Inmate without disabled toilet was unable to get to facilities

Raekha Prasad, Thursday August 15, 2002, The Guardian

A paralysed prisoner is to sue the home secretary after being obliged to use his jail bed as a lavatory for a year.

Roger Zoppola, 47, who is serving an eight year prison sentence for possession and supply of drugs, is unable to move from the chest down and uses a wheelchair.

He claims he spent one year in a cell in Pentonville prison, north London, without a disabled toilet and that he could not reach the wing facilities unassisted.

He was unable to work and earn money, use the library, attend church and exercise in the gym, because of the inadequate disabled facilities.

Zoppola made several formal complaints, seen by the Guardian, about conditions in Pentonville but his request to be moved to a more suitable jail was not met until last month and only after lawyers threatened legal action.

To reach the wing toilet, he required another inmate to remove a wheel from his chair and lift him and it through the cell door. He was forced to use the facility in view of other inmates, he alleges.

During the night, when inmates are locked into their cells, he claims he frequently had to go to the toilet in his bed. Although there was a lavatory within the cell, behind a partition, he could not get to it by himself.

Chez Cotton, of Hickman and Rose solicitors, said she had seen Zoppola in his cell and witnessed the conditions for herself. She is advising him about claims under the Disability Discrimination Act, and the Human Rights Act.

Ms Cotton also claimed that staff at Pentonville prevented her from visiting Zoppola by misleading her, telling her he had been moved to another jail. On July 23, staff told a member of the firm that he had gone to Dovegate House, Birmingham, which had suitable facilities. But when the lawyers phoned Dovegate they were told he was not there.

On the same day, prison staff also told an independent team inspecting conditions for disabled inmates in Pentonville, including representatives from the Howard League for Penal Reform, the disability charity Leonard Cheshire, and Ms Cotton, that Zoppola had left Pentonville that day.

But Ms Cotton later discovered that Zoppola had been in his cell a few metres from the team all along. "Pentonville has treated Zoppola with absolute disregard for his dignity and personal integrity."

The director general of the prison service, Martin Narey, said: "We refute many of the allegations made. The prison service has been working as fast as possible to expand and increase facilities for disabled prisoners in prison. For three years the prison service has required new prisons to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act, to provide wheelchair accessible cells and other facilities for staff and prisoners with disabilities.

"Zoppola was held in Pentonville, but he has now been transferred to another newer prison which has satisfactory facilities for people with disabilities. He was sentenced by the courts to a long sentence for a very serious offence, in the full knowledge that he was a paraplegic.

"For three months following his sentencing, he was in hospital undergoing treatment for a pre-existing medical condition, at great expense to the prison service. However, I acknowledge that following his spell in hospital he should have been transferred more quickly to a more suitable prison."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,774634,00.html