Large London park sealed off in pressing manhunt for escaped prisoner

Mark Fairhurst, nationwide chairman of the Prison Officers Association, has stated “cuts have consequences” amid the row over how Daniel Khalife was capable of escape.

Asked if he noticed a hyperlink between circumstances on the jail and Khalife’s escape, Mr Fairhurst stated: “I think the clear link is going back to 2010 when the Tory Government came into power and hit us all with austerity measures.

“They eliminated £900million from the price range. They introduced in a voluntary exit scheme. We’re now able the place we have misplaced over 100 thousand years of expertise due to workers leaving and skilled workers proceed to depart due to working circumstances and the degrees of violence.

“We’re now unable to retain the staff we recruit. We know from the Chief Inspector himself that Wandsworth is critically understaffed.

“These all have knock on results and as we have stated as a union, cuts have penalties.”

Parliament was told on Thursday (September 7) that security posts at HMP Wandsworth were manned at the time of Khalife’s escape.

But Mr Fairhurst said the last time he visited the jail there were 1,600 prisoners when they are only certified to lock up 979.

He said: “They are chronically overcrowded. To safely supervise 1,600 prisoners – once I visited they solely had 69 jail officers on responsibility.

“If you’re telling me that the gate area was fully staffed, what are those staffing levels? I know they should have had at least 120 prison officers on duty yesterday and they had nowhere near that. They had less than a hundred prison officers, but more importanly, what training had the staff had in those critical areas.

“Not each space is staffed by a jail officer. The kitchen’s civilianised. We have been privatised years in the past so what kind of coaching did the civilian workers have within the kitchen. Were they alone working within the kitchen? They should not be alone working in any respect.

“These are the questions that need to be answered.”

Mr Fairhurst was reacting to the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, saying HMP Wandsworth must be shut down.

He stated: “I’m very surprised to hear that… In think that’s nothing more than a cheap headline… What he should be saying is, ‘We need a major refurbishment programme in place at Wandsworth. We need to modernise it, make it fit for purpose and we need to recruit more staff and, more importanly, retain more staff… We need investment in our prisons, we don’t need to close them.”

Asked how a terror suspect would have been allowed to work in a kitchen, Mr Fairhurst stated: “Unfortunately, over the past 12 months although we’ve recruited 4,000 prison officers we’ve only got a net gain of 700. That tells you everything about the working conditions in our prisons.

“How did this particular person find yourself working in these kitchens? An inner threat evaluation would have been performed and he would have been deemed appropriate to work in that space and that is as a result of he was classed as low threat.”