville can hold more than 1,100 prisoners.
It is thought tomorrow's reports will also look into the technique of “ghosting” where inmates are moved between prisons as a way of managing disruptive prisoners while helping other inmates make a fresh start.
