Keith Pringle – stitched up for his solidarity with other prisoners

Keith is a long term prisoner whose sentence was due to end in January this year. He had been a ‘thorn in the side’ of the prison authorities for many years, including being at Full Sutton in the mutiny of 1997. As a result of his ‘subversive’ activities (ie opposition to the system, and solidarity with other prisoners) he was ‘selected’ for the Close Supervision Centre control unit at Woodhill prison, which opened in 1998.

As a CSC prisoner, Keith then spent time in most of the segregation units of the dispersal system, located in the high security cells reserved for CSC prisoners on lay-downs. In summer 2002 he was in the segregation unit at Frankland prison, with Tony Daniels, a life sentence prisoner who had been moved from Long Lartin and promised he would be going to a normal wing. In solidarity with Tony and in protest against the generally appalling conditions in Frankland seg at that time, Keith began a dirty protest, which lasted several weeks. At the end of it, Tony Daniels won his demands and was moved from the segregation unit and then from the dispersal system.

During the protest the prisoners on it complained that they were not receiving full food rations, not receiving hot water or tea, not being allowed to see governors, medical staff or the Board of Visitors, that their food was being contaminated by prison staff, and that they were subjected to constant verbal abuse and intimidation, including racial abuse.

Keith has now been charged with threatening to kill one of the prison officers in the seg at that time. This officer made repeated threats to prisoners, and is rumoured to be the subject of an investigation following the suicide of a prison informer who was goaded and terrified into taking his own life while in Frankland seg.

Even though the Prison Service has told the European Court that it does not think threatening behaviour is a serious charge in the prison context (and therefore prisoners charged with it on disciplinary hearings do not need legal representation or to have their cases heard by an independent adjudicator) in Keith’s case, this ‘not serious’ charge is sufficient to have him remanded in custody following the ending of his sentence.

Despite being a remand prisoner, however, Keith remained located within the Close Supervision Centre, first in a high security cell at Wakefield, then at the Durham part of the CSC. Most recent news is that following an attack on him by prison officers at Durham, he is on a dirty protest in the segregation unit of that prison.

Keith’s trial is due to take place in August this year. His solicitor, Tahir Khan, is collecting witness statements from prisoners who were at Frankland last year, or who have experience of that seg or of the CSC. The trial - if it goes ahead and the state does not concede that it is a colossal waste of public money, as well as an abuse of power – is likely to last at least four weeks and will be a massive indictment of the prison system.

PLEASE SEND MESSAGES OF SOLIDARITY TO KEITH PRINGLE (CD0078) – HMP DURHAM, Old Elvet, DURHAM DH1 5YD.