Upheld complaint against the Governor at HMP Wakefield
Complaint category:
Visits, calls & letters
Month investigation completed:
May
Year investigation completed:
2024
The prisoner complained that he had not received his mail on several occasions. The prison was not able to provide any evidence as to whether the mail had been received by the prisoner or not, as they did not have a system in place for prisoners to sign to confirm receipt of their mail.
Recommendations/outcome:
The complaint was upheld because of the lack of evidence provided by the prison. However, the prison has since amended its procedures to avoid this issue happening again in future.
Partially upheld complaint against the Governor of HMP Wymott
Complaint category:
Administration
Month investigation completed:
May
Year investigation completed:
2024
The prisoner complained that staff at HMP Wymott were opening his Rule 39/confidential access mail, delaying issuing it to him, and had not responded to his complaint. IPCI found that the prison had followed policy on the opening of Rule 39/confidential access mail, but not the Prisoner Complaints Policy Framework.
Recommendations/outcome:
We wrote to the Governor and drew their attention to how the prisoner’s complaint had been mishandled to ensure complaints are adequately replied to in future. We hold the view that this complaint should have been resolved by HMPPS without reference to IPCI.
Upheld complaint against the Director of HMP Doncaster
Complaint category:
Property
Month investigation completed:
May
Year investigation completed:
2024
The prisoner complained that HMP Doncaster had lost some of his property after he had to transfer without it. The prisoner was initially told that Doncaster had no property for him, but when they carried out a search as part of the investigation some additional property was found. This property was subsequently sent to the prisoner.
Recommendations/outcome:
No formal recommendations required as the property was found and delivered to the prisoner’s current establishment. We hold the view that this complaint should have been resolved by HMPPS without reference to IPCI.
Partially upheld complaint against the Director of HMP Oakwood
Complaint category:
Administration
Month investigation completed:
May
Year investigation completed:
2024
The prisoner complained about the way his confidential access complaints were handled. The Deputy Director had rejected the complaints, explaining that they should be re-directed through the prison’s normal complaints procedure, having not met the confidential access criteria. The prisoner felt that the prison wanted to deter him from complaining, and was unhappy that the Deputy Director had responded, despite being the subject of the complaint.
Recommendations/outcome:
As the Deputy Director was the subject of the complaint, another senior manager should have responded to it. We upheld this particular element of the complaint. We did not make a recommendation, satisfied that this was an oversight and was unlikely to happen again. We hold the view that this complaint should have been resolved by HMPPS without reference to IPCI.
Partially upheld complaint against the Director of HMP Dovegate
Complaint category:
Categorisation, progression & release preparation
Month investigation completed:
May
Year investigation completed:
2024
The prisoner complained that his categorisation review was carried out more than six months late, despite him completing his outstanding offending behaviour work some months earlier. Our investigation found that that this contributed towards delaying his move to a Category C establishment and partially upheld the complaint.
Recommendations/outcome:
At the time our investigation concluded the prisoner had been recategorised to Category C and transferred to a suitable establishment. A copy of our outcome letter was sent to the Director of Dovegate to make him aware of the issues identified during the investigation.
Partially upheld complaint against the Governor of HMP Swaleside
Complaint category:
Property
Month investigation completed:
May
Year investigation completed:
2024
The prisoner complained that some of their property had been lost by HMP Swaleside, after they transferred to HMP Woodhill. Our investigation found that there was no evidence that the prisoner had received any of the remaining property.
After IPCI’s involvement, a bag of stored property belonging to the prisoner was found at Swaleside.
Recommendations/outcome:
Swaleside agreed to send on the bag of property they had found.
Upheld complaint against the Governor of HMP Wormwood Scrubs
Complaint category:
Accommodation, food, education & other facilities
Month investigation completed:
May
Year investigation completed:
2024
The prisoner complained about receiving food which did not consider his specific dietary requirements. He was allergic to nuts, gluten, wheat and fish. He reported that after one meal he went into anaphylactic shock and had to use his epi-pen.
Recommendations/outcome:
The prisoner had already been released when we concluded our investigation. After IPCI’s involvement the prison were reminded of the need for dietary conditions to be identified during the Reception Healthcare interview and communicated to the kitchens
Upheld complaint against the Governor of HMP & YOI Moorland
Complaint category:
Adjudication & IEP
Month investigation completed:
May
Year investigation completed:
2024
The prisoner complained that they did not receive paper copies of six IEP warnings that were issued against them in April, June and July at HMP Moorland. Having investigated the matter, IPCI was satisfied that while he had not received the necessary notifications, prison staff had not treated him unreasonably or unfairly.
Recommendations/outcome:
We asked that the prison address the issue of incomplete notifications and to take action to prevent any recurrence.
Upheld complaint against the Governor of HMP Full Sutton
Complaint category:
Administration
Month investigation completed:
April
Year investigation completed:
2024
The prisoner complained that his requests for CCTV footage were not being dealt with, and he was not provided with the requested footage. Our investigation found that this complaint was not being dealt with as SARs which should have been the case.
Recommendations/outcome:
No formal recommendations required as during the course of the investigation the prison instigated the SARs process for this matter.
Partially Upheld complaint against the Governor of HMP Low Newton
Complaint category:
Staff behaviour
Month investigation completed:
April
Year investigation completed:
2024
A prisoner with a Gender Recognition Certificate held in the female estate complained that a male member of staff was present in the MDT suite while she completed a urine sample for an MDT. Our investigation could not establish this, but we concluded that more could be done to ensure Voluntary Agreements set out clearly the expectations around searching.
Recommendations/outcome:
We recommended the Governor review all VA’s with transgender prisoners, ensuring all are policy complaint and signed by both staff and prisoners.
