Prison officer, Ayshea Gunn with inmate Khuram Razaq in a cell at the prison In July 2018, The IMB (Independent Monitoring Board) revealed that illegal drugs were 'readily available' in the jail - a fact laid bare at the inquest of HMP Berwyn prisoner Luke Morris Jones, 22, who died from heart failure while serving a four-year sentence for burglary after smoking the psychoactive drug Spice. Yet it wasn't long before data showed that, for all the shiny promises, Berwyn faced the same struggles as other prisons. Nonetheless, prison officials were keen to emphasise that discipline lay at Berwyn's heart: 'I can assure you, it's not cushy,' then deputy governor Nick Dann told local reporters. Men would have laptops (albeit offering internal services, not the internet) in their rooms, and phones allowing them to wish their children good night.Ĭells could be locked from the inside - although guards could override this - and while at most prisons, inmates earn privileges through good behaviour, at HMP Berwyn they would be given privileges on arrival and have them removed for poor behaviour. Prisoners would be referred to as men, cells as rooms, and wings as 'communities'. While vast in size - capable of holding 2,106 men, it is the second largest prison in Europe - Berwyn was trumpeted as 'truly rehabilitative' by Governor Trent, a charismatic former Royal Marine. 'Flagship' was the word used by Sarah Payne, then head of the prison service in Wales, in 2015. In this bleak judicial landscape, the £250 million Berwyn was designed to be a blueprint for a new kind of prison. Prisoner numbers had almost doubled since the Nineties as tough sentencing outstripped the number of prison places, leaving the Government to cram the 85,000-strong prison population into buildings originally designed to hold about 65,000.Īlmost half of adults leaving custody were reoffending within a year of their release.Īlex Coxon received sexually explicit pictures from Jennifer Gavan, a prison officer Nonetheless, this is all a very long way from the shiny new future envisaged when HMP Berwyn opened its doors in 2017, against a backdrop of prisons spiralling into crisis across England and Wales. 'The overwhelming majority of Prison Service staff are hardworking and dedicated and we will not hesitate to punish those who break the rules.' He was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing, although he did not return to his role at HMP Berwyn.Įither way, given such dramas, last week it was perhaps little surprise to learn the Ministry of Justice has confirmed that more than 500 members of staff at Berwyn have undergone 'corruption prevention' training in the past 18 months.įurthermore, 'our enhanced security is protecting the prison against attempts to smuggle illicit items inside', a Prison Service spokesperson told the Mail this week. Sadly, he is no longer in a position to comment, after being suspended in August 2018 following allegations that were not made public. Jennifer Gavan, 27, had not only accepted a £200 payment from the family of Alex Coxon, a then 23-year-old inmate with convictions for armed robbery and drug dealing, to provide him with a mobile phone, but had then embarked on a romantic relationship with him during which she had kissed him and sent him sexually explicit pictures
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