Prisoners kept in beyond sentences

SEVENTEEN inmates were kept at HMP Huntercombe in Nuffield after their sentences had ended.

A report by the prison’s Independent Monitoring Board calls this “unfair and highly discriminatory”.

The category C prison for foreign national men aims to deport the “vast majority” of prisoners to their country of origin.

However, many have remained under convicted criminal conditions post-sentence, with the board blaming delays in the Home Office processing the required paperwork.

Its annual report says: “Foreign national prisoners beyond their conditional release date, and thus detained in custody after sentence expiry, are held under immigration powers.

“Despite having dropped from a total of 30 in January 2021 to 17 at the end of the reporting year, the number of prisoners remaining in custody beyond their conditional release date has remained a matter of great concern to the board and was raised for the attention of the minister in our report of 2020 and again this year.”

The report describes how prison staff had to deal with the “ensuing frustrations” of prisoners forced to remain beyond their release dates, with reports of some being held for six months beyond their release cate.

Olga Senior, who chairs the monitoring board, said: “The impact on these individuals and their families is significant, while there is also the issue of space being occupied that is needed.”

The board criticises the way the issue was dealt with by the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, saying it “has not been well addressed by either”.

The Home Office is responsible for the issuing of paperwork to facilitate the removal of foreign nationals, while the MoJ is responsible for the maintenance and welfare of prisoners.

The report says: “Apparent shortage of staff at the Home Office, particularly in the extradited removal unit and case workers, generally means too many prisoners arrive at Huntercombe close to or, as in 168 cases during the year, already past their early release dates without the relevant paperwork.

“In the month of October 2021, 206 foreign national prisoners were held beyond their early release dates and of that figure approximately 50 per cent were anxious to be deported but were unable to go due to delays in case workers fully triaging them at the Home Office.”

The report also says the prison is “a safe environment” with prisoners treated “fairly and humanely”.

It notes that the number of violent incidents has continued to decline for a fifth year running.

Covid cases were dealt with well and kept to a bare minimum with the uptake of the national vaccination programme slowly increased throughout the year. But the virus took hold “exponentially” at the end of the year following the transfer into the prison of prisoners from several outbreak prisons.

Huntercombe had more men available for outside work placements, with three working at the Nettlebed Creamery and one at the Orange Bakery in Watlington.

In-cell telephony was installed at the prison, making it easier for prisoners to keep in touch with their families.