The State

4WardEverUK

The families of people killed by police taking matters in their own hands

Families United Banner at UFFC rally 2019 - Image credit Ken Fero
Image credit Ken Fero (Migrant Media)

source: Byline Times
published: 3 March 2022

This week marks a grim anniversary: one year since the murder of Sarah Everard. The killing by a serving policeman, PC Wayne Couzens, shook the country. But for the families of others that have died at the hands of the police, it was exceptional for another reason: it is one of the few times in England’s history that a policeman has been sentenced for killing a member of the public.

Christopher Alder was an ex-British Army paratrooper, training to become a computer programmer. He had served in the Falklands War and was commended for his work in Northern Ireland.

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4WardEverUK

Record levels of self-harm found at Derbyshire women’s prison

Woman in prison cellsource: Guardian (Society)
published: 9 February 2022

Inmates held in a women’s prison are making 1,000 calls a month to Samaritans amid record levels of self-harm, increased violence and low safety levels usually only seen in men’s facilities, a damning report has found.

Nearly a third of women held at Foston Hall in Derbyshire, which holds 272 residents, told inspectors they felt unsafe, while the use of force in the prison has doubled over nearly three years and is the highest on the women’s prison’s estate.

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4WardEverUK

Women prisoners making 1,000 calls a month to Samaritans, says report

Distressed Womansource: The Justice Gap
published: 11 February 2022

Women were making around 1,000 calls each month to the Samaritans from a prison in Derbyshire, according prison inspectors. A report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons has found instances of self-harm were the highest in the women’s prison estate at HMP Foston Hall and, for the first time, a women’s prison scored ‘poor’ in more than a decade ago with the inspectorate calling it ‘a rare and unexpected finding’.

The watchdog criticised the lack of any strategy to reduce self-harm in the prison which holds 272 women and serious attempts by women to take their own lives were not always investigated. Messages left on the prison’s crisis hotline had not been checked for six weeks on the day of the inspection.

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