PRISON OFFICERS TO FACE ASSAULT CHARGES

TWENTY-FIVE prison officers from Wormwood Scrubs are to be charged with
assault on inmates after the biggest criminal investigation at a British
jail, Scotland Yard announced last night.

The charges come as a forthcoming report by Sir David Ramsbotham, the Chief
Inspector of Prisons, recommends that the jail in West London should be
closed or privatised.

The charges against prison officers follow a 14-month investigation into
allegations of systematic beatings, mistreatment and racial abuse.
Forty-three serving and former officers were under investigation by the
Metropolitan Police, and 15 , including a junior governor, have so far been
suspended.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We have received advice from the Crown
Prosecution Service . . . that there is sufficient evidence to charge 25
prison officers with offences relating to assault on prisoners."

The national chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, Mark Healy, said:
"The POA will continue to represent their members, who maintain their
innocence."

A dossier of allegations about assaults on prisoners at Wormwood Scrubs and
an allegedly connected case at Pentonville in North London, was passed to
Sir David in March last year, according to the London solicitors Hickman &
Rose.

Sir David passed the dossier to the Home Secretary and Richard Tilt, then
Director-General of the Prison Service, while the firm referred the cases to
the police.

Police investigated the allegations, which were made by about 50 prisoners,
mainly between January 1997 and May 1998 at a segregation unit at the
prison.

The files were handed over to the CPS in February this year. Daniel Machover
of Hickman & Rose yesterday called for a public inquiry to be held at the
end of the criminal proceedings.