Police looked at charges for Feltham

Police looked at charges for Feltham Police considered bringing
corporate manslaughter charges against the prison service following
the death of Zahid Mubarek, an inquiry heard this week.

Director general of the prison service Philip Wheatley made the
statement at the public inquiry into the murder of Mubarek by his
cellmate Robert Stewart.

Wheatley also said that, while prison staff were “overwhelmed”
by the aftermath of the killing at Feltham Young Offender
Institution in March 2000, there was resistance to change.

Last week, the inquiry also heard the first rebuttal of claims
that staff at Feltham pitted black and white prisoners against each
other in a Gladiator-style game.

Julie Goodman, a former Feltham prison officer, said she had
neither participated in nor encountered the practice.

Martin Narey, prisons director general at the time of the
murder, told the inquiry last week that two white trainee prison
officers had been sacked after urinating on a black trainee. Narey
said he was “ashamed” of the incident at Newbold Reville training
centre in Wakefield, Yorkshire.

Fifty-one per cent of visitors to Community Care’s website
thought Martin Narey should have resigned at the time of Mubarek’s
murder. This week’s web poll asks: Should the Commission for Social
Care Inspection strive to be self-funding by charging for
inspections?  Vote at www.communitycare.co.uk