SENIOR STAFF at Northern Ireland’s largest prison are to be replaced following a damning report into the death of a prisoner who was on suicide watch.
Colin Bell, who was serving life for murder in Maghaberry prison, was found hanging in his cell 10 months ago despite the fact that prison officers were supposed to be checking on him every 15 minutes.
The announcement that the prison’s governor and deputy governor are to go, but will not face disciplinary action, was made yesterday. It follows a government-appointed review of management at the prison.
Prison officers may be balloted on strike action as a result.
Finlay Spratt, head of the prison officers’ union, said the inquiry was “a waste of public money” and announced he favoured industrial action.
Bell had a history of self-harm and should have been monitored in his cell, but his death went unnoticed for 40 minutes.
Inquiries are understood to have revealed that prison staff watched television or slept while an at-risk prisoner hanged himself.
The report suggested there were many reasons why Bell had received such “poverty of care”.
“But above all he was the victim of an insidious subculture that allowed the delinquent behaviour by some junior staff, much of it undetectable because of their isolation from unannounced supervisory visits,” it said.
Bell was said to have done himself harm on some 15 occasions in the months before his death last August and to have called the Samaritans dozens of times.
Earlier this year prisons ombudsman Pauline McCabe recommended that the most senior staff face disciplinary action. However the government inquiry has decided not to follow this advice, opting instead to call for their removal and replacement by similarly experienced staff from outside Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland Office Minister Paul Goggins who is in charge of policing and justice said: “We must remember that this report stemmed from the [prison] service’s failure in its duty of care to a vulnerable prisoner, Colin Bell, whose death should not have happened.
“The report not only notes unacceptable behaviour by staff at Maghaberry in those circumstances, but also criticises what it sees as systematic problems.
“The team points to the need to rebalance security and resettlement in this complex establishment.”
SDLP Assembly member Dolores Kelly called for thorough reform of the prison service.
The Upper Bann representative said: “The prison service needs a root-and-branch reform of the kind which the Patten Commission brought to policing, to the great benefit of the whole community.”