§ 48. Mr. Abseasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department upon whose authority and advice and for what periods of time a person detained while awaiting trial for murder in the Glamorgan Summer Assizes was placed in a strait jacket.
§ Mr. RentonThe prisoner whom I think the hon. Member has in mind was twice placed in a canvas restraint packet, once in Cardiff prison for a period of 20 hours 45 minutes and once in Bristol prison for a period of 21 hours 40 minutes. He was partially removed from the restraint during both of these periods for three intervals of approximately five minutes each. The restraint jacket was used in each case on the instructions of a medical officer.
§ Mr. AbseIs the Joint Under-Secretary of State aware that no self-respecting mental hospital would today use a strait jacket and that it is barbaric and mediaeval that these methods should be used—as mediaeval as putting on trial a schizoid paranoiac, as occurred in this case? Would he consider whether it is possible in local prisons in Wales to be able to have access immediately to local psychiatric advice and not to depend on psychiatric advice in Bristol or Exeter so that these disgraceful mediaeval scenes should cease forthwith?
§ Mr. RentonRestraint jackets are used only in those rare cases where the prisoner is so violent that he may do injury to himself or to others. The prisoner can be put in a strait jacket only on the instructions of a medical officer, and a psychiatrist can be brought in in any case in which it seems advisable to do so.