Prison - Prisoner - Management and treatment of prisoners

Grant and another v Ministry of Justice: Queen's Bench Division (Mr Justice Hickinbottom): 19 December 2011

HMP Albany was a closed prison, for which the defendant was responsible by virtue of the Prison Act 1952. About 360 long-term prisoners, who were at HMP Albany between 2004 and 2011, issued proceedings alleging that their rights under articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights were violated by the regime under which they were detained in that prison, which included the use of a bucket for toilet purposes when they were in a locked cell and the later emptying of the bucket at a sluice.

Five lead claims were selected, of which two reached trial. The claimants were accommodated in single occupancy cells. Although each made other complaints, the focus of their claims was upon the prison sanitation regime. When they were locked in for periods during the day, they contended that prison officers would not manually open their cell door to enable them to use the toilet facilities, if required. The main complaint, however, concerned the night-time sanitisation regime.

There were 24 prisoners on each self-contained landing. Each cell door had a computer-controlled electronic locking/unlocking system which operated at night, and which enabled one prisoner per landing to be released at any one time, to use the toilets on each landing. Each prisoner was able to obtain three exits per night, of nine minutes each. The electronic system was, at times, very unreliable. When the duty governor considered there was a risk of it not working, he was able to call in additional officers for that night who would patrol the landings in turn, and manually open cell doors to allow prisoners to go to the toilet.

Prisoners also had the ability to contact duty officers by intercom to ask them manually to release them to use the facilities, but they did not always do so. Day or night, there would be times when a prisoner was locked in his cell and wished to use a toilet, and his door would not be opened promptly enough for him to use the proper landing facilities. For that eventuality, each cell was provided with a bucket and lid, washing bowl, soap, water and a towel. The claimants contended that the bucket had to be used routinely. The defendant submitted that there was a need to use the bucket only in exceptional circumstances.

The claimants contended that any requirement for a prisoner to urinate or defecate in a bucket was, in itself, degrading treatment and a violation of article 3 of the Convention. They further submitted that in the alternative, that such a requirement was degrading, and a breach of their right to respect for private life under article 8 of the Convention, when considered in the context of all of the conditions at the prison, particularly the allegedly inadequate space, light and ventilation in each cell. The defendant accepted that, even if prisoners were only obliged to urinate in a bucket rarely and defecate in one very rarely, the practice was not ideal. The application would be dismissed.

The sanitation regime at HMP Albany was in no doubt capable of improvement. Ideally, all prisoners would be housed in cells with integral sanitation. The sanitation regime was not perfect, but it could not be said that the defendant had taken any step intended to lower the dignity of any prisoner. In many respects it had been sensitive to the particular needs of prisoners. Prisoners did not share a cell, so they did not ever have to do any toilet in front of another person. Prisoners were not obliged to have any waste in their cell for a substantial time. The regime caused no material additional risk to health or well-being.

That was the case despite the size of the cell, and its ventilation. In the circumstances of the conditions at HMP Albany, the claimants had fallen far short of proving a breach of article 3 of the Convention. Further, the sanitation system at HMP Albany did not substantively interfere with the dignity or privacy of the prisoners, and did not interfere with the claimants' rights under article 8 of the Convention (see [221]-[209], [234] of the judgment).

Hugh Southey QC and Nick Armstrong (instructed by Scott-Moncrieff & Associates LLP) for the first claimant; the second claimant appeared in person; James Eadie QC and David Pievsky (instructed by the Treasury solicitor) for the defendant.