Category Archives: prison

Ministry of Justice:Flogging prison expertise to Saudi beheaders and floggers

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Chris Grayling: Selling British prison expertise to Saudi beheaders and floggers

Chris Grayling: Selling British prison expertise to Saudi beheaders and floggers

The nasty and brutal punishment (1000 lashes) being meted out to Saudi blogger Raif Badawi is rightly being condemned by human rights groups across the world.

What may not be so well-known  is that the British government is currently negotiating to sell prison expertise to the  repressive Saudi judicial regime to make money in order to cut the deficit for the taxpayer.

The man championing this move is none other than Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, well-known for wanting to deny prisoners books and an enthusiastic backer of longer prison sentences and tough prison regimes.

Quietly he has set up a commercial arm of the Ministry of Justice called Just Solutions International. You can download a glossy brochure here.

Mr Grayling is passionate about this. At the launch of the social enterprise he said:

“We are leading the world in our management of offenders and the reforms we are introducing will push us even further ahead of the pack. I’m proud that countries look to us when they want to improve and develop their own systems.”

“This social enterprise will build on our global reputation for innovation while getting best value, as any profits made will be put directly back into improving our own justice system, making it a win-win for hardworking taxpayers.”

What we didn’t know then was where Britain was selling this expertise. However just before Christmas the Ministry of Justice released an interim report on its progress.

It revealed as I report in Tribune :

” JSi submitted a £5.9 million proposal to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Finance to conduct a training needs analysis across all the learning and development programmes within the Saudi Arabian Prison Service.

Also in August, JSi submitted a large-scale bid to the Royal Oman Police (ROP) proposing assistance for the design of a new prison. Discussions are currently taking place with ROP about further learning and development training programmes.”

The document states that Chris Grayling visited Saudi Arabia last September to sign a memorandum of understanding on judicial co-operation with the regime and promote British legal services and Doha in Qatar to promote co-operation. A junior justice minister, Lord Faulks, visited Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan during October, both also seen to be repressive regimes, and signed a memorandum of understanding on judicial co-operation in Kazakhstan.”

I put this to the Ministry of Justice. This was their reply: ” “It is ridiculous to suggest that providing overseas governments with assistance in the development of their criminal justice systems demonstrates support for such atrocious acts. It has been government policy for many years to work with overseas governments and help them develop their criminal justice systems.”

Really! Some people might think the Saudis will be taking comfort from such British support and personal visits from Chris Grayling while continuing these barbaric acts. Also is there not an ethical matter whether the British taxpayer wants the deficit reduced by making profits from a regime that tortures,  publicly beheads ( some 59 in first nine months of last year) and flogs people? It could be said to amount to blood money.

Frankly it suggests that Mr Grayling’s main aim is making money and he couldn’t care about the regimes who pay us and how they treat their own citizens. It also hypocritical. we are condemning ISIS for the same practices. Would Mr Grayling – if ISIS win – be happy to flog them the same British help for running their justice system in the Islamic state?

Also just how wonderful is the British prison system that we are selling. If you look at reports from the Howard League for Penal Reform we have huge problems with overcrowding, suicides and a repressive attitude by Grayling himself. Do we want to export that?

I am wondering how ridiculous the blogger Raif will think it is that the  system that incarcerates and flogs him benefits from British expertise to make money. I also wonder whether Mr Grayling – a  cold hard right Tory – was or is  a supporter of hanging and flogging himself.

Since this blog was published The Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, defended to the BBC the sale of British prisons expertise to Saudi Arabia.

Speaking to Andrew Neil one the Sunday Politics Mr Grayling said: “It is right and proper that we as a nation try to work with other nations to improve their systems.”

 Saudi Arabia has been widely criticised, including by the British Government, for sentencing the blogger Raif Badawi to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail.  Mr Grayling said he “completely condemns” the punishment.

He added: “This is something I am looking at very carefully.”

Amnesty International campaign poster for rasif Badawi

Amnesty International campaign poster for Raif Badawi

When a short sharp shock policy turns into mass sexual and physical abuse

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While attention has been focused on a Westminster paedophile ring an extraordinary police investigation into a now closed young offenders institution in Durham is revealing the mass abuse of inmates.

No fewer than nearly 900 people  have come forward alleging physical and sexual abuse  at Medomsley young offenders institution in Durham  dating back to 1970s and 1980s  a decade or so after a trial did convict two people of abuse.in 2003.

The investigation was triggered after former prison officer Neville Husband was jailed for eight years for abusing five youths.Others coming forward and he was subsequently jailed for a further two years for other attacks.He died in 2010, after being released from prison.

His former colleague Leslie Johnson, who was jailed for six years in 2005 for sexual offences, has also since died.

But now I gather Durham Police  have traced 24 other people involved in the abuse – six of them have also since died – but  up to 18 people could well be charged – if the Crown Prosecution Service agrees they should face justice.

The abuse not only took place inside the closed institution but I gather inmates were taken off the premises across Durham to be physically and sexually abused.

If the case goes ahead it will be the largest number of people ever abused in one institution. There is also an interesting cross reference to Neville Husband’s previous job at Portland prison in Dorset..It is worth reading a blog by Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform here linking issues at the two penal institutions.

Before  reporting restrictions severely limit what can be said – one common factor is emerging – many of the people who were abused at a time when the Thatcher government was enthusiastically pursuing under William Whitelaw the ” short sharp shock ” policy – a tough regime for petty offenders aimed at making them go straight.

I am sure Willie Whitelaw and Margaret Thatcher did not intend to promote sexual and physical abuse of young offenders – but what does appear to have happened is that the policy in this one institution became a licence for this  type of abuse.

In some sense the historic disclosures resonate with today’s government’s punitive views -pursued particularly by Chris Grayling, the current justice secretary- whether it is banning access to books for prisoners or the record suicides among young people in prisons.

If people are treated like dirt by politicians and are seen by society to be worthless – then those in charge of them might well be tempted to abuse them because it doesn’t matter what happens to them. Given Chris Grayling unlike Theresa May, the home secretary,is on record to a member of the public that he thinks having an inquiry into sexual abuse is  “a waste of money” one wonders whether there are current Medomsley’s in the present system.

Justice Saunders Sentencing Remarks at the Hacking Trial

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What the judge said about Coulson and the other defendants in full.Andy Coulson got 18 months in jail.

peterjukes's avatarThe Criminal Media Nexus

R –v- Coulson and others.

Sentencing Remarks

Parliament has decided that it is a criminal offence to access the voicemails of other people without their consent or an order of the court. Parliament has decided that the offence applies to members of the press in the same way as it does to all other citizens. This law provides the same protection to all citizens including those who, for one reason or another, are in the public eye. Parliament set the maximum sentence for the offence of intercepting communications at 2 years imprisonment and Parliament has decided that the same maximum sentence applies to an offence of conspiracy which can cover, as it does in this case, a very large number of individual offences.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Andy Coulson guilty of phone hacking charge, Brooks not guilty on all charges – Martin Hickman

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How is the mighty press secretary for David Cameron, the love cheat who exposed David Blunkett, fallen! What does this mean for Rupert Murdoch when a right hand man is exposed as a conspiratorial phone hacker! What does it say about Cameron’s judgement when Matthew Ancona’s book reveals that Coulson himself warned Cameron of the problem of the police investigation into the News of the World meant he shouldn’t take the job in the first place.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Andy CoulsonAndy Coulson, the former tabloid guilty who became the Prime Minister’s director of communications, was today found guilty at the Old Bailey of conspiring to hack phones while running the News of the World.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Closing Speech, Clive Goodman “groomed” to take sole blame for phone hacking- Martin Hickman

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Damning summing up by David Spens for defendant Clive Goodman who says he was ” groomed ” by Andy Coulson to take the phone hacking rap so other NI executives could escape blame.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

davidspens(1)Day 109: Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s royal editor, was “groomed” to take sole blame for the phone hacking scandal, his lawyer told a court today.

Making his closing speech at the phone hacking trial, David Spens, QC, said his client was encouraged by executives to stay silent in 2006-07 about the full scale of illegality at the paper as part of a “cynical” cover-up.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Clive Goodman: CPS had evidence incriminating three NOTW execs in 2006 – Martin Hickman

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So Clive Goodman has now implicated THREE News International executives for involvement in phone hacking and the Crown Prosecution Service for not wanting to prosecute them. Extraordinary claim against Coulson that he could arrange for Goodman not to go to prison. Goodman was later jailed for four months. Wow!

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

News Of The WorldDay 72: The Crown Prosecution Service had evidence incriminating three News of the World executives in phone hacking seven years ago – but made a decision to limit the case to the paper’s royal editor Clive Goodman, he claimed at the Old Bailey today.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Clive Goodman lied to newspaper execs about paying police officers – Martin Hickman

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So Goodman now says he deliberately lied over paying police officers. What is more revealing is how the News of the World treated sources: taking a ” heartless commercial decision” to expose them to get another story.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Clive-GoodmanDay 70, Part 2:  Clive Goodman lied to newspaper executives that he was paying police officers so that his stories were published and his contacts were paid more promptly, he said today.

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Historic child sex abuse investigation now looks at an unsolved murder

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The Met Police paedophile unit is now  investigating the sadistic murder of a boy  possibly by one of the country’s most notorious paedophiles Sidney Cooke.

The allegations have surfaced as part of a renewed investigation into sex abuse parties held in the 1980s following the seizure of film  by the Met Police in their investigation into whether there was a  group of VIP paedophiles, including a former Cabinet minister, in the 1980s.

 Details are revealed by my colleague Mark Conrad on the Exaro website this weekend.

 He writes: “Police believe that some of the “sex parties” were organised by Sidney Cooke, the notorious paedophile who led the ring of four who were jailed for killing Jason Swift, a 14-year-old boy, in Hackney, east London after gang raping him in 1984.

In a chilling development, the detectives are investigating whether Cooke was involved in an incident in which a pre-teen boy was strangled to death during a sustained sexual attack at a basement flat in London.

Detectives have interviewed what they believe to be a witness to the murder.”

 Cooke is still serving a life sentence in jail for the sexual abuse of two young brothers in the 1970s and 1980s and is now aged 86, one of the growing numbers of elderly paedophiles in prison following successful police prosecutions.

In a quite separate and bizarre development allegations are being made that the security services and special branch may be involved in monitoring the revival of investigations into paedophile rings in the 1980s. People have turned up at  survivors and witnesses addresses saying they are journalists but leaving no cards or numbers. in the latest development reported in the Sunday People and Exaro News a person turned up at a key witness address saying he was from the Sunday People  They had not sent anyone there.

This is disturbing given the alleged record of the security services and special branch about Cyril Smith – who had been monitored by special branch – but no criminal action was taken against him. It could be that the security services are becoming the insecurity services as a result of these new investigations.

Phone Hacking Trial: Coulson offered Goodman “every possible support” after arrest – Martin Hickman

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This secretly taped call between Andy Coulson and Clive Goodman – later to be jailed for phone hacking – reveals Coulson was prepared to back him to the end. It also reveals that as early as 2006 the NotW should have realised the game would be up because the Met police had extensive evidence of phone hacking from investigator Glenn Mulcaire’s files.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Andy CoulsonDay 21 (Part 1):  Andy Coulson offered Clive Goodman “every possible support” after he was arrested for hacking into the voicemails of aides to the Royal family, the phone hacking trial heard today. Mr Coulson, then News of the World editor sympathised with Mr Goodman in  phone call on 8 November 2006. The call was  secretly taped by Mr Goodman.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Reporter warned NoW management they would “all end up in jail” if payments to sensitive sources were traced – Martin Hickman

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A really damning comment from the News of the World’s former Royal Editor about payments by the paper released in a memo to the court.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Clive-GoodmanDay 19:  A News of the World reporter warned the paper’s management that he and its editors could go to jail if police traced cash payments to sensitive sources, the hacking trial heard today.  Clive Goodman, the paper’s royal editor, made the warning about two of the cash contacts who were “in uniform.”

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