Special Category. Ruán O’Donnell. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Ruán O’Donnell
Издательство: Ingram
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isbn: 9780716533160
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men unfurled banners referencing the major issues they wished to publicize. Two adjacent wings were immediately evacuated, giving lie to an unconvincing staff statement which claimed that the general body of the prisoners were unsympathetic.253 In fact, approximately 100 prisoners refused meals in order to peaceably convey their support.254 Walsh was adept at traversing and deconstructing slated rooftops. His advice and rudimentary training in sabotage techniques increased the efficacy of IRA roof invasions. The protesters ceased hurling slates to the ground at midnight but resumed their systematic destruction at 8.00 a.m. on 23 March. Power hoses were used in an ineffectual bid to dislodge or inhibit the men. When the group believed they had taken the action as far as practicable they surrendered on 24 March.255 A stark official digest published in July 1980 purposefully concealed the agency of the IRA, if not the seriousness of the episode: ‘One major demonstration at Parkhurst prison lasted three days and involved five prisoners who caused £50,000 worth of damage and rendered two wings of the prison unfit for habitation’.256 The intact C Wing, hitherto used for Dr. Cooper’s controversial experimental programme for prisoners with psychiatric issues, had to be pressed into service to house the maximum-security population. Improved sanitary facilities, not least showers, were acquired in consequence by those relocated from the antiquated and partially destroyed wings. Former occupants of C Wing selected for retention in Parkhurst were transferred into the Hospital Wing where no structured research could be undertaken. Ronnie McCartney, shifted from the Strong Box of Hull Prison, had threatened to resist incarceration in C Wing until its new role was explained.257

      This level of impact, and its Irish political origination, probably explained why the punishments meted out to the five men in 1979 were unusual in character. Although legally entitled to impose terms of cellular or ‘solitary’ confinement, the Board of Visitors elected to instead nominate periods of ‘loss of privileges’ and ‘non-associative labour’. This was tantamount to solitary confinement given that the 120 days spent in the Punishment Block did not technically constitute the traditional sanction. It was assumed by republicans that this represented a new degree of guile in the administration of punishment. Tellingly, the only non-political prisoner involved received just twenty-eight days, whereas the IRA men each lost 112 days’ remission.258 Boards retained much discretion and the Home Office claimed to have ‘urged’ rather than instructed compliance with revised regulations in 1977.259 Sheehan’s role was not exposed but he was quickly shifted to Wormwood Scrubs to spend seven and a half months in solitary.260

      Reception staff at Parkhurst exacted a minor measure of revenge on Walsh on 3 April 1979 by seizing the vast majority of his record collection during his transfer into Wormwood Scrubs. He repaid their malign attention by initiating a further set of official correspondence with the Home Office which had to be processed by the Under Secretary of State. Using a ‘Petition Form’ that made no reference to the extraordinary context in which his move occurred, Walsh noted: ‘I was transferred on Home Office instruction … On passing through Reception at Parkhurst, the Reception Officer removed from my possession 34 LP (long-playing) records’ on the technical grounds that only nine had been listed on his property sheet and they could, therefore, be confiscated.261 The response of 11 May 1979 confirmed that the Secretary of State was ‘not prepared’ to return his albums.262 Walsh learned on 29 May 1979 that while solicitors Woodford & Ackroyd of Southampton were unable to pursue his mooted case with the European Court, Alastair Logan of George E Baker & Co, Guildford, had consented to add his complaint to those already in preparation at his office.263

      Hull convictions

      The 1976 Hull riot created English legal history in York Crown Court on 15 January 1979 when Justice Boreham conceded that police background checks could be conducted to ensure that no juror had a criminal record. Sixty potential jurors had their names submitted to Central Criminal Records delaying the start to proceedings for over two hours.264 Prosecutor Peter Taylor QC claimed that the thirteen defendants had assaulted prisoners in a ‘deliberate exercise in retribution’.265 Evidence on 17 January from one former Hull staff member then working in Wakefield claimed that the IRA had been ‘in the forefront of the riot’ and ‘still had channels of communication from prison to the outside world … IRA prisoners regarded themselves as prisoners of war’.266 This apparent bid to highlight the extenuating circumstances in play revealed something of the perceived role of the state employees, eight of whom were found guilty on 4 April 1979 of ‘conspiracy to assault’ prisoners after the riot. All received token suspended sentences from Judge Boreham. Four co-defendants and Assistant Governor Douglas McCombe were acquitted in rulings which lessened the impression that the violence of prison staff at Hull had been co-ordinated from the top. Brian Cooke, a Principal Officer and chair of Hull branch of the POA, expressed disappointment at the outcome and predicted that the ‘attitude’ of his members towards prisoners ‘would harden’.267 Dick Pooley of PROP, by contrast, welcomed the unusual convictions which he believed to be historic in their implications.268 The PAC were less enthusiastic and commented that a small number of those responsible for beating prisoners had received suspended sentences of ‘derisory’ proportions. If, as the PROP enquiry in London alleged, Irish and black prisoners had suffered disproportionate injury, the precedent of moderate punishment established in York did not auger well.269 The Observer queried in relation to those convicted: ‘Can the Prison Department claim to have any disciplinary standards at all if the men remain prison officers?’270

      Gerry Cunningham, who had for tactical reasons set aside IRA reticence regarding court environs to give evidence at the trial, felt vindicated despite the partial nature of the legal victory. He had contacted his solicitor, Alastair Logan, and said ‘Right, ok, take the case to court. These people were effectively criminals at large at the time they made their statements against me and I want my thirteen months [loss of] remission back’. Eventually, in the face of obstruction from the Board of Visitors, Cunningham was apprised that he was entitled to make periodic requests for the restoration of remission. Whereas the Tyrone man was willing to demand the lost time, he refused to seek it by the demeaning avenue of repeated BOV applications. This principled and politically informed stance ensured that Cunningham spent thirteen months longer in jail than was necessary.271 He was ultimately and politely urged to exit Long Lartin in November 1988, a jail where he gained considerable influence among the prisoner population.272

      The verdicts in York followed closely on the re-opening of Hull after a long period of renovation necessitated by the riot. Governor Parr was reinstated in what was interpreted by prisoners as a provocative move on the part of the Home Office. This view gained credence when the PAC ascertained, on the basis of reports from IRA prisoners transferred into Hull, that the stringent policies which had helped spark the riot were still extant. In the context of the minimal chastisement of men found guilty of assaulting inmates, republicans anticipated further grievances. Andy Mulryan, Ronnie McCartney and James ‘Punter’ Bennett were in Hull by May 1979, along with the innocent Dick McIlkenny of the Birmingham Six.273 A minor fracas in C Wing over recreational facilities had already occurred without detriment to the administrators. McCartney followed a stay in the Punishment Block with a twenty-eight day ‘lie down’ in Armley and it was reported that the slightest infringement in Hull resulted in fourteen days’ solitary confinement. With the doubling of staff on the wings from two to four, the risk of detection was raised in what remained a cloistered community.274 When, in July 1979, Joan Maynard MP sought statistical information on breaches of Prison Rules at Hull in 1978, Whitelaw responded with an unconvincing claim that such data was ‘not readily available’.275 Minute details regarding Category A prisoners were, in fact, meticulously logged by dedicated staff members and available to members of the Home Office ‘Category A Committee’.

      Martin Brady, O/C of the IRA prisoners in Hull at the time of the riot, was returned to A Wing of the Yorkshire prison. His first impression was that the wing was being used as a ‘punishment’ area for ‘anyone that was unruly’ and that the prison as a whole was ‘worse’ than before.276 Paul Hill was also transferred back to Hull and was in Brady’s company when a very serious assault occurred in the TV room. An Australian prisoner reputed to have killed another inmate in Wakefield was badly burned when a man he had angered threw a pot of boiling water mixed with sugar over his body. The rudimentary facilities of the infirmary proved insufficient to treat the wounds inflicted and the Australian was quickly taken by ambulance to an outside hospital. Hill