About 40 inmates have been moved out of Wandsworth prison after terror suspect Daniel Khalife escaped from the south London jail last Wednesday.
Justice Secretary Alex Chalk told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that prisoners were transferred “out of an abundance of caution”.
Khalife, 21, was arrested on Saturday after 75 hours on the run.
Daniel Khalife escaped from Wandsworth prison on Wednesday
The breakout has raised questions about alleged understaffing and overcrowding at HMP Wandsworth, and why Khalife was being held at the less secure Category B facility when most terror suspects are held in HMP Belmarsh, a Category A prison.
Mr Chalk was not able to provide a figure when asked repeatedly how many terror suspects are in Category B prisons rather than Category A.
He said: “What I can say in respect of Wandsworth… I wanted to ensure out of an abundance of caution that every resource is put into that prison and security is preserved, some prisoners there on remand have been moved.”
He said the transfers happened this week, adding: “Additional resources have gone into Wandsworth, out of an abundance of caution around 40 prisoners have been moved.”
‘Crumbling and overcrowded’
The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, described Wandsworth prison as “enormously overcrowded”, one of a number of prisons that are “struggling to keep their heads above water”.
Built to house 1,000 inmates, the “crumbling Victorian jail” has, he said, “up to 1,600 prisoners at any time”.
That overcrowding is increasing the pressure on staff and “making it harder for prisoners to get what they need to progress”, such as education, training and jobs.
Khalife’s escape exposes weaknesses in system
Justice Secretary Alex Chalk has told Sky News that 40 prisoners have been moved out of Wandsworth prison in the wake of Daniel Khalife’s brazen escape.
The assumption has to be that these inmates were in the wrong category of prison and have been moved in response to the escape.
Many believe Khalife, on remand for terror offences, should have been in a maximum security prison and not locked up in Wandsworth, a category B.
The escape has prompted a huge amount of debate around the state of the UK’s prison service, staffing and funding.
Mr Chalk confirmed that on the day of the escape, all relevant security staff were in place.
But what’s not clear is whether all of the security protocols were followed correctly.
That’s now the subject of an independent inquiry, announced by the Justice Secretary on Thursday.
Khalife, 21, was on the run for 75 hours prompting a huge police and security services operation. Mr Chalk described the escape as “rare but serious”.
But the incident has exposed weaknesses in an overstretched system and the questions about much-needed reform are unlikely to go away.
That just makes matters worse, Mr Taylor said, as “when they get out of jail at the end of their sentences, they will go back to a pattern of reoffending”.
Mr Taylor pointed to staff shortages as the main reason for Wandsworth’s problems, admitting prisoners there “are locked up 22 hours a day, sometimes even more at weekends”.
Mark Fairhurst, chair of the Prison Officer Association (POA), welcomed the transfers but said it was only a short-term solution, and Wandsworth remains overcrowded and understaffed.
He told Sky News: “The last time I visited, it was holding 1,600 prisoners and they only had 69 prison officers on duty to safely supervise them.
“Wandsworth is symptomatic of what’s happening in the entire prison estate. Cuts have consequences and this government has removed over £900 million in our budgets.”
The government has denied cuts are to blame for the escape and has launched a number of reviews into what happened.
Prisons are ‘human warehouses’
This includes one looking at the “placement and categorisation” of all inmates in Wandsworth and another investigating all people behind bars currently charged with terror offences, as well as an independent investigation.
Mr Fairhurst, speaking from the Trades Union Congress conference in Liverpool, said the review into categorisation was right and the POA had been “highlighting concerns for several years”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
But he said the government should go further and commission an independent review into the entire criminal justice system to address issues like overcrowding.
He said: “We’ve got people serving 12 months or less.. could they not be better served with robust community sentences?
“We’ve got over 3,000 IPP prisoners who are well over their tariffs. What can we do with them?
“This will all create space and it’ll give us a chance to actually do our job and try our best to rehabilitate people. At the moment it’s just a human warehouse and that needs to change.”
Khalife remains in police custody after he was dramatically arrested on Saturday in the northwest London suburb of Northolt after four days on the run.
Detectives believe the former soldier in the British Army made his getaway by strapping himself to the bottom of a delivery lorry after leaving the prison kitchen in a cook’s uniform.
Mr Chalk, discussing the preliminary findings of one of the reviews he has issued, said the investigation has looked into whether protocols were in place relating to the unloading of food from a van and searching the delivery vehicle.
He said the protocols were in place but “plainly what we’ve yet to establish is whether those protocols were followed”.
‘You couldn’t run a fish and chip shop way government is run’
Khalife’s escape has turned into a political row for embattled Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on top of the school concrete fiasco.
Mr Chalk is the 10th justice secretary since the Conservatives came to power in 2010.
Former Tory MP and prisons minister Rory Stewart said it is “completely mad” how ministers are moved into roles in government with no knowledge at all.
Speaking to Trevor Phillips on Sunday morning, he said when he was given his ministerial role: “I hadn’t spoken to a prisoner or a prison officer for 20 years.
“I’ve never met someone who worked in probation but thanks to the genius of the British ministerial system, I was now responsible for all the prisons, prisoners, ex-offenders, officers, probation officers and sentencing policy in England and Wales.”
Mr Stewart has written a book, Politics on the Edge, which he said is about “being honest about how bad” the British system is.
He said: “You could not run a fish and chip shop in the way in which the British government is run – it’s insane.
“It’s not that politicians are necessarily incompetent or daft, it’s that these jobs are mad.
“We need to look at the American system where we have genuine professionals as cabinet ministers.”
Leave a Reply