Prison crisis: Executive may face thousands more claims

• Many more prisoners than expected could recieve compensation over 'slopping out'

• Legal system could be subjected to enormous pressure over claoims

• Final bill could run into millions

Key quote: "To sit and watch somebody do the toilet, it’s not nice. I put toilet paper up my nose so I could not smell it. I just hoped I was not sick." - Former prisoner, Robert Napier

Story in full: THE crisis over the landmark legal ruling on "slopping out" in Scotland’s jails intensified last night after it emerged that the number of prisoners who could benefit from the controversial judgment is far higher than the Executive has admitted.

Lord Bonomy awarded Robert Napier 2,450 after deciding the "degrading and abhorrent" practice breached the inmate’s human rights while he was locked up at Barlinnie in Glasgow.

The Executive admitted more than 1,000 prisoners in five jails had no access to sanitation in their cells and had to "slop out" their waste in communal toilet blocks. The figure represents about 18 per cent of the prison population.

But Scottish Prison Service sources told The Scotsman that the figure could be as high as 1,700 - including many long-term inmates, some of them sex offenders - because overcrowding means many "single" cells are shared at Barlinnie, Peterhead and Saughton. The practice also continues in parts of Perth Prison and Polmont Young Offenders’ Institution.

The double-up cells could force up a compensation bill which, estimates already suggest, could run into millions.

In theory, every prisoner who has had to "slop out" in one of these cells since the European Convention on Human Rights was codified into Scots law four years ago could claim damages on the back of Napier’s case. All they would have to do is claim they were harmed or damaged in some way by the experience, with most likely to claim they suffered stress and mental distress.

Some lawyers have hundreds of "slopping out" cases waiting to go before courts, and there are fears that a court system already struggling to cope would lurch into crisis.

Legal sources say senior sheriffs have serious concerns that thousands of prisoners coming forward with potential compensation cases will put the system under intolerable pressure.

Slopping out was banned in England nine years ago but, despite repeated ministerial pledges to end the practice, it has continued in Scotland.

During his hearing, Napier said while on remand in Barlinnie, his cell had no toilet or sink and he was locked up for 19-20 hours a day with only three daily opportunities to slop out.

He said: "To sit and watch somebody do the toilet, it’s not nice. I put toilet paper up my nose so I could not smell it. I just hoped I was not sick." He also described slopping out in the morning as a cavalry charge, and said the smell in the toilet area was not far from gut-wrenching.

A spokesman for the Scottish Executive said he could not discuss slopping out as they were in the process of deciding whether or not to appeal.

Tony Kelly, the lawyer who brought Napier’s case to court, and who represents more than 300 other inmates and former inmates, argued the judgment was unlikely to be overturned.

He said: "I have no concerns about the Executive launching an appeal. Lord Bonomy has delivered a convincing, comprehensive and forthright verdict on what is a grave contravention of basic human rights and I believe to would be upheld if it went to appeal.

"The official slopping out situation in Scottish prisons is very much the tip of the iceberg. The fact that so many prisoners share cells means hundreds if not thousands of inmates are being forced to perform their ablutions in front of each other, and this comes in conditions where they are often confined to cells for up to 20 hours a day."

Mr Kelly said the problem was compounded in Peterhead because prisoners have to eat in the cell they slop out in - "an intolerable situation which undermines basic human rights".

Mr Kelly claims he was contacted by 50 potential claimants in the four days after the Napier ruling and expects hundreds more. He said: "This is going to cost the Scottish Executive a lot of money and we are getting approached by more people every day.

"It is absurd that the reason they will have to spend so much money now is because they did not spend it when they were warned in the 1990s."

A senior source at Glasgow Sheriff Court said: "The biggest concern here is pressure on the court system. As things stand, particularly in Glasgow, there is a considerable backlog of cases. I know a number of Sheriff Principals who have expressed direct concerns."

Conservative Justice spokeswoman Annabel Goldie said: "There have been a series of blunders by Labour and the Lib Dems in relation to slopping out, a situation that could have been easily avoided."