Around 40 inmates of HMP Wandsworth have been moved out of the Category B prison after terror suspect Daniel Khalife’s escape, the Justice Secretary has said.
Justice Secretry Alex Chalk said on Sunday that the preliminary findings of his investigation into the ageing London jail have found that the relevant procedures and security staff were in place.
But he said dozens of individuals on remand have been moved to different sites “out of an abundance of caution” amid questions over why a former soldier accused of a terror offence was not in the highest security prison.
Earlier this week His Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor gave a gripping eyewitness account to The Independent of life inside the vermin-infested, crumbling Victorian prison.
Mr Chalk told Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “Out of an abundance of caution, some prisoners there – some of those on remand – have been moved (this week).
“Additional resources have, of course, gone into Wandsworth, so there’s additional governor support, a former governor with particular expertise in security.
“But also, out of an abundance of caution, around 40 prisoners have been moved just while we get to the bottom of what took place in Wandsworth. That is a sensible, precautionary measure.”
Khalife, 21, remains in police custody after he was dramatically arrested on Saturday in the north-west London suburb of Northolt after four days on the run.
Mr Chalk, discussing the preliminary findings of a review he 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.
“Those protocols were in place, point one,” he said. “And point two, the relevant security staff were also in place.
“Plainly what we’ve yet to establish is whether those protocols were followed.”
He said he will set out “next week” the terms of reference of the separate independent investigation to ensure that the conclusions are “rock solid”.
Meanwhile Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor has said that prison governors’ hands are often tied by an “extraordinary level of bureaucracy”.
He told the Laura Kuenssberg show: “It’s not just about the pipeline of people coming in. It’s also about the quality of people coming in. And the fact that many people are leaving the job after quite short periods of time.
“And one of the reasons for that, and governors tell me this is that, governors themselves have no part in the selection of staff who come and work in their jail. The boss can’t choose their staff.
“I’m a former head teacher and I sit there aghast at some of the things that governors can’t do. They can’t commission work.
“I spoke to a governor last week who said that in order to buy a pot of paint, she had to go through some long procurement exercise through the centre rather than sending someone down to Howdens to buy a pot of paint to decorate some cells.
“So there is a sort of bureaucracy around prisons, which makes things incredibly complicated and means the governors, some of them are unbelievably impressive people who do an absolutely brilliant job, but often their hands are tied by what seems to me coming from an education background, like an extraordinary level of bureaucracy.”
