news story

14th June 2007

Concern as Another Convict Goes on the Run from Leyhill

Northavon MP Steve Webb expressed great concern this week at the news that another convict has escaped from Leyhill Prison.  The man was just six months into a 30-month sentence for burglary. 

The MP said that it reinforced his worry that Leyhill is being used as overflow accommodation during the prison overcrowding crisis and that inmates are being sent there without proper risk assessment.

Steve Webb said:

"If this man was only jailed in January it raises the question of why he was at Leyhill.

"The suspicion must be that it is being filled up with the kind of offenders it was never meant to hold. It is supposed to be for lifers and long term offenders approaching the end of their sentences.

"Prisoners are being sent there because there's nowhere else for them. When it is getting the wrong type of inmate it makes it very hard for Leyhill to do its job of rehabilitating long term prisoners and preparing them to rejoin society."


 Read the full story in the Gazette here