The strict appearance of the WandSHA prison is enough to make people grow up.
Based on the leaf of South-West London, the Victorian-Era facility – with brick goault walls and one of the largest awe-inspiring entrances in the UK.
The content inside is the only thing that scares. On a visit many years ago, I was struck by the smell of urine from the drains that lined the cell blocks.
I’ve been inside a lot of prisons in my career but this was worse.
Like many prisons, it suffered from renovations and nearly doubled the number of inmates it was designed to house.
The prisoner is not known to have strong security. Just a few years ago, Daniel Khalife, who was awaiting trial for violating official secrets, was acting, escaped by strapping himself under a food delivery truck.
the false release of two prisoners in one week Once again attention is drawn to the Prison category.
A serving prisoner officer from the prison described the security as a “joke”.
They told me: “It’s crazy there and mistakes are always happening. There was a real state of nervousness after this blowing and I thought that things like this happen and make us dogs.”
An independent monitoring board report released last month said that a third of staff were not confirmed to staff most of their prisoners during the working day.
The inmate has a reputation for being one of the worst in the country. It received an urgent notice in May 2024 following an unannounced visit by HM Chief Inspector Charlie Taylor of Prisons.
An “urgent notice” in prisons is a formal process by which the Chief Inspector informs the Secretary of State of important and urgent concerns. Immediate concerns include staff assaults, repairs, and staff not being able to confirm the whereabouts of prisoners.
In a letter to INSONSE SECHARE SECRECTE ALEX PALK, Mr. Taylor wrote: “The inspectors found many units that could not confirm where all the prisoners were during the working day.”
We know little at this stage about why or how brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a sex offender, was wrongfully released.
The metropolitan police did not say anything about the mistake for almost a week and it is not clear what the situation was.
Like a second man, William Smith, the BBC understood his accidental release was due to a clerical error in court. Since he himself.
I have heard from insiders that it is a possibility that the prison staff did not notice Khadddour-cherif missing even a few days after his release.
Sources tell me that the governor of HMP WandSworth, Day, was not in prison on the day Khaddorour-Cherif was wrongly released.
Ironically, that’s because Davy is tasked with fulfilling the question of how Hadush Kebatu was released by accident from Chelmsford prison in Essex. I understand that the investigation has been completed.
Almost two weeks ago, the Secretary of the Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy, introduced additional checks after the accidental release of Kebatu to ensure that it does not happen again.
But these checks are proving a “significant burden” according to a senior prison staff member, who says they “just increase the paperwork”. “Now it takes a day in some cases to complete the checks to release someone and it doesn’t help when staffing is an issue,” they said.
I understand the early release scheme was brought in last summer after prisons were almost at full staffing capacity which put additional pressure on staff – and contributed to accidental releases.
The emergency scheme allows some prisoners to be released after serving 40% of their sentence, instead of the usual 50%.
“There are more comings and goings now, and that means we’re dealing with more checks, more paperwork, more sentence calculations.
More than 200 people were released by mistake last year – and the government says this is unacceptable. Some staff are Incandescent, saying that the prison system has been around for a while now, but that recent mistakes are what politicians are suddenly involved in.
“How bad can it get before they do?,” asked one staff member. “It’s a shitstorm.”