DRUGS FIND TO FUEL RENEWED CALLS FOR ASHWORTH CLOSURE

EVIDENCE of heroin abuse has been discovered at Ashworth hospital,
where Moors murderer Ian Brady is held.

Burnt tinfoil containing traces of the drug was found two weeks ago in
the hospital grounds. The discovery will fuel calls for the closure of
the Merseyside hospital. Ashworth - one of three secure hospitals for
dangerous long-term psychiatric patients - has twice been recommended
for closure by government reports.

Frank Dobson, Secretary of State for Health, announced a pounds 5.7
million security plan in May to eliminate criminal activity at the
hospital. He was responding to the Fallon report, published in
January, which found that pornography was freely available in
Ashworth's personality-disorder unit, where sex offenders played
unsupervised with an eight-year-old girl.

Mr Dobson rejected calls for closure and gave managers four months to
get their house in order. However, inquiries by The Telegraph have
discovered that staff believe security is still failing.

The foil with heroin traces was found by sniffer dogs inside the
secure compound. An investigation has been launched to find out who
brought it into the grounds. Two hospital nurses claimed this week
that patients are allowed to move freely around the grounds and that
they still have easy access to pornography.

One said: "Everyone here knows it goes on, but lets it continue
without blinking an eyelid. Its an unwritten rule that it will take
too much time and will upset too many patients if we search them all."
Bill Cassidy, a former member of the hospital's security staff, said
that staff are constantly being frisked, while Ian Brady is allowed to
move from one site to another without being searched. Brady, 61, whose
accomplice was Myra Hindley, was jailed in 1966 for the murder of five
children.

Yesterday, he was force-fed him by the hospital in an attempt to end a
month-long hunger strike in protest at an alleged assault by nurses.
Mr Cassidy, 34, said he helped find an escape kit smuggled into the
grounds by a patient.

Staff representatives admitted last week there have been recent lapses
in security and called for a fresh inquiry. Stuart Eales, the Prison
Officers' Association secretary at Ashworth, said: "The searches are
cursory and ineffective. The security mechanisms are not thorough and
should be examined again."

A hospital spokesman admitted that evidence of heroin had been found
in the hospital grounds. She said that security around Ian Brady has
been stepped up since the alleged incident witnessed by Mr Cassidy.
She added that Mr Cassidy was dismissed from the hospital staff.