Legal: HMP Nottingham

One Wednesday evening a couple of weeks ago our Branch secretary Jordan, phoned me to tell that the Government Legal Department (GLD) had notified him that they had declined to represent four of our members at an inquest at Nottinghamshire Coroner’s Court because their evidence was likely to conflict with the GLD. line. ‘You mean the inquest coming up in November?’ I replied. ‘No the one coming up on Monday,’ he said. ‘What?’ I replied.

Jordan then spent much of his Thursday contacting Geoff Willets and Mick Pimblett to see if it was possible to obtain representation for our members at such short notice and going over the details of the case. This was an extremely sad case which involved a prisoner-onprisoner murder. This event was exceptionally traumatic for our members concerned and the thought that they may have had to relive these events without any legal counsel made me shudder.

Fortunately Mick Pimblett was able to get Thompsons Solicitors to instruct barristers to represent our members, they were then able to ask for the order of the witnesses to be changed and put back by one week to give them enough time to read through the papers and familiarise themselves with the case. This was a big task given the main bundle was over 1400 pages long and there were several additional bundles of 100 to 300 pages in length.

Deputy Coroner Laurinder Bower was forthright in her criticism of the GLD's late notification of their decision not to represent the staff which led her to having to completely restructure the timetable of the inquest. Given the members’ written testimony contained within the bundle it should have been immediately apparent that the testimonies were conflicting so there was no obvious reason for the decision being so late.

Had the POA not been able to secure representation the entire inquest would have had to be postponed and this would have massively compounded the hurt felt by the victim’s grieving family.

As for our members, one told me that he had ‘mentally prepared’ himself to give evidence without legal counsel so was relieved that he didn’t have to cross-examine his own work colleagues. Another member has since had a stroke and developed communication and mobility problems, his barrister was extremely kind and compassionate towards him and she reduced his anxieties before giving evidence. I attended court on one of the days and I thought that the cross examination of witnesses by the POA barristers was first class.

This is the first time I have dealt with a case where we had conflicting witnesses. At previous inquests all our witnesses had come under the GLD representation and I thought that they did an excellent job, however on this occasion the GLD really ought to have done better.

I hope the GLD can learn from this and notify our members in good time where they believe there is a conflict between witnesses to give us a reasonable time to facilitate their representation.

In the end the inquest was a success, the jury reached their conclusions (which are available on the BBC news website) and the victim’s family were aided in their understanding of the circumstances surrounding his death. Were it not for the actions of the POA it could have been a different story.

Joseph Conboy
HMP Nottingham Branch Chair.