Blunkett 'gave machine-gun order' during prison riot
Tuesday, 17 Oct 2006 12:37
David Blunkett was home secretary at the time of the Lincoln prison riot
Former home secretary David Blunkett has denied claims that he told the chief of prisons to involve the armed forces and "machine-gun" prisoners to bring a riot to an end.
Martin Narey, who was director general of the prison service during the October 2002 riots at Lincoln prison, claimed that Mr Blunkett rang him in "hysterical" mood during the riots.
Mr Narey said that the then home secretary told him to put all available staff in the prison regardless of risk and "shrieked" at him during the phone call.
"When under pressure, [Mr Blunkett] could be almost impossible to work with," the former prison chief, who went on to be Home Office permanent secretary, wrote in The Times, adding that the former cabinet minister could be "inclined to rush to a decision, sometimes on the basis of what had been read to him that morning from the tabloid press".
"He directed me, without delay, to order staff back into the prison," Mr Narey continued.
"I told him we did not, at the time, have enough staff in the prison to contemplate such a move but that many more staff were on their way from other prisons."
Mr Narey said that he had decided to go public because he could not let "go unchallenged" Mr Blunkett's version of events published in his diary which criticised the prison service over the response to the riots.
But Mr Blunkett's spokesman has denied the claims, although he confirmed that the then home secretary ordered the retaking of the prison.
"He did not say anything about machine-guns," the spokesman said. "Quite apart from anything else, they do not carry machine-guns in the prison service."
"Any such phone call would have been monitored by Mr Blunkett's private office…During the Lincoln prison situation Mr Blunkett offered Martin Narey absolute political cover for dealing with the situation."
Brian Caton, the secretary general of the Prison Officers' Association (POA) has responded to the claims by saying they "defy belief" and suggested politicians should not have input into the day-to-day running of jails.
"I think it is bizarre, when brave men and women in the prison service - our members - were trying to regain control of Lincoln prison, which had been lost as a result of bad management; which we had warned about consistently," he told the Today programme.
"To have this kind of bizarre conversation between the most senior civil servant in the prison service and the home secretary really does defy belief."
He added: "I really do worry that politicians have their grubby hands all over things that are operations and continue to do so in the daily running of the prison service. It is just bizarre."