The Independent Monitoring Board for Belmarsh Prison said that it is proving “almost impossible to keep gang members apart”
(Picture: Ian Waldie/Getty Images)Terrorist inmates will be stopped from creating “no go areas” inside prisons to radicalise others and even administer floggings imposed by sharia courts, the Justice Secretary promised on Wednesday as he admitted that the dangers had not been taken seriously enough.
Dominic Raab said that action was needed because “coercive, controlling behaviour by extremists” had been allowed “to poison the well” behind bars to the detriment of public safety.
He said reforms would include more use of specialist separation centres for the most dangerous terrorists and an end to allowing extremists to exploit “religious and cultural sensitives” over halal food to keep prison officers out of kitchens.
Mr Raab also promised legal reforms to stop terrorist prisoners using the Human Rights Act to claim the right to socialise among the rest of the prison population, saying that seven existing cases had already cost the government £500,000 to defend.
His pledges follow a series of attacks, including at Fishmongers’ Hall in November 2019 and Streatham early the following year, carried out by recently freed terrorist prisoners or serving terrorist inmates and came in response to a critical report published today by the terrorism watchdog Jonathan Hall QC.
Mr Hall warns in the report that some prison staff, including governors, have allowed Islamist terrorists to take control of prison wings and operate like gangs, running sharia courts and even administering punishment such as floggings.
He also discloses that prison staff have been asking “emirs” to help maintain order and that a legal loophole is permitting radicalisation to take place within cells without breaching terrorist laws.
On Wednesday, Mr Raab admitted the challenge posed by Islamist prisoners had been under-estimated and that more robust approach was needed to deal with the 200 serving terrorist offenders and another 200 extremists with other convictions currently behind bars.
“We must not allow religious or cultural sensitives to deter us from clamping down and nipping in the bud early the precursor signs of radicalisation and ultimately terrorist recruitment. That must be stopped,” Mr Raab told LBC.
Adding that prisons needed to target “the real troublemakers”, he added: “You can see how this happens in a very subtle and surreptitious way.
“We start with the understandable respect for religious observance, we then find kitchens are no go areas for those that will not respect them, then there is a regime within a regime. We’ve got to cut it out far earlier so we don’t get anywhere near punishment being meted out.”
Mr Raab admitted that only nine places out of 28 in specialist separation centres, which were set out following an earlier review of the terrorist prisoner problem, were currently being used, but that this would change.
He said these should be used for the “most dangerous radicalising recruiters” and that he was “beefing up the money to target those offenders who need to be removed.”
Mr Raab said the government’s new “Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act” would “stop the legal attrition that we are already starting to see with terrorists and extremists claiming the right to socialise within prison, when they actually want to radicalise.”
