MOJUK 'Inside Out' 52

Trouble at the HMPs - but Prison Service Keep it Quite

Not reported, when it happened, there have been disturbances at three prisons in the last two weeks. HMP Guys Marsh, HMP Doncaster and HMP Ranby.

The prison population has surged by 700 in the last two weeks to a record 70,894 - 7,000 higher than the official capacity of prisons in England and Wales.

The first disturbance broke out at HMP Guys Marsh young offenders' institution at Shaftesbury, Dorset, last Thursday evening. One prison officer was injured and six cells damaged after about 30 inmates went on the rampage in an incident that lasted until 3.45 on Friday morning.

The second happened at HMP Doncaster, South Yorkshire. About 25 prisoners in H-wing refused to return to the cells on Monday night and barricaded themselves into an area of the wing. The incident went on until 4am on Tuesday morning when the inmates finally surrendered.

The third incident involved 48 inmates at HMP Ranby prison at Retford, Nottinghamshire, on Tuesday night and started in a residential unit at 10.15 at night. The prisoners lit small fires, turned on the taps and caused extensive water damage and are believed to have temporarily put 50 cells out of use. They surrendered at 3am on Tuesday morning after riot squads and dogs arrived at the prison. Nobody was injured and a prison service investigation is under way. Some of those involved have now been transferred to other prisons.

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Y’all Going to be Jolly Jack Tars

New jail ships as Blunkett runs out of cells, (and ideas)

Three prison ships will be drafted into service to ease an accommodation crisis blamed for riots at three jails in the past week.

Prison Service officials have made inquiries about hiring the vessels as part of an emergency package to provide more cells. They would each hold 500 low-risk convicts and would be moored at ports - with one possibly at Barrow-in-Furness in the North West.

One prison ship - the Wheare at Portland in Dorset - is already in use. The Wheare was originally a troop ship in the Falklands and was later used as a floating jail in New York. She has been in service in Britain since 1997, when she became the country's first prison ship for 200 years, and holds 400 inmates.

Senior prison officials are also looking at vacant Defence Ministry sites after internal service projections suggested that the record 70,926 prison population could hit 72,000 by the end of the month. The population has risen by almost 5,000 this year and grew by 511 last week. Now prison governors are being advised that police cells may have to be used from next week.

Martin Narey, the Director-General of the Prison Service, is holding urgent talks with the Home Secretary about how the service can cope with the increase. He described the situation as very disturbing but said the service was doing its "very best to hang on" until extra capacity arrives.

David Roddan, general secretary of the Prison Governors' Association, said: "The consequences of overcrowding are well known. We have been briefing ministers about the difficulty of maintaining decency and good order since the middle of last year. We will continue to strive to run decent prisons, but we cannot accommodate the numbers being sent to us by the courts."

The shortage of spaces, which means that inmates have to be bussed hundreds of miles around the country, has been made worse by three separate disturbances at Category C jails. Governors believe the overcrowding triggered the troubles and fear publicity about the disturbances could spark copycat riots.

In the past week, rampaging inmates have caused thousands of pounds of damage and put 82 cells out of use in the three prisons by lighting fires, smashing windows and wrecking fixtures and fittings.

The latest disturbance ended after six hours at 4.30am yesterday when 48 prisoners at Ranby jail in Nottinghamshire surrendered. The police, fire brigade and three teams of prison officers in full riot gear had been called to tackle the trouble in a residential unit. Prisoners were moved out and no one was hurt. A prison officers' leader thought the disturbance was triggered by inmates who had been unable to watch the Leeds v Celtic football match on television.

The day before, 25 prisoners barricaded themselves into their cells at Lindholme jail in South Yorkshire. They smashed fittings and lit fires during an eight-hour disturbance. No one was injured in the disturbance, but 26 cells were put out of use.

The third institution was HMP Guys Marsh young offender institution near Shaftesbury where 30 inmates smashed cells during seven hours of disturbances last week. One officer was injured and six cells were put out of use.. By Richard Ford, The Times,

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Sam Cole on the move

Sam said let y'all know he's gone up country to HMP Frankland.

He was found guilt of assaulting a screw in HMP Whitemoor and got punished with 21 days loss of earnings. Which Sam felt was extremely lenient and he is going to appeal.

They put him back on the wing and that only lasted four days before he was back in the block. When Sam asked why he was told that "You are being segregated due to intelligence about subversive activity on the wings" "there is no way you are going back on the wings". Which turned out to be true, cause they shipped him up to HMP Frankland, definitely a punishment move.

So y'all put pen to paper again and drop him a line.

Sam Cole, HM 3009, HMP Frankland, Brasside, Durham, DH1 5YD

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Trawling and it ain't for fish or is it!

What is blindingly clear and it doesn't take Select Committee to work it out, that 'Trawling' for witnesses under Crown Prosecution Service, guide lines, gave the police a licence to frame.

In the article below there is mention of Thames Valley Police, now where have we heard of this lot before. Lets have a 'trawl' through the MOJUK data base and see if we can find something to fit them up with. Press the search button and what comes up:

You make a lot of enemies - Arrest of Bill Thompson - MOJUK ‘Inside Out’ 47

Now we didn't say it then, but applying the CPS guidelines, we can definitely say that the arrest of  Bill Thompson a lecturer at Reading University, a criminologist with an international reputation as an expert on sexual assaults on children, was a 'Black Bag' operation. An operation that was run to try and sabotage the Home Affairs Select Committee investigation into police trawling, which begins this week.

Bill had been quite critical of 'Trawling' and had stated emphatically;

"You make a lot of enemies when you point out that not everyone accused of sexually assaulting children is guilty," "The problem with the way cases are prosecuted at the moment is that it is often not sex offenders who are being sent to prison, it is innocent people."

"The police went trawling for evidence, and an unholy alliance of psychiatrists, social workers, judges and lawyers has allowed evidence which is demonstrably flawed, if not worthless, to be used to lock people up."

No doubt the committee will at the end condemn 'trawling', but will it help free the hundreds of victims who are now inside, don't hold your breath or watch this column.

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Trawling goes on trial, but who pays the price?

By Bob Woffinden, The Times Law Reports, Tuesday 14th May 2002

The process by which police actively search for complaints of abuse against a suspect goes under the microscope today

Today, the Home Affairs Select Committee begins an investigation into police trawling - in which the police actively search for complaints of abuse against a particular suspect - and the convictions obtained by such methods.

But when a prosecution goes seriously awry, who among the prosecuting authorities is held responsible? That is the question to which Neil O'May of Bindman & Partners, on behalf of his client Dr Alfred Reeves, has spent many months trying to get a sensible answer.

Dr Reeves, one of the country's leading child psychotherapists, was the Principal of the Mulberry Bush residential school in Standlake, Oxfordshire, from 1981 to 1991. The school had an outstanding reputation, and at any one time took in about 36 of the country's most emotionally disturbed children.

After Dr Reeves retired in 1991, one boy made serious allegations against him. An investigation by Thames Valley Police concluded that the complainant was untruthful. In 1994 a second pupil made allegations; a thorough investigation by the Metropolitan Police uncovered no reliable evidence. Later, however, the pupil renewed his allegations. As a result, Thames Valley Police undertook a fresh trawling investigation, and contacted all former pupils.

By the autumn of 1998 there were ten complainants, who between them alleged 38 counts of sexual assault. In May 2000 Dr Reeves was prosecuted at Oxford Crown Court. At the close of the defence case, with the number of complainants reduced to three, the defence submitted that there was no case to answer. Judge Mary Mowatt agreed and directed that Dr Reeves be acquitted of all charges.

Subsequently, O'May took up a complaint against the prosecuting authorities, arguing that had the case been properly investigated it would never have got to trial; and that the protracted prosecution had led to unnecessary grief and suffering not just for Dr Reeves and his family, but also for the complainants.

O'May believed that all the complaints had been produced by the investigating process itself. A number of the witnesses confirmed that interviewing officers had told them not only that allegations of sexual assault had been made against Dr Reeves, but that they, the police, believed them.

Complainants appeared to have said what they thought the police wanted to hear; two gave statements alleging criminal conduct that they did not mention in court. "It is unarguable," insisted O'May, "that the police technique of contacting witnesses, and interviewing them in accordance with the protocol drawn up by the Crown Prosecution Service, generated unreliable and untruthful statements."

The investigation seemed to have been directed solely towards constructing a prosecution case. Whenever there was the prospect of an allegation, that witness was interviewed at length and a statement taken; whenever a witness responded positively to Dr Reeves, no statement was taken. Similarly, the police interviewed former and serving members of staff, disregarding those who spoke highly of Dr Reeves and taking statements only from the three who offered mild criticisms.

O'May also suggested that the CPS strategy, whether invoking the restricted disclosure provisions of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act, or taking out a voluntary bill of indictment to forestall an old-style committal, had been to prevent an abundance of documentary material reaching the defence. In doing so, ironically, the prosecution seemed to withhold vital evidence from itself.

At a hearing on third-party disclosure, counsel for the London Borough of Ealing described the boy as "highly unreliable". He stated that he had been taken to a local doctor after being assaulted by Dr Reeves. This was probably untrue, but it had never been investigated.

The prosecution abandoned the witness only on the day the trial began, causing this damaged young man, says O'May, "enormous emotional trauma".

Documents showed that a second, female, witness, had made unsubstantiated sexual allegations against numerous people, including police officers. One interviewing officer had earlier concluded that she "should never be considered a reliable witness". Yet she was taken to court direct from a psychiatric hospital and then, immediately after giving evidence, dropped by the prosecution.

"It was dreadful," recalled Dr Reeves, "she was totally bemused. She'd spent years in a mental hospital and had seemed to be improving, but this process took her to pieces."

All the material that led to these witnesses being dropped had been available to the prosecution before Dr Reeves was ever charged.

After persevering with his complaint for 18 months, O'May has finally received somewhat grudging admissions from the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, who wrote that "the CPS have now accepted that (the decision to drop the male pupil) perhaps should have been made earlier"; and also that the mass of third-party material should have been "reviewed earlier by the prosecution". He added that "this type of case should be handled more effectively in future".

What the Home Affairs Select Committee will want to know is how typical such failings have been of past trawling investigations, and whether promises of more effective procedures can now be relied upon.

The author is giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee; Neil O'May and Dr Reeves will be giving evidence next week.

It's still 'Black & White' with the Crown Prosecution Service

Despite the hype that "institutional racism", is on the wane the reality is that things are just the same. Colour still decides who gets stopped by the police and if your none white you are very very likely to face more serious charges than a white person for the same offence.

The CPS are still showing bias to ethnic minority groups and not taking the police to task for *'overcharging' people from these backgrounds.

Persons arrested for 'hate crimes' are more than likely to be 'Undercharged'. Charges of racially aggravated crimes are regularly downgraded to remove the race element, while in other cases prosecutors accept defendants' guilty pleas to the crime minus the racial aggravation.

*'overcharging' , defendant is charged with a far more serious offence than the alleged offence warranted.

Another Four Deaths in Custody

As the prison population increases, so do the number of deaths of convicted prisoners and those on remand. The latest deaths all occurred within the space of five days.

*Terry Doyle Irish, Hanged 9th may died 12th may Brixton Prison (30)

Wayne Tranter died 13th may Cardiff Prison (38)

Mark Allen Hanged 11th may Holme House (25)

Marcus Downie Black Hanged Chelmsford Prison11th may (21)

*Terry Doyle is the sixth Irish Prisoner to die in the custody of Brixton Prison. The Irish Deaths in Custody Campaign, have already taken this up and are calling for a public inquiry into the death of Terry and the other five .

These latest deaths, did not receive any publicity in the national media.Life is cheap inside the judicial system and no one seems to give a fuck. Except for the tiny few campaigners. In every case of a death in prison or in custody, family and friends are treated with contempt by the system.

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Justice for Richard O'Brien and Family!

Payout for police restraint death

Four children of a south west Wales market trader who died after being restrained by police, have won �225,000 in damages at the High Court in London.

Richard O'Brien, 37, from Gendros, Swansea, died after he was arrested during a family christening in London in 1994. An inquest later established he had been unlawfully killed.

"This case was never primarily about compensation from the family's point of view but it is regretted that the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police has fought this case to the door of the court. " Fiona Murphy, family's solicitor.

Still the Police have learned no lessons when it comes to deaths in custody

The high Court in London decided today on a final settlement in relation to the incidents and arrest of Richard O'Brien and members of his family, Richard died in Police Custody on the same evening. The High Court awarded the family of Richard O'Brien the sum of 225,000 Pounds in relation to the events, which took place that evening. The hearing today in the High Court is the result of a long struggle by the O'Brien family and there friends along with the legal team to gain Justice.

The case fought by the O'Brien family has never been about compensation, it has been about Justice, and the fact that an Inquest can find the death of Richard O'Brien as that of Unlawful killing by Police Officers, this clearly shows that the Metropolitan Police were responsible for Richard's death. Yet when the case finally went to the Courts and three Officers who were prosecuted with manslaughter charges appeared, there were no convictions.

The O'Brien family has never even had an apology from the Metropolitan Police for the death of Richard O'Brien and clearly the Commissioner of the metropolitan Police fought a very hard and bitter battle against the O'Brien family in their fight for Justice.

Since the death of Richard O'Brien there have been more deaths in custody and they have learned nothing, and the inquest into the death of Roger Sylvester, which will be heard, soon is testimony to that fact.

The review by the Attorney Generals Office into deaths in custody needs to look at not just the deaths in isolation but his remit should be much broader, looking at the whole Criminal Justice System from the Police Station to the Courts.

The case of Richard O'Brien has come this far only by the strength of his family and there ability to fight for Justice, no amount of compensation can cover the death of a father of seven young children and the loss of Allison O'Brien's Partner, along with the years of emotional trauma and pain.

Richard Ilett, 34, Gary Lockwood, 33, and James Barber, 29, were cleared at the Old Bailey of killing 23-stone Irishman Richard O'Brien while he was under arrest in 1994.

There is a need for an Independent Public Enquiry into these deaths if we are to get near the truth. If officers were convicted of these deaths then we would see a marked change in the numbers of death, up until today they are able to walk away with no convictions. Is there one law for them and another for the rest of us? This has to change. The Irish Community would like to thank the O'Brien family in the tremendous fight for Justice, which they have carried for the last eight years.

Back ground: BBC News Online - UK Officers accused over trader's death

Three Police officers have gone on trial at the Old Bailey accused of the manslaughter. Richard Ilett, Gary Lockwood and James Barber deny killing Richard O'Brien in 1994.

Mr O'Brien died before arriving at Walworth police station Mr O'Brien, who was 37 and weighed 19 stone, had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly and taken to Walworth police station in south London He lost consciousness while at the police station, and was dead on arrival at King's College Hospital.

The prosecution alleges that Mr O'Brien died because the three officers held him face down on the ground, with his hands cuffed behind his back, and did not believe him when he said he could not breath.

"Mr O'Brien died because he could not breathe as the result of them holding him face down on the ground for a prolonged period of time," said Mr Nigel Sweeney, prosecuting. "They ignored warnings from him and others that he could not breathe." He added: "Their breach of duty was gross negligence."

Arrest after christening

The jury at the Old Bailey was told that Mr O'Brien, of East Dulwich, south London, went to a christening with his long-term partner Alison and their two sons Richard, then 14, and James, then 15, on Easter Sunday 3 April, 1994. They then went to a dance at the English Martyrs Club in Waddington Street, Walworth.

But police were called at about midnight after reports of a disturbance. Mr Sweeney told the court that Mr O'Brien and his family had taken no part in the disturbance, and left the hall to wait for a lift outside.

At 12.15am on Easter Monday, April 4, 1994, Constable llett arrested Mr O'Brien. He said he and the two other accused officers had used "extensive, unreasonable and therefore unlawful force, holding him down for a prolonged period".

Bleeding wounds

Mr O'Brien, he said, was held face-down on the ground, with his hands held behind his back by two handcuffs for at least five minutes, then carried to a van by six officers.

He had 31 separate injuries - 12 of them were to his face and head - which would have been bleeding profusely.

When the van arrived at Walworth police station, officers tried to revive Mr O'Brien, but he appeared to be already dead.

"Holding a fat man in that position and in that way meant that because of his size, his stomach was pressed against his diaphragm, thus restricting his ability to breathe," said Mr Sweeney.

In statements, the officers had outlined their defence.

Pc Ilett said he had restrained Mr O'Brien with one knee in his back, and at some stage holding the arrested man's head so that he did not injure himself.

Lockwood said he restrained the man's middle and legs. Barber held Mr O'Brien's folded legs against his thighs.

Terry Stewart, Irish Deaths in Custody Campaign, PO Box 29644, London E2 8TS

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Miscarriages of Justice Organisation Scotland

Out for the Night Presents

A Silver Jubilee@Her Majesty's Pleasure

Tales of injustice, comedy and music

Kinky Afro (Sub Club drummers Ayawara)

Free Robert Brown 25 years for Nothing

Come to Glasgow on the 1st June for the Real Alternative Jubilee bash

Renfrew Ferry Sat 1st June

Conscious Raising and Spirit Lifting

MOJO Scotland are putting another conscious raising spirit-lifting event on in support of Robert Brown and Kenny Ritchie. Come and here some of Scotland’s top thespians relay tales of injustices carried out in our name, then revel in Scotland s top comedians, headlined by Channel 4 Mark Thomas (tbc), as well as show casing some of Scotland top acoustic performers, all finished off with the drumming of Samba Yamba and sub-clubs favourite DJs Kinky Afro and drummers Ayawara.

This is the true jubilee commemoration, in 77 the Sex Pistols hired a boat on the Thames, for 2002 we have hired a boat on the Clyde. Robert Brown has spent the last twenty-five years at her majesty's pleasure for a crime he knew nothing about

Help free Robert Brown from his Living Hell.