Two Northern Ireland prison governors could become the first in the UK to be the subject of a disciplinary inquiry, it was revealed today.
Governor Alan Longwell and his deputy, Steve Davis, of Maghaberry Prison, Co Antrim, will come under investigation if the recommendations of a report into the suicide of an inmate are accepted.
Prisoner Ombudsman Pauline McCabe’s 186-page report centres on claims that staff were asleep when Colin Bell hanged himself in a cell while he was supposed to be under close watch.
The 34-year-old, serving a sentence for an arson attack in which a man was burned to death, had a history of self-harm and was supposed to be monitored. But it is understood that CCTV footage from the jail showed that staff were asleep when Bell died.
The Prison Service declined to comment ahead of the publication of the review of the case.
The report into the affair is expected to make 44 recommendations, including the proposal for further disciplinary proceedings.
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) representative Ian Paisley Jnr said today he had seen an early draft of the report and was shocked by its contents. “What I have seen and what I have discussed with several prison officers is probably one of the most disturbing and perplexing set of circumstances into serious institutional failure,” he said.
Mr Paisley said he believed night warders, as opposed to prison officers, were introduced to monitor inmates as part of an effort to save resources. But he claimed that video footage now showed the prisoner was not monitored as he should have been.
“The digital images demonstrate that, instead of the prisoner being watched24/7 - and these are dangerous prisoners or prisoners that could self-harm - warders were asleep,” he said. “Night guard duties were not only slouched or relaxed, but had actually set up camp-beds and gone to sleep in front of monitors.
“The second line of defence - the people who then watch those people who are supposed to be doing the actual online monitoring - that second line of defence was also not carrying out its duty watching the monitors.
“And as a result, we have the terrible circumstance where a prisoner took his own life and indeed was left hanging in his own cell before he was removed or before he was even discovered.”
PA