Inside the prison with sound-proofed cells to stop five Islamic terrorists spreading their poisonous creed
NOTHING about the terrorist’s 8ft by 5ft cell seems exceptional, at least at first glance. Single bed, thin blue mattress, toilet, sink, wooden table. But the windows are a different matter. Impossible to penetrate, they feature sound-blocking glass ‘bafflers’ to prevent the cell’s highly dangerous occupant from communicating with – and trying to radicalise – inmates on other wings.
Here at Britain’s first dedicated prison ‘terrorist wing’ – where those caught trying to radicalise fellow inmates are cocooned – the security measures are as much designed to stop extreme ideologies from getting out as they are to keep the extremists locked in.
Last week, The Mail on Sunday, accompanied by Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, became the first newspaper to report from the ‘separation centre’ – or jail within a jail – at HMP Frankland near Durham.
It is reportedly home to, among others, Hashem Abedi, who helped organise the 2017 Manchester Arena attack, and at least one Islamic State fighter. One prison official said the unit is the ‘least worst option’ for handling the prisoners. It is, he added, about ‘protecting the many from the few’.
For years, the unit at Frankland, established in 2017, was the only one of its kind in operation. But the MoS learned that a second at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes is now up and running while Mr Raab revealed plans to use them more widely.
The move comes after the attacks carried out by released terrorist prisoners Usman Khan, who murdered two people in the Fishmongers’ Hall attack in London in 2019, and Sudesh Amman, who carried out a knife attack in Streatham, South London, a few months later.
Mr Raab said: ‘Separation centres are critical to isolating the most radical offenders, who seek to poison the minds of other prisoners with their perverse ideologies. I want to make it easier for prison governors to put these dangerous predators into separation centres, to stop them recruiting more terrorist foot soldiers. Clearly the role of separation centres is going to increase.’
WHILE far-Right extremists have been considered for places in the units, Frankland and Woodhill at present hold only Islamist radicals. Around 220 terrorist offenders are currently in UK jails with a similar number considered ‘at-risk’ of being radicalised. Given that threat, another separation unit at HMP Full Sutton near York is on standby.
Human rights campaigners have likened the separation centres to the Camp X-Ray detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, but Frankland officials say the five men in their unit have settled into a routine.
‘Most of these guys are on enhanced [privileges],’ said a prison officer. ‘They are actually wellbehaved. One is a dedicated cleaner who makes sure everything is tidy and another is the orderly looking after the unit’s kitchen.’
Judging by the gleaming surfaces, they are doing a good job. Prisoners can order ingredients and cook their own meals. Plastic utensils – bright red, numbered and kept in a glass case on the wall in the prison officers’ office – must be booked out and returned clean after use.
From the outside HMP Frankland, which looms into view along a quiet hedgerow-lined lane, resembles an anonymous company headquarters. Visitors to the separation centre – located at the heart of the prison – face innumerable high-tech security checks: fingerprinting, airport-style scanners, body searches, the list goes on.
A veteran officer, with a huge set of keys jangling around his waist, led an MoS reporter and photographer through the jail. There are between 15 and 20 locked gates separating the jail entrance from the isolation unit. At the end lies a blue linoleum-floor entrance and a CCTV-monitored corridor with beige brick walls. All is scrupulously clean, claustrophobic and, with cell doors painted green, it has the feel of a high-security hospital.
As Mr Raab strides along the corridor, indecipherable shouts emerge from behind a cell door, suggesting word of his visit has spread. A TV room features a pool table and bookshelf. It boasts few, if any, literary classics but there is a fantasy novel, Soul Of The Fire by Terry Goodkind, a number of books by Ted Dekker, who has written Christian mystery thrillers, and the non-fiction work Tea With Hezbollah, about his attempts to better understand the Middle East.
A prison officer said that staff originally feared the wing would become a ‘living nightmare’ when it opened in 2017. There were some attacks on officers, but none since 2019. Prisoners previously refused to co-operate with deradicalisation programmes but some are now becoming more receptive.
‘We try to minimise their contact with each other and stop them from communicating to other wings,’ said one official. ‘Their views are often entrenched and very difficult to shift. It’s wrapped up in their whole status and being, they often don’t have prospects for a regular life.’
The terrorists enjoy the same benefits as regular inmates, including fortnightly visits and CDs or games consoles for those with privileges. They can mix with each other on the wing but are allowed no access to other prisoners.
At the end of another corridor a stairway leads outside to a small exercise yard, reportedly the subject of a complaint by the International Red Cross over its small size, around 15ft by 25ft. Encased by
metal caging on all sides, the roof of the yard is alarmed and covered by wiring to prevent any attempt at escape by helicopter. There are basketball nets and it could be used as a football pitch, though the prisoners ‘just walk around and around’ an officer said.
Monitoring of prison wings has often found noticeable improvements in inmates’ behaviour when the extremists have been removed, according to officials. A counterterror intelligence unit has been established at the prison where experts build an intricate picture of terror offenders behind bars, not just in Frankland, but at other jails across the country.
Tucked away close to the office of acting governor Darren Finley, the team works out of a spare bedroomsized office with wall charts mapping extremist inmates. One chart profiles the five held in Frankland’s ‘separation centre’. Another features profiles of more than 100 convicted terrorists across the country. Staff and specialist psychologists regularly feed back intelligence to track relationships developing between the extremists and ensure others do not fall into their orbit.
Gavin O’Malley, a former HMP Frankland governor who now oversees it along with five other Category A prisons in the north of England, said staff have to be constantly alert to the smallest details. ‘It could be a new tea pack that a prisoner has received, or that their pin credit [for phones] or canteen [weekly items] has gone. These are small signs that something’s changed,’ he explained.
‘This might not seem like anything to them [staff] but if it’s fed back it can build a picture and we can try to understand what’s happening, if someone is falling in with the wrong group.’ Senior prison officials at the jail told how staff have to constantly monitor groups and rivalries, which can flare into violence. They include traditional gangs and organised criminal groups, far-Right terrorists and the more organised, ‘hierarchical’ Muslim groups.
Prison officers have even identified cases in which gangsters have sought to ally themselves with high-profile terror offenders, identifying a business opportunity.
‘It’s because the terror offender will have sway over a large group of prisoners. That can be used by the OCG [organised criminal group]
Experts build an intricate picture of terror offenders behind bars
in a prison,’ explained Mr O’Malley to officials including Mr Raab.
Two years ago, the unit at Frankland was criticised in a review by prison watchdog the Independent Monitoring Board, which said: ‘The lack of engagement, and now the antagonism and hostility to staff, result in a lack of progression. Is the separation centre, initially conceived to be one of several, now viable in the successful management of these prisoners?’
Officials insist reforms introduced after the review have improved the situation. Mr O’Malley says the inmates also play a role. ‘We do rely on prisoners as well to keep a wing settled and those good relationships to maintain stability on the wing,’ he said.