Reflections on the prison service I joined in 1982

1. Since my resignation from the NHS some months before and my
decision to train to be a prison governor, I had been following the
news reports prompted by a late night adjournment debate in the
House of Commons. The debate was concluded by the then junior
Home Office Minister, but soon to be distinguished Attorney
General, Paddy Mayhew. It was about a man called Barry Prosser.
Mr Prosser had been remanded in August 1980 to Her Majesty's
Prison, Birmingham for medical reports, having been charged with
damage to a lock valued at £1.62. The Minister told the House of
Commons what happened next:
Mr. Prosser was found dead in his cell in the hospital wing of
Birmingham Prison in the early morning of 19 August 1980. He
had been on remand in the prison for just over two weeks, and for
the past week he had been in the hospital wing, because his
behaviour had become disturbed. At the time he died, arrangements
were being made for his admission to a psychiatric hospital. The
post mortem revealed that Mr. Prosser had extensive bruising all
over his body. His stomach, his oesophagus and one of his lungs
had been ruptured.”
Prison Officers murdered Mr Prosser. Three were charged with his
murder. Twice – surprisingly - magistrates’ in Birmingham
dismissed the prosecution and refused to commit the case to the
Crown Court. This forced the DPP to use unusual powers to
bypass the magistrates and take the case direct to the Crown
Court.
But all three Officers were acquitted. To this day, no one has been
convicted for that brutal and cowardly murder. But the Commons
was assured that there was not too much to worry about. As
Paddy Mayhew told them:
We know of absolutely no evidence that this was other than an
isolated incident. The Government is satisfied that it was not part
of a pattern of maltreatment of prisoners.
Very tellingly – reflecting as it did the power of the POA at the
time - the Minister told the House that the Director General had
required all use of force by Prison Officers on prisoners in future

2. to be reported to the governor. The POA ordered the instruction to
be ignored. Mr Mayhew could not bring himself to say anything
stronger than that he regretted that.
That was the Prison Service I joined. Violence was not endemic.
But it was commonplace. And governors were taught to look
away. Just four years previously, an amiable young man called
Douglas McCombe was told to stay in his office by Officers at Hull
Prison who were intent on wreaking revenge on the prisoners who
had rioted at Hull a few days previously. Mr McCombe stayed in
his office as he was told and was prosecuted for malfeasance. The
Crown Court in Hull acquitted him, concluding that he would
have been unable to stop the violence, and had he tried to do so he
would have put himself in danger. A later Home Office report into
the gross violence meted out on prisoners described it simply as
“an excess of zeal”
My first posting
I returned to Lincoln to begin my gubernatorial training and for
four months wore the uniform, and was, a prison officer. Lincoln
was, I would say, largely placid. Run, essentially by a single
militaristic Principal Officer, the governor was an irrelevance. It
was a placid place because Prisoners expected nothing and got
nothing.
They didn’t protest, they did as they were told and their treatment
was not visibly harsh (ignoring here issues around living three to a
cell, appalling food and slopping out). But although all the officers
knew I was a governor in training they did not trouble themselves
by concealing poor behaviour and I saw visitors (and visiting
probation officers) treated with casual but gross disrespect and I
saw a patently mentally ill prisoner being slapped around in the
segregation unit.
When, at the end of my 4 months as a Prison Officer, when I
returned to the Prison Service College and - no doubt a touch self
righteously - raised the violence and the disrespect with my tutor
at the College and her seniors, I was laughed at. Later, at the end

3. of my first year of training, we had a lecture about Barry Prosser’s
death, given by the duty governor at Birmingham on the night Mr
Prosser was murdered (by now promoted to the role of staff tutor
at the College). Mr Prosser’s wife, described in Parliament as a
woman of quiet courage, resolve, dedication and serenity was called a
Slag. I protested and overtures were made to me about whether I’d
made the right career decision. I was, I was told variously, either
unhelpful, uncooperative or, most frequently, naïve.
Thatwas the Prison Service I joined...