Wandsworth (HM Prison)

HMP Wandsworth
Panorama of HM Wandsworth from Heathfield Road
Opened	1851
Management	HM Prison Service
Prison type	Adult Male/Category B Local
Prisoner figures	1665 (May 2009)
Location	Wandsworth, London
Governor	Dave Taylor
Information	www.justice.gov.uk

HM Prison Wandsworth is a Category B men's prison at Wandsworth in the London Borough of Wandsworth, south west London, England. It is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service and is the largest prison in London and one of the largest in western Europe, with similar capacity to Liverpool prison.

History

The prison was built in 1851 when it was known as Surrey House of Correction. It was designed according to the humane separate system principle with a number of corridors radiating from a central control point with each prisoner having toilet facilities. The toilets were subsequently removed to increase prison capacity and the prisoners had to engage in the purposefully humiliating process of 'slopping out' until 1996.^{[citation needed]}

In 1930, inmate James Edward Spiers, serving a 10-year sentence for armed robbery, committed suicide in front of a group of Justices of the Peace who were there to witness him receive 15 lashes, then a form of judicial corporal punishment.

In 1951 Wandsworth was the holding prison for a national stock of two types of implement for corporal punishment inflicted in prison as a disciplinary penalty under the prison rules: the birch and the cat o' nine tails. An example of a flogging with the "cat" carried out in Wandsworth Prison itself was reported in July 1954.

On 8 July 1965, Ronnie Biggs escaped from the prison where he was serving a 30-year sentence for his part in the Great Train Robbery two years earlier. He fled to Brazil and remained on the run until 2001, when he returned to Britain.

Execution site

Wandsworth was the site of 135 executions, between 1878 and 1961. The gallows was located on "E" wing. Among those executed by hanging were:

(in execution-year order)

George Chapman (1865–1903) George Johnson Armstrong (1902–1941) Duncan Scott-Ford (1921–1942) August Sangret (1913–1943) John Amery (1912–1945)

William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) (1906–1946) John George Haigh (1909–1949) Derek Bentley (1933–1953) Guenther Podola (1929–1959)

On 25 April 1951 a double execution took place at Wandsworth, when Edward Smith and Joseph Brown stood on the gallows together and were executed simultaneously. The final executions at Wandsworth were those of Victor John Terry, on 25 May 1961, and Henryk Niemasz, on 8 September 1961. With the exceptions of Scott-Ford, Joyce and Amery, who were convicted of treachery, all executions were for the crime of murder. The gallows were kept in full working order until 1993 and tested every six months. In 1994 they were dismantled and the condemned suite is now used as a tea room for the prison officers.^{[citation needed]}

The trapdoor and lever of the gallows was sent to the Prison Service Museum in Rugby, Warwickshire. After this museum permanently closed in 2004, it was sent to the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham, where it and an execution box may be seen.

Recent history

In December 1999, an inspection report from Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons severely criticised the regime at Wandsworth Prison. The report stated that there was "a pervasive culture of fear" at the jail, and that staff were "callous and uncaring" and guilty of intimidation, racism and sexism.

A further inspection report in June 2003 called for some inmates to be removed from Wandsworth prison to ease overcrowding. The report also stated that the prison's record on basic standards was "indefensible". However, the report praised the prison in several areas, notably its work with foreign nationals, improvements in healthcare, and measures to prevent suicide and self harm.

In September 2004 the Chief Inspector claimed that conditions at Wandsworth Prison had deteriorated, and that the jail had been rated poorly on all four of the Prison Inspectorate's "healthy prison" tests. The tests included assessing safety, respect, purposeful activity and resettlement at the prison.

In October 2009, gross misconduct charges were brought against managers of Wandsworth Prison, after an investigation found that inmates had been temporarily transferred to HMP Pentonville before inspections. The transfers, which included vulnerable prisoners, were in order to manipulate prison population figures.

The prison today

Wandsworth Prison contains eight wings on two units. The smaller unit, containing three wings, was originally designed for women but now houses the Vulnerable Prisoners Unit - primarily those convicted of sex offences.

Education and training courses are offered at Wandsworth, and are contracted from Kensington & Chelsea College. Facilities at the prison include two gyms and a sports hall. The large prison chaplaincy offers chaplains from the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon and Jehovah's Witness faiths.

The establishment has an award winning cell radio station called 'Radio Wanno' managed by Kevin Field for Media for Development, offering prisoners radio production and literacy qualifications, ICT, employability and life skills while broadcasting programme information, advice and guidance for prisoners linked to the 7 reducing reoffending pathways.

The PACT Centre is a visitors' centre at Wandsworth Prison. Facilities include a rest area, refreshments and a children's play area. The centre also provides information on a selection of support agencies, such as the Prisoners' Families & Friends Service.

Notable inmates

• Oscar Wilde, writer
• Ronnie Kray, organised crime leader
• Ronnie Biggs, participant in the Great Train Robbery, who escaped from the prison in 1965 before fleeing the country
• Pete Doherty, musician
• Charles Bronson (prisoner), notorious long-term inmate and artist.
• Julian Assange, was remanded in custody at HMP Wandsworth on 7 December 2010 after being refused bail prior to an extradition hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court. On December 16, 2010, he was released on bail after another appeal.
• David Chaytor, first MP to be convicted for his part in the United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal
• Bat Khurts, head of Mongolia's counter-terrorism agency, 2010.
• James Ibori, Influential Nigerian Politician
• Kate Webster, perpetrator of the Murder of Julia Martha Thomas^{[citation needed]}
• Salman Butt, cricketer convicted for his part in the Pakistan cricket spot-fixing controversy.
• Mohammad Asif, cricketer convicted for his part in the Pakistan cricket spot-fixing controversy.
• Mazhar Majeed, cricket agent convicted for his part in the Pakistan cricket spot-fixing controversy.

In popular culture

Wandsworth is mentioned in:

• "Cool for Cats" (1979), a song by Squeeze
• "Switch", a song by Senser
• "Let Him Dangle", a song from the Elvis Costello album Spike (1989)
• "Truth Rest Your Head", a song by Gene
• "The Battle of Epping Forest" (1973), a song by Genesis, that mentions a hood: "Liquid Len by name, of wine, women and Wandsworth fame"
• Derek Bentley was held in this prison up until he was hanged in 1953 and featured in the film Let Him Have It (1991)
• Atonement (2001), a novel by Ian McEwan, in which the character Robbie Turner is imprisoned in Wandsworth for over four years
• Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), a novel by George Orwell, in which the prison is mentioned toward the end of the novel
• It's a Battlefield (1934), a novel by Graham Greene who visited Wandsworth and used it as the model for the prison in which the hero awaits execution in the novel
• The short story "The Nonce Prize", which is set in and around the prison in collection of short fiction Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys (1998) by Will Self
• Survivors, a television series in which Tom Price escapes the prison after the deadly virus, killing the one remaining prison officer who survived in the process
• A Clockwork Orange (1962), a novel by Anthony Burgess, where the character Alex is imprisoned
• The February 12, 2011 episode of Saturday Night Live featured a satirical theatrical trailer for the British film 'Don' You Go Rounin' Roun to Re Ro'. In the clip, character Terry Donovan is shown being released from HM Prison Wandsworth.

References

External links

• Ministry of Justice pages on Wandsworth
• Victorian Prisoners’ Photograph Albums from Wandsworth prison on The National Archives' website.