Escapes, open doors – but f irm wins prison transport deal

A £150 MILLION contract for transporting prisoners in Scotland has been awarded to a company with a history of losing inmates across England and Wales.

GeoAmey will replace G4S next January as the firm charged with getting convicts to court and hospital appointments on time.

The six years that G4S has held the contract have been marred by escapes, late appearances and £4 million in ‘fines’.

However, the new contractor has also hit the headlines. Three years ago, motorists in Kent spotted a GeoAmey prison van, driving with its back door flapping open. The firm said no inmates were on board.

In January, Oliver Milsom, 23, escaped from Taunton Crown Court in Somerset by vaulting from the dock, leaving his GeoAmey guards behind him.

Liam Kerr, Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, said: ‘The tenure of G4S has not been without its difficulties. People will hope this new deal provides security for the public and value for the taxpayer.’

G4S said its contract, worth £154 million, involves 180,000 journeys in Scotland each year, covering around 4.3million miles.

However, in its first year, the company failed to get inmates to hearings on time on no fewer than 21,735 occasions.

In August last year prisoner Jamie Roy, 25, went on the run after handcuffing a G4S guard to a toilet handrail at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. As G4S sees out the last year of its contract, it has been revealed that prison chiefs have clawed back £4 million from the private security firm as ‘fines’ for gaffes that include allowing prisoners to run free.

G4S spokesman Russell Hobbs said: ‘We took the decision not to proceed with a final submission for the new transportation contract based on a number of criteria.’

A spokesman for GeoAmey said: ‘It is regrettable there have been a small number of incidents.’