Brian Anderson (British boxer): Difference between revisions
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Anderson’s job as governor resulted in a reunion with his former [[sparring]] partner [[Naseem Hamed]] who spent part of his 15 months sentence for dangerous driving at the jail in 2006, of which he said: "We knew for a long time before it happened that there was a high possibility that Nas was going to end up here. It wasn't a shock, it wasn't a surprise, it was just very sad". <ref name="BBC News 4 January 2007"/> |
Anderson’s job as governor resulted in a reunion with his former [[sparring]] partner [[Naseem Hamed]] who spent part of his 15 months sentence for dangerous driving at the jail in 2006, of which he said: "We knew for a long time before it happened that there was a high possibility that Nas was going to end up here. It wasn't a shock, it wasn't a surprise, it was just very sad". <ref name="BBC News 4 January 2007"/> |
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During Anderson’s time in charge of Doncaster the prison’s regime was criticised by the [[Prisons and Probation Ombudsman|prisons and probation ombudsman]] [[Stephen Shaw (ombudsman)| Stephen Shaw]] who found that the Detox watch log had gone missing and that records in the Segregation Observation Log had been falsified by a prison custody officer (PCO) on the night of a death in the gaol.<ref name=" Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Report July 2009">{{citation |last= Shaw |first= Stephen |title= Investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of a man at HMP Doncaster in July 2006|url= http://www.ppo.gov.uk/wp-content/ReddotImportContent/047-06-death-of-a-male-prisoner.pdf#view=FitH| date= July 2009|publisher= [[Prisons and Probation Ombudsman]] |location=London| accessdate= 7 August 2015 }}</ref> Shaw’s report stated: “The falsification of such documents renders them meaningless and is unprofessional. It is also disturbing that the PCO appeared confident that his actions would not be picked up by management checks. The Director must ensure that his staff are fully aware of the necessity of recording observations at the time of making them and that management checks ensure compliance” although it noted that “In the event, the PCO’s actual checks were better than those recorded in the log”. Overall, Shaw concluded that, "Having had the mournful duty of issuing reports on many hundreds of self-inflicted deaths in prison, I have to say that this is amongst the most alarming". <ref name=" Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Report July 2009"/> [[Private Eye]] magazine subsequently reported that this was not the first such incident at the institution, saying Shaw had written that "a culture of falsifying records […] is not confined to one part of the prison but appears to form part of a wider culture".<ref name="Private Eye No. 1398">{{cite news | title= In The Back: Prisons: Crime Pays| author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|date= 7 August 2015 | work= [[Private Eye]] |issue= 1398| page= 33 }}</ref> |
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==== Director of HMP and YOI Ashfield==== |
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Anderson subsequently was the director of [[HM Prison Ashfield |Her Majesty’s Prison and Young Offenders Institute Ashfield]] during a period in which the use of restraint increased nine-fold.<ref name="BBC News 17 February 2012">{{cite web | title= Ashfield Young Offenders Institution restraint rates 'up nine-fold'|url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-17049250| author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|date= 17 February 2012| website= [[BBC News Online]] | accessdate= 6 August 2015}}</ref> Under his leadership, the institution was criticised by the [[Her Majesty%27s Chief Inspector of Prisons| chief inspector of prisons]], Nick Hardwick, who noted, "The number of incidents of stripsearching was very high and we were not satisfied that strip-searches were necessary in the majority of instances".<ref name="HMIP Inspection Report December 2011">{{citation |last= Hardwick |first= Nick |title= Report on an unannounced short followup inspection of HMYOI Ashfield 11-13 October 2011|url= http://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/prisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2014/03/ashfield-2011.pdf| date= December 2011|publisher= Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons |location=London| accessdate= 7 August 2015 }}</ref> Hardwick’s inspection report also noted a high level of violent incidents, saying: "Between October 2010 and September 2011 an average of 45 fights had taken place each month. A worrying trend had been identified involving incidents where several young people took part in an assault on one young person".<ref name="HMIP Inspection Report December 2011"/> |
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In January 2013, the [[Ministry of Justice (United Kingdom)| Ministry of Justice]] announced that Ashfield would become an adult-only prison and that all juvenile detainees would be transferred to other institutions by the end of March.<ref name="BBC News 7 March 2013">{{cite web | title= Ashfield young offenders' punishment ruled 'unlawful' |url= http:// http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-21698007| author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|date= 7 March 2013| website= [[BBC News Online]] | accessdate= 6 August 2015}}</ref> Anderson left his position at Ashfield in early 2013.<ref name="Private Eye No. 1398"/> Shortly afterwards, in March 2013, the High Court ruled that the punishments given a year earlier to seven young offenders in Ashfield following a protest on a sports field which had resulted in some damage had been unlawful and that they had been confined without "critical safeguards”.<ref name="BBC News 7 March 2013"/> [[Frances Crook]], chief executive of the [[Howard League for Penal Reform]], which had represented the punished detainees, welcomed the court ruling, saying: "This judgment confirms what we have been saying for a long time, and what the government has now recognised - Ashfield is no place for a child. Ashfield is an unsafe establishment run for profit which has seen appalling levels of violence, with 1,039 assaults recorded last year, as well as excessive use of restraint. We are very pleased that it will no longer hold children. It was encouraging to see that, only a few weeks after this case came to the High Court, ministers decided that Ashfield should be re-rolled [as an adult prison]".<ref name="BBC News 7 March 2013"/> |
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====Juvenile detention consultant==== |
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In August 2015 ''[[Private Eye]]'' magazine reported that Anderson was working in the [[United Arab Emirates]] advising on juvenile detention.<ref name="Private Eye No. 1398"/> |
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==References== |
==References== |
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Revision as of 09:43, 7 September 2015
Brian Anderson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 9 July 1961 Sheffield, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Statistics | |
| Weight(s) | Middleweight |
| Height | 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) |
| Boxing record | |
| Total fights | 39 |
| Wins | 27 |
| Wins by KO | 14 |
| Losses | 9 |
| Draws | 3 |
Brian Anderson (born 9 July 1961) is a British former boxer who was British middleweight champion between 1986 and 1987. Since retiring from boxing he has worked in Her Majesty's Prison Service.
Early life
Born in Sheffield in 1961 to Jamaican-born parents, Anderson took up boxing after getting into trouble as a child and being taken at the age of 13 by a social worker to the Croft House youth club, which had a boxing gym.[1][2] At school he was taught PE by Howard Wilkinson and ran in the same cross-country running team as Sebastian Coe.[1] Realising he had a talent for boxing he focused his energies on the sport and represented England at amateur level four years later.[1] On a trip to Germany with the England team he met Brendan Ingle and later joined Ingle's St. Thomas's gym in Wincobank.[1]
Career
Boxing
Anderson began his professional career in 1980. His first chance to earn an opportunity to fight for the British Tittle was unsuccessful when he lost to Prince Rodney in a final eliminator for the British light middleweight title in March 1983; Rodney stopped Anderson in the fifth round.[3]
For a brief period Anderson moved up to middleweight beating Jimmy Ellis and in May 1983 to win the Central Area middleweight title. He made a successful defence of the title in May 1984 against Sammy Brennan.
In November 1984 he again dropped down to light middleweight to face Chris Pyatt in a final eliminator for the British title; Pyatt won on points.
He made a second defence of his Central Area title in February 1986 against Steve Johnson. The fight was also a final eliminator for the British Middleweight Tittle. In October got his first shot at a British title when he faced Tony Burke for the vacant middleweight title. The tittle had been vacated by Andersons friend and gym mate Herol Bomber Graham. Anderson stopped Burke in the eighth round to take the title. In September 1987 Anderson defended the British title against Tony Sibson at the Royal Albert Hall with Sibson's commonwealth title also at stake. Sibson stopped Anderson in the seventh round.[1] This proved to be Anderson's final fight.[1]
Prison official
After retiring from boxing, Anderson became a referee and went on to train as a probation officer and study at Huddersfield Polytechnic, qualifying in 1988.[1][4] He went on to work in the Prison Service as the country's first anti-bullying officer in 1994. He told reporter Alan Hubbard of UK newspaper The Independent, "The then chief inspector of prisons, Sir David Ramsbottom, seemed to like what we were doing. I told him I had always wanted to be some kind of social reformer and it was he who suggested that I should aim to become a prison governor. I found there was a graduate scheme and managed to get on it - the first black candidate to do so, in September 1997".[1]
Governor of HMP Doncaster
In 2006 Anderson became only the second black prison chief in the UK, taking charge of the Serco-run HM Prison Doncaster.[1][2][5][6] Following his appointment he told the BBC, "I can say without a shadow of a doubt that boxing is responsible for me being here now. However, I was lucky, I joined a youth club where they had a boxing gym and I got involved in boxing. Instantly I found that it was something I could do, and do very well. It is quite ironic really, because when I was young people used to say 'you're going to end up in prison'. I don't think this is quite what they had in mind."[2] Expanding on this theme, Anderson told Alan Hubbard of UK newspaper The Independent, "When I went to Doncaster as a probation officer, I always remember at one point there were six inmates that I used to knock around with. There were a couple of them whose parents used to say 'don't mix with that Anderson because you'll get yourself into trouble'. It was ironic, there we were, all in prison together, but of course I was the one with the set of keys. I just think that in life I made better decisions than the people who are inside. I could quite easily not have done. God knows what I would have done if I hadn't found boxing."[1]
Anderson’s job as governor resulted in a reunion with his former sparring partner Naseem Hamed who spent part of his 15 months sentence for dangerous driving at the jail in 2006, of which he said: "We knew for a long time before it happened that there was a high possibility that Nas was going to end up here. It wasn't a shock, it wasn't a surprise, it was just very sad". [2]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Hubbard, Alan (2006) "Boxing: Jailhouse Rocky: Ex-champion Anderson breaks new ground as first black prison chief", The Independent, 31 December 2006. Retrieved 16 March 2015
- ^ a b c d "Boxing champ takes helm at prison". BBC News Online. 4 January 2007. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
- ^ Thomson, Doug (2004) "Rodney's Return", Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 4 August 2004. Retrieved 16 March 2015
- ^ "Brian Anderson, Doncaster Prison", Ethos, August 2009. Retrieved 16 March 2015
- ^ "First black prison governors speak on Respect anniversary", Warrington Guardian, 28 January 2010. Retrieved 16 March 2015
- ^ Some sources state he was the first but he clarified in 2010 that Mike Poselay was the first.
External links
- Career record at boxrec.com