Slopping out: Practice ‘diminishes human dignity’

The issue of compensating prisoners for slopping out emerged in 2001 when Robert Napier, a remand prisoner, raised a legal challenge under the European Convention on Human Rights. He sought damages of £5,000.

Napier said he found the conditions, in which he had to slop out in Barlinnie jail’s C hall, depressing and disgusting and that the situation had resulted in a “diminishment of his human dignity”.

In 2004, in a 100-page ruling, Lord Bonomy awarded £2,400 to Napier, who served a sentence for abduction.

The judge found that slopping out violated articles three and eight of the convention and the common law “duty of care”.

As the numbers seeking compensation swelled, the then Scottish Executive cut its losses, believing it was protected, in part at least, by the one-year time bar that restricted claims under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). A settlement was initially reached with hundreds of prisoners.

It cost less than £500,000 in claims.

However, in October 2007, the Law Lords, the highest appeal court in the UK, decided that the usual time limit of one year on human rights cases should not apply and raised the possibility that people could sue Scottish ministers for alleged human rights breaches that occurred at any time from 1999 onwards,

In Scotland, slopping out cases for 3,700 prisoners have already cost £11 million, but the Law Lords ruling meant that a further £67m had been set aside for pay-outs.

However, the Scottish Government rushed through legislation to March 2009 to close the loophole allowing prisoners to claim compensation outwith a one-year time bar.

Now, appeal judges have decided in the three test cases of Stuart Docherty, James Philbin and Paul Logan, said that damages claims could be pursued by inmates who had been subjected to slopping out as long ago as 1999.