HC Deb 20 March 1989 vol 149 cc410-1W
Mr. Cohen

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will indicate each prison establishment in which body belts were used during 1987, the number of inmates upon whom they were used for each establish-ment, the number of inmates fitted with body belts twice or more, and the extent of injuries or deaths arising as a result.

Mr. Douglas Hogg

The following information for 1987 relates to prison establishments in England and Wales. It is additional to the particular case of which the hon. Member has knowledge and which involved the use of a body belt in transit between establishments. The table shows, by establishment, the number of occasions on which a violent or refractory inmate was kept in an establishment under restraint by means of the application of a body belt, and the number of inmates:

Establishment Number of applications Number of inmates
Prisons and remand centers
Albany 1 1
Bedford 1 1
Blundeston 1 1
Canterbury 2 2
Chelmsford 2 2
Frankland 6 15
Hull 7 7
Leeds 1 1
Leicester 6 6
Lindholme 1 1
Long Lartin 4 13
Oxford 1 1
Parkhurst 5 5
Pentonville 2 2
Establishment Number of applications Number of inmates
Reading 1 1
Stafford 3 3
Wakefield 2 2
Wandsworth 6 15
Wormwood Scrubs 3 3
Youth custody centers
Dover 7 7
Glen Parva 1 1
Guys Marsh 1 1
Hoilesley Bay Colony 1 1
Northallerton 1 1
Onley 1 1
Rochester 7 7
1 Includes one prisoner to whom a body belt was applied twice.

I am not aware of any case in which a causal connection between death and the application of a body belt has been proven. Such information as is available centrally about injuries to inmates does not enable injuries sustained in circumstances where a body belt was in use to be separately identified.