§ Mr. RedmondTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement as to how Peter Sutcliffe, a prisoner held in Broadmoor security hospital, was able to smuggle a letter out of that establishment and make unsupervised telephone calls; and what arrangements will be made at the hospital to prevent such occurrences.
§ Mr. YeoArrangements for patients' mail and telephone calls in the special hospitals are the responsibility for the special hospitals service authority.
The circumstances in which mail may be opened and inspected, or withheld from patients, are defined in section 134 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
Broadmoor hospital policy is that patients may make telephone calls if they have the consent of their clinical team and the intended recipient of the call. All calls are subject to monitoring by the hospital staff.
The authority informs me that they are not aware of any departure from these policies in Mr. Sutcliffe's case.