Wardens 'groomed to smuggle drugs into jail'
By Laura Clout and agencies
Last Updated: 11:09am BST 16/04/2007
An undercover investigation has unearthed a catalogue of failings at a private jail, where inmates have easy access to drugs and mobile phones, and staff are subject to intimidation if they are too thorough in their work.
During five months working as a prison officer in Rye Hill prison, Warwickshire, an undercover reporter was offered £1,500 by inmates to smuggle cannabis into the jail.
He also filmed a young female custody officer who had angered inmates by her diligent approach to her job, being threatened with violence by a prisoner. She was later told to "back off" by a senior colleague.
The jail, run by Global Solutions Ltd (GSL), formerly Group 4, has already been strongly criticised after an inmate was stabbed to death in his cell, and another two died whilst on suicide watch.
The reporter, a former soldier, underwent the 13-week prison officers' training course and was soon placed on some of the most volatile wings in the prison.
During the investigation by Guardian Films and BBC's Panorama, he was asked to bring "weed" into the category B high-security prison and promised that payment would reach his bank account via Western Union, a practice an inmate claimed had been used before.
The reporter is also told: "A cameraphone goes for £500. A normal phone, like - no camera - goes for £250."
Another prisoner told the programme that staff considered too strict were attacked by the prisoners, who were paid with drugs by fellow inmates to assault them.
The female officer who was threatened by inmates says in the film, "I'm feeling today they're going to kill me."
Newly qualified staff, some working alone, are shown trying to control more than 70 prisoners on one wing while they are unlocked and on free association.
One officer says in the film, which will be shown tonight on Panorama, "There's shortages of staff everywhere, it's just people ringing in sick...and it was worse yesterday."
John Bates, director of corporate communications for GSL, admitted that 47 mobile phones had been recovered inside the jail already this year, but claimed the prison was "progressing well". But he said it was "completely unacceptable" that inmates were attempting to "groom" officers to bring in drugs.
A Home Office spokesman said: "We cannot comment as we have not seen the film. But GSL has demonstrated an improvement at Rye Hill over the past 12 months. Additional resources have been put into it."
GSL are the main providers of private prison places in England and Wales and are considered likely to win the government contract to provide a further 4,000 prison places.
But Rye Hill has been fiercely criticised in two reports by Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons. Last month four officers were cleared in connection with the death of Michael Bailey, a prisoner on suicide watch. A judge at Northampton Crown Court described the death as an "avoidable tragedy".
Less than three weeks after Bailey died, another prisoner Wayne Reid was stabbed to death in his cell by two other inmates.
And in May last year another known suicide risk, Oleski Baronovsky, died 17 days after he was found covered in blood in his cell. It later emerged that nobody had entered the cell for 15 hours.
It took GSL six months to inform the prisoner's family, who live in Ukraine, of his death.
# Life Behind Bars is on BBC1 tonight at 8.30pm
Comment: The photo is from a public sector prison and not the private sector. No doubt the under cover reporter will be aware that he has committed a criminal offence under the Prison Act 1952 by smuggling a camera into prison. I trust that the prison authorities will be pursuing a prosecution? I believe that this is a non-story because the Prison Service's own inquiry has already established this practice. So, I fail to see what the Guardian and Panorama have actually uncovered.
UPDATE: The Guardian take on the story here.
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