Governor speaks on controversial jail case

Governor Tom Woods OBE described to the Sentinel how he thought the prison would have to evacuated after the death of a terminally ill prisoner in 2007. The Limavady Borough jail was reprimanded in June of this year after the Health and Safety Executive Northern Ireland (HSENI) ruled that the code of practice for controlling the pollution of water was not being followed at the time. Mr Woods, who is retiring from his post next month, called the incident his "biggest challenge" as Magilligan's Governor and revealed that the deadly bug had manifested in a shower that hadn't been used in two years.

"In January 2007 I had a prisoner who had cancer and asbestosis. He had an open wound on his throat that bled every morning. He got fed through it and it helped him to breathe. I as told he was going to die in about three or four weeks, there's no way I am going to let someone die in prison so we put child protection procedures in place and moved him to the Causeway hospital. Within ten days he had died," Mr Woods told the Sentinel.

"After he died I was sitting here one afternoon, about three days later, when I got a phone call from a doctor from the Western Health Trust who deals in communicable diseases and his exact words were: 'Do not leave your prison or your office. I'm on my way there now. I asked why and he said that after doing a post-mortem on the prisoner, legionella bacteria had been found. We didn't know whether it was the hospital or here.

The Governor continued: "This was a big learning curve for me and for everyone. He asked for all our records and we discovered that we have ten different water systems here. After checking all the systems, all were ok apart from the old prison hospital."

Mr Woods said it transpired that on the day the terminally ill prisoner was being moved to the Causeway Hospital, nurses had washed him in a shower that wasn't used in two years.

"That shower wasn't used in two years and in that was water that didn't normally circulate. If you have a shower at home it's being flushed everyday so what then happened was his immune system had been down and because of that he was more susceptible and therefore helped to bring on his death." said the Governor.

The Governor, who was awarded an OBE for his work in the NI prison service this year, says 5,000 bottles of water had to be brought in to prison during the fiasco.

He added: "I sat here thinking I have 400 prisoners, I have to evacuate this place. There was no where to put them. I thought to myself it's ok because headquarters will have a strategy so I went on video link. I was told I was doing I was doing a good job and the right thing. I was then asked what is my strategy was for the rest of the prison.

He continued: "There's ten water systems, we had to bring in around 5,000 bottles of water and everything was boiled. Prisoners got extra milk and I told them if they needed to wash to do so until I got this checked. I brought specialist teams in and I made strategy up as I sat there. It was obvious that they didn't have a strategy for moving 400 prisoners.

Mr Woods revealed that he had to create a strategy in one day where two prisoners would be moved into each cell and extra staff laid on at night.

He continued: "And then I would work myself through the prison. It didn't come to that, but that was my strategy."

Investigators criticised the prison service for failing to deal properly with the deadly bug which entered the water supply at Magilligan.

The prisoner died at the Causeway Hospital after being transferred from Magilligan on January 29, 2007. At a Crown Censure hearing in June, the Prison Service accepted the Crown Censure, though stressed there were mitigating factors after explaining the action it had taken to prevent a recurrence at Magilligan and its other prisons.

See Page 12 for Tom Wood's thoughts on retirement as Governor of HMP Magilligan