Complaint investigation summaries

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.

The prisoner complained that he was not allowed to seek legal advice when requested. If a prisoner asks for legal during the initial hearing, the hearing must be adjourned to allow this. The adjudicator must consider if any subsequent requests are justified. We found that although, this was the second hearing, the prisoner had not been present at the initial hearing (through no fault of his own) and therefore his request should have been treated as if it were the initial hearing and should have been allowed.

The prisoner complained that the reporting officer was not present at the adjudication and therefore he was not allowed the opportunity to question him. Instead, the adjudicator relied on body worn camera footage of the incident. We found that policy says that the accused should be allowed to question the reporting officer and the hearing should be adjourned if they could not be present. This placed the prisoner at a disadvantage and was a fatal flaw in the proceedings.

The prisoner complained that some of their property had been lost by staff at Belmarsh. The prisoner had submitted their initial complaint about the loss of their property in September 2022 and since that time had been relocated to three further prisons. After IPCI’s involvement staff at Belmarsh completed an investigation into the prisoner’s property complaint.

The prisoner complained that some of their property had been lost by HMP Lindholme after they transferred to HMP Wymott. During IPCI’s investigation it was confirmed that some of the prisoner’s property had been sent to storage at Branston, and that seven months after the initial complaint HMP Wymott had subsequently sent for the stored property. We upheld this complaint because we did not think the prison had adopted the “problem solving approach” required by national policy.