Wilful Blindness: The Death of Professional Conduct?

So, the Metropolitan Police is ‘institutionally racist, sexist and broken’ - yes, well I suspect that many people already knew that; my question is whether the Prison Service is any different?

#Prison?Service?#Misconduct?Statistics 2014-2022 just released to me show that in the last three years alone (2019/2020 to 2021/2022), a total of 4,229 prison staff faced a total of 5,310 disciplinary charges - including bullying, assaults, discrimination and covering up for others guilty of misconduct - and over 700 prison staff were dismissed during this period; members of?#ThePrisonOracle?can view the full data set, including a breakdown by charge and each prison establishment, by visiting?#ThePrisonOracle?Freedom of Information Database: https://prisons.org.uk/facts-figures/freedom-of-information-act-releases/freedom-of-information-2013-present/

Today, Baroness Casey is rightly highly critical of the Met Police's entrenched practice of wilful blindness, where both junior and senior officers choose to turn a blind eye to the professional misconduct of colleagues and who then, as a result, have their own integrity compromised by failing to call out conduct they know to be wrong; the police do not have a monopoly on 'wilful blindness' for it is also a disease that has infected the Prison Service - who in more than one instance have refused to acknowledge and challenge misconduct even where that has been proven - and not subsequently appealed - in a court of law.

One shocking case of wilful blindness is the 2019 case of Prison Officer #BenPlaistow, a bisexual prison officer who will never work again after suffering physical #assaults, #homophobic attacks and #harassment not from prisoners but from his own Prison Service colleagues - and which the Ministry of Justice UK tried to cover up by forging documents they then submitted to an Industrial Tribunal but which failed to hoodwink the Judge who saw through their deception: (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/19/bullied-bisexual-prison-officer-ben-plaistow-unlikely-work-again-tribunal).

One of those who assaulted Prison Officer Ben Plaistow was Prison Governor Victoria Laithwaite, who despite being named and called a liar in the Plaistow Court judgment not only kept her job but was shockingly subsequently promoted - that is until she was herself later jailed for corruption.?

(https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-61260140)?

This 'covering up' has to stop - and that means confronting those who have been named as liars on oath in Court judgments - but in respect of whom the Prison Service chooses to look the other way.

Richard Vince, the current Prison Service Director of High Security has had a long and distinguished career in the Prison Service - but I refuse to do what others have done and overlook the fact that he is twice called a liar in the Plaistow Judgment - read it for yourself at paragraphs 277-299 and especially 291, 293 and 294.

There Mr Vince is held to have given evidence on oath that is described by the court as 'simply untrue', then later 'manifestly untrue' and overall amounts to 'sophistry and obfuscation' - his integrity therefore in my view is in tatters (and I am telling you nothing here that I have not told Mr Vince directly to his face) and yet he remains in charge of the High Security Prison Estate, detaining the most dangerous prisoners our prison system has to hold and while many of his (no doubt red-faced) colleagues close ranks and look the other way - how can that be allowed to happen?

Why has Mr Vince not been held to account, when 4,229 Prison Officers have faced investigation, and over 700 have been dismissed, since the 2019 Plaistow case alone?

There is nothing personal in me pointing the finger at Mr Vince here; indeed I have not pointed the finger - the Court itself in its damning judgment did that.

And it is vital remember that the Ben Plaistow case was not some trivial issue.

This case concerned a loyal and dedicated Prison Officer of ten years unblemished service who was attacked, assaulted, humiliated, forced to disclose his sexual orientation, was belittled, had fingernails scratched down his face, water sprayed into it, and had his work bag daubed with pink fairy cake - all by Prison Staff - and when he found the courage to challenge and complain about his treatment the Prison Service railed against him - they framed him for a disciplinary offence he never committed, and when he turned to the courts for redress the Ministry of Justice forged documents, and backdated emails in a dishonest attempt to defeat his case.

Thankfully they failed when the Judge recognised their deceit and exposed it.

The institutional corrupt practice of wilful blindness that is so obvious here, and the refusal to call it out and confront the findings of misconduct set out in a non-appealed (and so accepted) court judgment, cannot continue.

Wilful blindness is the death of professional conduct and it is time to call it out, wherever it lurks, for the benefit of all, whatever the person's rank, and however professionally painful that act may be.

Mark Leech FRSA is the Editor of The Prisons Handbook for England and Wales.

No5 Barristers' Chambers