§ 4.15 p.m.
§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICHMy Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The Statement is as follows:
"The report of the Chief Inspector of the Prison Service's inquiry into the security arrangements at Leicester Prison and for the escort of prisoners to courts is published today. It describes the information available to the prison staff both within the prison service about Hughes' behaviour in prison custody (including his nine earlier journeys to court) and from the courts and the police. It concludes that this information was not such as would have required him to be treated as a Category 'A' prisoner for whom the highest security precautions would be necessary or whose escort in a hired vehicle would be inappropriate.
"The report finds that there was a failure to pursue the search for the knife which was reported missing from the prison kitchen in December 1976 and to make the subsequent information relating to its loss available to the staff as a whole. This was the knife with which Hughes subsequently inflicted serious injuries on the escorting officers.
"The report also includes the Chief Inspector's recommendations aimed at 1185 reducing the risk of prisoners being able to leave prison with unauthorised articles in their possession. These fall into two groups, 17 recommendations for immediate action, and eight matters recommended for further review. I have accepted all the recommendations for immediate action, most of which relate to the stricter observance of the existing procedures. The matters recommended for further review are being given full and careful consideration. But, as the report points out, apart from the financial and staffing implications a number of them would have serious consequences both for the treatment of prisoners, many of them unconvicted, and for the relationships between staff and prisoners.
"I have examined whether anything in this report calls for the initiation of disciplinary proceedings. It suggests that there were errors of judgment but does not in my view disclose grounds for considering disciplinary action: these were failures of the system rather than of particular individuals.
"I now turn to the police operations following Hughes' escape, on which I have received a report from the Chief Constable of Derbyshire.
"Hughes' escape on 12th January was notified to the police very quickly, and the taxi in which he made his escape good was found abandoned within an hour of his escape. No trace could be found of the direction he had then taken, or indeed of whether he had picked up another car or was on foot. The police had, however, a number of reasons for believing that he would make for Lancashire. The search was therefore most intensive in that direction; in other directions—including that which Hughes in fact took—it concentrated on isolated premises and outbuildings, the sort of buildings in which a fugitive might be expected to take shelter and hope to escape notice. It continued throughout 12th and 13th January and into 14th January, despite worsening weather conditions which developed by 13th January into a blizzard and created considerable problems for the police quite apart from the search. On average over 200 officers were deployed in the search on each day, and over 400 searches of premises were made. The search extended to 1186 farm outbuildings in the Eastmoor areas, and to the outbuildings of the public house; Pottery Cottages were not searched or visited, but then to all outward appearances the cottages were occupied by their usual residents and life was continuing normally. It was not until the morning of 14th January that Hughes' presence there was reported by Mrs. Moran through a neighbour. Then came the chase which ended in Hughes' death.
"The deaths of Mrs. Moran's parents, husband and daughter and of Hughes are still the subject of the coroner's inquiry, and I should not therefore comment on those aspects of the matter further.
"It has been my intention from the outset to give the House as full an account as possible of the facts about how this tragic case came to happen. Publication of the report by the Chief Inspector of the Prison Service gives effect to this intention, but also, by the thoroughness of its analysis and the width of its recommendations, provides a number of lessons for staff at all levels at Leicester prison, at other establishments, at Regions and at the Home Office. The necessary instructions to give effect to the immediate recommendations are being issued at once."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
§ Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARY-LEBONEMy Lords, I am sure that the House is grateful to the noble Lord for having repeated the very full and careful Statement on this tragic and rather disturbing affair. We shall obviously want to read the report rather than the Statement, which is a summary of it. One wonders whether the two crucial facts, which one would like to probe, are not as follows. The first is that if a search of Hughes had been made after or before he left the prison, it would not have revealed the knife—quite independently of whether it had been known that a knife was missing.
Secondly, if one or more of the 200 police involved in the search had not felt that a routine call at all the occupied houses in the neighbourhood could have been made, the facts would not have been discovered much earlier. However, I 1187 think it would be quite wrong simply to be wise after the event or to prejudge the report which we shall read and which will no doubt purvey as much information as is available to the Home Office. In the meantime, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for having repeated his colleague's Statement.
§ Lord WIGODERMy Lords, this is a disturbing Statement, because clearly on the face of it it discloses that there must have been some degree of negligence which in some way contributed to this appalling slaughter. Might I ask the noble Lord two questions. First, had Hughes any previous convictions for offences of violence; and, secondly, do the Chief Inspector's recommendations ensure that in future any prisoner who has convictions for violence, or any record of mental instability, or is in any way a security risk, will be thoroughly searched before being placed in a vehicle and will be properly escorted and conveyed in a suitable vehicle?
§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICHMy Lords, I am grateful for what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, said, and indeed for what the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, has just said. I agree with the noble and learned Lord; he is quite right that it is easy to be wise after the event, and no doubt many of those involved in this matter, be they in the Prison Service or the police, would wish that things had gone otherwise, but I do not believe that there was any gross negligence here. It has been acknowledged in my right honourable friend's Statement that there were undoubtedly a number of errors of judgment, and they are of course to be deeply regretted.
So far as the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, is concerned, yes, there was some violence so far as the background of this man was concerned, but I am afraid that that does not dispose of the problem. There are a very large number of violent men in our prison system. If we were to categorise them all as category A, it would defeat the entire purpose of the present classification system. The problem is that we are having to deal on a day-to-day basis in the Prison Service with more and more violent men, and the question is how we can establish rational procedures to deal 1188 with men who undoubtedly can be extremely difficult. Some men who are convicted for offences of violence settle down in prison and behave in a perfectly peaceable manner, and others do not. This matter has been gone into with great thoroughness by the chief inspector, and all one can say is that he looked very carefully into the question of whether this man should have been in security category A. He came to the conclusion that he should not.
§ Lord HALEMy Lords, if the noble Lord is looking into the security provisions at Gartree Prison, Leicester, will he suggest to the Governor that if the report in the Press be true that a very well-known figure who had committed grave crimes of poisoning was sent to Broadmoor, was released, again got employment in a chemical laboratory and committed other grave crimes and is now in Gartree, he should not be employed in the kitchen? This gives anticipatory gastric symptoms at least, and there is a suggestion that there has been poisoning since he has been in prison.
§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICHMy Lords, I cannot pretend to know the particular case to which my noble friend is referring, but certainly I shall draw it to the attention of the prison authorities.
§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICHMy Lords, I have just said that I shall draw this matter to the attention of the prison authorities.