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THE STATE BREACHED the constitutional rights to privacy of a prisoner who had to urinate and defecate in a chamber pot or other receptacle in front of a fellow or fellow prisoners and then slop out his shared cell, a High Court judge decided today.
Mr Justice Michael White said he was not awarding prisoner Gary Simpson damages because of his partly untruthful and sometimes highly exaggerated evidence about the alleged harmful effect the treatment meted out to him in Mountjoy Prison had on his health and wellbeing.
Judge White, in a reserved judgment, also refused Simpson a declaration that his constitutional rights not to be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment had been breached.
The court heard that Simpson had to use and empty chamber pots because he had no in-cell lavatory facilities. He claimed he had been humiliated, degraded and had his human rights violated because of the practice forced on him.
He alleged he experienced feelings of worthlessness and that his mental health had been affected by having to endure the slopping out practices in Mountjoy.
Simpson claimed that in 2013 he had to tolerate the degrading conditions while sharing a single cell with another prisoner for a period of eight months in D1 wing of the prison.
The court was told he had been convicted of robbery and had been serving three years in the prison. He had been granted a voluntary personal protection transfer to D1 wing because he had felt vulnerable to attack from other inmates.
Judge White was told he was often subject to 23-hour lock-up and sometimes got out for less than an hour. He claimed he could have been locked up for longer than 23 hours before being let out.
Simpson alleged there was no in-cell sanitation and no running water and that prisoners would be provided with receptacles in which to urinate and defecate. They had to eat their meals in the same cell they had to urinate and defecate in. They were given a basin, soap and water with which to wash themselves.
Difficulty
He claimed he had difficulty defecating into the receptacles he had been provided with and would defecate into the pages of a newspaper which he would then use to wrap up his excreta and place in a plastic bag.
He had no proper in-cell facilities for washing his hands after urinating or defecating and this created a considerable risk of infection.
Prisoners would have to dispose of urine and faeces in the slopping area and Simpson claimed some prisoners would urinate in sinks in the slopping out area that were designated for washing.
Simpson’s counsel, Micheal O’Higgins SC and James Devlin SC, had told the court that the slopping out regime had been condemned in 1993 by the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture and had also been criticised in a number of reports including by the State Inspector of Prisons.
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A Report by the Thornton Hall Review Group had addressed the impact of such conditions on prospects of rehabilitation and, in 1995, the State had accepted their concerns.
It had not been until 2010 that the State had started a programme of prison refurbishment to achieve single cell occupancy and in-cell sanitation.
Bodily integrity
Judge White refused Simpson a declaration that the conditions and circumstances of his detention in 2013 breached his rights to bodily integrity and to protection of his health as guaranteed under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
He said there had been an imbalance in the ability of Simpson and the State to tender evidence and, in any action in which an individual alleged institutional abuse, the court had to be careful to ensure that the evidence provided on behalf of the institution was scrutinised carefully to the extent that the court was satisfied that the institutional witnesses had not closed ranks about the allegations made.
He said that in a cell of two occupants, and on exceptional occasions three, there was no toilet or running water.
Each prisoner was provided with a chamber pot which had a lid and the prisoner was required to take this pot to the toilet area and slop out by pouring the contents into a slop hopper on the landing.
“It should be stated from the outset that this practice was uncivilised and a poor reflection on the defendants that it still existed 28 years after the publication of the original Whittaker report into the penal system of July 1985 and 19 years after the first report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment,” Judge white said.
He said that subject to his criticism of the practice of having to defecate in one’s cell in the first place the court was satisfied the chamber pot was satisfactory and that the lid fritted snugly.
There would be an unpleasant smell initially when a prisoner defecated in a cell which was unsatisfactory from the point of the prisoner and his cellmate.
The court had been told that if the lid was replaced promptly onto the pot the smell would diffuse after a reasonably short period of time.
It was unacceptable that the prisoner had to try and defecate in a crouched position and to urinate while standing up which would have led to splashing and spillages. Modest screens could have been provided without difficulty.
Judge White said prisoner Simpson was a volatile prisoner who had a number of disciplinary offences and had been involved in two separate serious incidents with a prison officer against whom he had amplified a difficult personal relationship into an invented conspiracy.
The court did not accept Simpson’s evidence that the overall approach of prison staff in Mountjoy was one of contempt or unhelpfulness.
“The court has to be frank and I have to say there were huge issues with the credibility of Mr Simpson,” the judge said.
“He lied about having stomach cramps while waiting to get out of his cell to go to the toilet and the court is, frankly, of the view it could not award damages because of the gross exaggeration of his evidence on a number of matters and his untruthful evidence.”
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@Cicero: Excellent point. I recall an article in the newspaper a good while back. Some gouger got compensation in the Circuit Civil Court in relation to a road traffic accident. Some person he had previously swindled or robbed had got wind of the court case and got legal advice and made a claim on the compensation award to the gouger.
@Eamonn Sheen: Now imagine, if, instead of having automatic time off all sentences, parole, suspended sentences, Christmas release, weekend release… we had a habitual offenders statute and after three violent crimes you got 25-life, at least 90 of those crimes would have been prevented.
@Ryan Carroll: yes good idea but with less burden on the taxpayer. It costs 70 grand a year per prisoner to keep them in jail. This is why judges dont give out as much jail time as is deserved. I say have a purpose built jail, very bare, no tv, no internet, minimal supervision, minimal cost since these career criminals obviously are incapable of being ‘rehabilitated’ and let them
Rot in there for a long time.
@Ryan Carroll: Spot on but too many people believe that inside every violent criminal is a decent person who one day will emerge after the correct rehabilitative approach. This is why violent recidivist burglars & sex offenders are released time & time again and innocent people pay for this insane form of social policy with their lives.
Who paying the bill for him. Is it the tax payer, if it is is it not time this was looked at . They get free legal aid time an time again no cut off. If working people went to court how many free legal air shots do workers get.
Hard done by….try some of the jails in Japan where you have to wear a gown type uniform when the prisoners go to work ..toilet time stand over a pit and do your business..no courts to complain too..
@In the paper: The most notable difference in prisons in Japan is the silence, you are not allowed to raise your voice or make noise which might interfere with another prisoner, there is no eye contact between prisoners or prisoner/guards, this is actually punishable under prison rules, you are not allowed to move about in your cell including exercising or even stretching, you must sit on the floor facing the door and in multiple occupancy cells , you sit in accordance of seniority , first prisoner in etc.,there are no beds, prisons sleep on rolled up mattresses which are folded away each morning, the prison rules even cover where in a cell objects may be placed such as a photograph, there is no general conversation in prisons, when prisoners work they must not look around their task area and again work in silence, prisoners heads are shaved, there are ‘reflection periods’ each day when prisoners must sit, eyes closed (compulsory) to reflect on their crimes, it is quite a different regime to our prisons with little to no access to legal representatives or courts, let alone to compensation , prisoners receive a small monthly allowance from which all toiletries and expenses are deducted.
Make them watch a programme named Russia’s toughest prisons. They’ll think they are on holiday. Shite in the bucket the least of their problems. Can’t do the time?? Don’t do the crime.
@Nick Allen: The Judge stated he wasn’t given an award because of his dishonest testimony. The rest of them will learn from that, and their legal reps will warn them to keep their evidence short, truthful and simple. Remember they will want a % of any award too.
@Gearoid O’Helidhe: Prison Staff had decades of this 4 times per day. And had the contents of those chamber pots thrown over and at them many many times. But Prison Staff were never given the time of day for it. The attitude of “Its part of the Job so you shouldn’t expect anything else” existed then and still exists today when it comes to assaults on staff.
@Mick Murphy: The Staff have to make the complaint to the Gardai themselves. And even then the courts don’t deem the assault as serious, as declared by one Judge “to be part of the Job”.
@Mick Murphy: IPS does not deem it an injury to have piss and shit thrown over you . And that’s from experience . 3years to get it recognised as an Assault and that was with the courts giving the perpetrator a 6 months sentence on top of the one he was serving .
@nelly:Ah lads that’s absolutely disgraceful! It’s clearly an assault. They’re using double standards there obviously. Treating ye as if ye are lesser than any other citizen. If that happened to someone outside a prison there would be a big hullabaloo about it. Fair dues to ye for managing to hold it together after something like that. If ever there was a call for having batons and decent personal protective equipment it’s right there. Respect to ye. It’s a tough number.
Why should a prisoner be given any right to privacy? Surely they need to be monitored and strip searched on occasion. Sounds like it was more the fact there was another prisoner there and had nothing to do with the conditions. Give them all their own cell and tear out the toilets from every prison that has them. Prison isn’t supposed to be nice!
I was in Mountjoy for a week over big fines. It’s like a holiday home. A nice break from the missus and kids. And alot of the lads in there a long time are planning on bringing the state to court over this. So this ruling is a big victory it will let the rest know not to bother and save our taxes being used for their court appearances hopefully. And from paying out the claims too.
@Brian O Reilly: but the other side of that Brian is that everyone should be able to go about their business without being robbed. This guy has 100+ convictions. Take into account that that’s only including the crimes he was caught for and successfully prosecuted for. He doesn’t seem to have a problem impinging on other people’s rights over and over again yet feels distraught then when his imprisonment is uncomfortable. Also, as other posters have stated, when compared to other prisons around the world he has little to be complaining about. Very professional officers taking care of him, video games consoles at his disposal and education programmes available to him at no cost. Facilities are old in fairness but they are probably being improved all the time. Not gonna be changed overnight.
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