More On Fire Safety in Prisons

 

The Mid Kent and Medway Coroner has published a troubling inquest report on the 2019 death of Christian Hinkley. Christian died by smoke inhalation when a fire developed in his cell at HMP Swaleside. The report has been sent to Prisons Minister Victoria Atkins because the Coroner thinks that “action should be taken to prevent future deaths” and believes the Ministry of Justice has the power to take such action.

The report found the system of smoke and fire detectors outside the cells in Christian’s houseblock is not designed to save life, is not regarded by the prison service as reliable and does not provide an acceptable permanent standard of fire detection.

Worse, the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate (CPFSI) issued a Notice in 2015 advising the prison to take action so that fires were detected sufficiently early. Four years later, in April 2019, a further CPFSI inspection led to another such Notice being issued. The Coroner considers “the only effective way to address this problem is to install in-cell automatic fire detectors”.

The Inquest has clearly identified a systemic problem, aspects of which I highlighted earlier in the year. Since then, the Chief Inspector of Crown Premises Fire Safety has published their latest Annual Report. It raises some pressing questions.

First, the report says that CPFSI agreed with Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) in 2015 that an acceptable interim solution to the lack of suitable in cell automatic fire detection would be installing domestic smoke detectors either in the cell or immediately outside and above the cell door. But in the light of the Swaleside inquest this latter option at least may not work well enough. As for in cell detection, the inspector wrote that it has proved to be a major managerial challenge for prison staff to prevent tampering and vandalism to the domestic smoke detectors. What is HMPPS doing to address that problem?

Second, the Coroner wrote that the plan to install in cell automatic fire detection systems in all prisons in England and Wales “is currently in the development stage.”  It may take up to 7 years to complete in 35 prisons across England and Wales -and the Coroner says, “perhaps longer for others.” Is this really a prompt enough response to a system that is inadequate and unsafe and on which the inspector says action is imperative? A prisoner in a cell will die within 8 minutes of ignition of an in-cell fire.

Third, the arrangements (and teeth) for inspection look in need of sharpening up. CPFSI report that in 16 full audits of prisons, two were served with Enforcement Notices, 13 were required to produce an action plan within 28 days and one was found to be satisfactory. Of the 15 prisons which had to respond to formal enforcement action, none received a satisfactory standard by the time of a follow up inspection. Nine had minor deficiencies, five were required to produce an effective action plan and one Enforcement Notice remained in force. Do prisons and HMPPS take the inspections seriously enough?

Finally, it seems poor that the CPFSI should only produce their annual report for 2019-20 in October 2021- 18 months after the end of the reporting year. As far as I know, the report receives no scrutiny from members of Parliament, and receives no response from Government.  

The Chief Inspector’s role on behalf of the Government is to ensure that people are safe from fire in Crown Premises in England. Since custodial premises are by far the highest risk from fire “given the nature of the institutions and their occupants”, I’d like to see the Home Affairs Select Committee  (who are responsible for the Inspectorate) and the Justice Committee hold a short inquiry into fire safety in prisons and other places of detention.  

In the meantime, Ms Atkins has until the end of the year to respond to the Coroner and in particular his idea that, pending the long-term work to improve fire detection, detectors could be installed as a priority in a small number of “fire safer cells” on each wing of each prison so that prisoners at high risk of setting fires can be placed in them. Ms Atkins will have to say whether using such cells is practicable given overcrowding pressures and if equipping them in this way is cost effective. 

While these may seem technical questions, they deserve much more attention than they have hitherto received.