David Shipley is a former prisoner who writes, speaks and researches on prison and justice issues.
Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, has a habit of speaking difficult truths which senior civil servants might wish to keep quiet. He’s done it again, following the publication of a recent inspection at HMP Bullingdon. Taylor tweeted that ‘Bullingdon, like many other jails, is heavily dependent on prison officers recruited from West Africa.
Yesterday His Majesty’s Prison Service released a sex offender by mistake. That would be bad enough on its own, but this particular sex offender was Hadush Kebatu, the Ethiopian migrant whose assault on a 14-year-old girl sparked weeks of protests in Epping. Kebatu was only sentenced last month, receiving a 12-month sentence for two sexual
Quietly, day-by-day, the inquiry into the Southport killings is revealing how disastrous failures of the British state led to Axel Rudakubana murdering young girls in August 2024. Yesterday it was the turn of the killer’s former headteacher, Joanne Hodson, to give evidence. She first met Rudakubana in 2019 when he enrolled at the Acorns School
Should Jess Phillips resign? That’s the demand made by four survivors of the ‘grooming gangs’ in a public letter to the Home Secretary. The letter came after days of chaos which have left the inquiry in disarray. The collapse began on Monday morning when Fiona Goddard, a survivor from Bradford, quit the inquiry. Fiona was
It’s not often the Ministry of Justice gets it absolutely right. But they have today. It has been announced that the Victims and Courts Bill will be amended to stop coercive and controlling fathers from using their parental rights to control their children and former partners even from inside a prison cell. This long-overdue change
Canterbury Cathedral’s ‘Hear Us’ ‘art installation’, in which the heart of English Christianity has been covered in fake graffiti, has caused outcry and anger. The exhibition, which according to the Cathedral involved ‘collaboration with marginalised communities’ covered much of the building’s interior with stickers which they say have been ‘expertly and sensitively affixed to the
Many have celebrated, and perhaps none will have mourned the murder of former Lostprophets frontman and prolific sadistic paedophile Ian Watkins in HMP Wakefield. But his killing in the notionally high-security Category A prison demonstrates just how little control exists in our jails. Indeed, just two weeks ago HM Inspector of Prisons published a report
There are still some good judges left in England. Yesterday, one of them, Sir Joel Nathan Bennathan KC, granted Hamit Coskun’s appeal against his conviction for burning a Koran. Justice Bennathan began his decision with a forthright defence of ancient English liberties stating that ‘there is no offence of blasphemy in our law’. The judge
Failing institutions don’t like challenge, let alone being shown up. Few institutions are failing more tragically than our prisons – and the situation is getting worse. This is because the officials who preside over this debacle are purging the few people who have actually been making a positive difference. The latest organisation to be banned
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: James Heale says that, for Labour, party conference was a ‘holiday from reality’; William Atkinson argues that the ‘cult of Thatcher’ needs to die; David Shipley examines the luxury of French prisons; Angus Colwell provides his notes on swan eating; and, Aidan Hartley takes listeners on a paleoanthropological tour
Nicolas Sarkozy, former president of the French Republic, has been convicted and sentenced to five years for a ‘criminal conspiracy tied to alleged Libyan funding of his successful 2007 presidential campaign’. For those of us more familiar with Anglo-Saxon criminal law, there’s much to be confused by. France, like many ‘Napoleonic’ legal systems, draws no
Last night, Pete North, a well-known political campaigner and veteran of the Brexit movement, was arrested by North Yorkshire Police, allegedly for posting on his Twitter account. A video released by Pete shows police arriving at his house around 9:30 p.m. On the video, an officer explained that he had ‘posted something on the internet’
In June we discovered that England has an Islamic blasphemy law, when a court convicted Hamit Coskun for the ‘crime’ of burning a Quran. Now we’ve learned that it’s even worse. Not only will the law punish you if you offend the institution of Islam, but it will also treat Muslims who respond violently with
Prisons across the country are slashing education funding. According to the Guardian, public money for prison education courses is being reduced by almost 50 per cent. As a result, basic English and maths courses are being scrapped. This appears to breach Labour’s 2024 manifesto commitment, in which they promised to ‘work with prisons to improve offenders’
Keir Starmer has been battling to avert disaster in Britain’s prisons since he became Prime Minister. The jails crisis isn’t his fault – he inherited a mess – but his government’s handling of it has been far from reassuring. The Sentencing Bill, which arrives in the Commons this afternoon, is being billed as the medicine
Data published yesterday has piled yet more pressure on the government to change its asylum policy. Analysis by the Telegraph has shown that 211 people living in asylum seeker hotels have been charged with crimes since the beginning of the year. This includes eight who have been charged with 12 sex offences against children, 32 sexual
Reform are in the headlines again, this time over confusion about their policy on trans prisoners. Yesterday Vanessa Frake, former prison governor and Reform’s UK justice adviser, said that trans women should not automatically be removed from women’s prisons, preferring an individual risk assessment. Nigel Farage seemed to echo this view, deferring to her experience
The government desperately needs to save the justice system, and it believes that technology might be part of the solution. The Ministry of Justice has announced that it will be using AI to ‘stop prison violence before it happens’. The need is urgent. There were over 30,000 assaults in prisons during the 12 months to
However bad you think the rape gang scandal is, it keeps getting worse. Yesterday, the BBC published a detailed investigation which stated that ‘five women who were exploited by grooming gangs in Rotherham as children say they were also abused by police officers in the town at the time.’ The report, based on interviews with
The people of Epping have a message for Tommy Robinson: stay away. The far-right activist is currently mulling joining protestors in Essex who have taken to the street outside a hotel used to house asylum seekers. While there have been violent clashes between police and demonstrators – and a number of arrests – many of
