Complaint investigation summaries

The prisoner complained about the delay in completing his Offender Assessment System risk assessment report and sentence plan while he was at HMP Oakwood. We partially upheld the complaint due to the report being completed more than seven months after sentencing (the target is ten weeks).

The prisoner complained that some of his property had gone missing following his segregation at Swaleside. The investigation found that after the prisoner assaulted an officer, including throwing bodily fluids at him, the cell was found to have excrement and bodily fluids in it. Any contaminated property was disposed of. However, the property cards were not updated to reflect this.

The prisoner complained that some of his property had gone missing following his segregation at Forest Bank. The IPCI investigation found that the property cards and cell clearance certificates had not been retained in accordance with the policy. It was therefore not possible to establish what had been lost.

The prisoner complained that his Prison Offender Manager had not had enough contact with him for preparation of his initial sentence plan. Although the POM’s caseload made additional contact difficult, they apologised for this, and recognised the failure to explain the delay to the prisoner for 16 weeks, damaged the prisoner’s confidence in their POM.

The prisoner complained that HMP Long Lartin had misinterpreted the policy relating to their 16–18-year-old child visiting using the Approved Visitors Scheme (AVS). The AVS requires most visitors to be security cleared before being allowed to visit prisoners in the high security estate (including post 16). However, this is not the case if the 16–18-year-old is visiting accompanied by another AVS approved adult. Our investigation found that HMPS Long Lartin had misunderstood this latter point.

The prisoner said that he had handed a complaint form to a member of staff who then refused to give it back when asked. The officer said that they had already disposed of the complaint form at the prisoner’s request. We partially upheld the complaint as although the staff members actions were not directly against policy, we did not consider staff accepting complaints directly to be good practice. The member of staff should have directed the prisoner to use the complaint box on the wing.

The prisoner complained about a refund for his food order at HMP Oakwood after he transferred to HMP Stoke Heath before his order was delivered. He wrote again to say that he subsequently received a full refund.

The prisoner complained that a letter ‘First Class Signed For’, had not been delivered or returned. The prisoner asked to be compensated by the prison for his lost letter which included sensitive documents. He also complained that the delay in the prison providing him with the relevant paperwork to claim compensation from the mail courier, meant he was unable to claim compensation, as it was out of time.

The prisoner complained that the floor in the visit’s hall was constantly dirty. When they complained to the prison, they were unhappy with the responses received which did not address the points raised.

The prisoner complained about being refused Category D status (open conditions). The IPCI investigation found there were some factual errors in the review paperwork, and confusion and misunderstanding when the prison was responding to the prisoner’s subsequent appeal and complaints.