HM Prison Winchester is a
Category B men's
prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...
, located in
Winchester
Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
,
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The prison is operated by
His Majesty's Prison Service
His Majesty's Prison Service (HMPS) is a part of HM Prison and Probation Service (formerly the National Offender Management Service), which is the part of His Majesty's Government charged with managing most of the prisons within England and Wale ...
.
History
There has probably been a prison in Winchester, mainly known as Winchester gaol, since the thirteenth century.
A substantial part of the former County Gaol, rebuilt 1788 and 1803 of three storeys in Classical style, the predecessor of the present Winchester Prison and now converted to commercial use, survives in Jewry Street.
Winchester Prison was built between 1846 and 1850 to a
Victorian radial design, with five 'spokes' radiating from a central hub carrying a turret prominent on the Winchester skyline. Four of these wings are now used for prisoner accommodation and one for administration. The prison occupies an elevated site in Romsey Road screened by a massive brick wall and bank. The central gatehouse was originally open to the street, but has been enclosed by the wall. The site contains the shell of the Victorian treadwheel house - a rare survivor.
Between 1900 and 1963, 16 male
executions
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
took place at the prison. The last was that of
Dennis Whitty
Dennis John Whitty (1941 – 17 December 1963) was, along with his accomplice Russell Pascoe, the third-to-last prisoner to be executed by hanging in a British prison. Whitty had been convicted for his part in the murder of 64-year-old Cornish f ...
, convicted of capital murder at Cornwall Assizes, and hanged on 17 December 1963. The prison featured (as Wintoncester Prison) in
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...
's novel ''
Tess of the D'Urbervilles'' as the site of Tess's execution although, in fact, no female has been executed at the present prison.
In 1995 serial killer
Rosemary West
Rosemary Pauline West (née Letts; born 29 November 1953) is an English serial killer who collaborated with her husband, Fred West, in the torture and murder of at least nine young women between 1973 and 1987; , wife of
Fred West
Frederick Walter Stephen West (29 September 1941 – 1 January 1995) was an English serial killer, who committed at least twelve murders between 1967 and 1987 in Gloucestershire, most of them with his second wife, Rose West.
All the victi ...
, was held in Winchester on remand for the duration of her trial in
Winchester Crown Court
The Winchester Law Courts is a judicial facility just off the High Street in Winchester, Hampshire, England. As well as accommodating the Crown Court, which deals with criminal cases, the complex also accommodates the County Court and the Winche ...
. Each day she was driven from her specially built unit within the male segregation block half a mile down the road to the court.
In December 2001, a convicted murderer
escaped from Winchester Prison by scaling the wall. The prisoner went on the run after using a home-made handsaw to saw through the bars of his ground floor cell window. He then used a rope and grappling hook to scale the 30-feet wall of the prison. The prisoner was recaptured days later.
In August 2003, a
Prison Reform Trust
The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) was founded in 1981 in London, England, by a small group of prison reform campaigners who were unhappy with the direction in which the Howard League for Penal Reform was heading, concentrating more on community punish ...
report stated that overcrowding at Winchester Prison was an ongoing problem. 54.7% of prisoners were sharing cells which were designed for one person. There had also been three suicides at the jail in the previous year.
In April 2005, an inspection report from
His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons
His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons is the head of HM Inspectorate of Prisons and the senior inspector of prisons, young offender institutions and immigration service detention and removal centres in England and Wales. The current chief insp ...
stated that Winchester Prison was overcrowded and prisoners did not have enough work to do. The report also said that vulnerable inmates were not well protected and relations between staff and prisoners were not good. However, the report praised prisoner resettlement and improvements in healthcare at the jail.
The Inspectorate was still dissatisfied with Winchester at their inspection in 2010, stating that staff were unnecessarily rude and that prisoners spent too long in their cells with nothing to do. The team was especially critical of the discrimination that occurred between the West Hill annexe and the main prison in terms of employment and purposeful activity.
The prison today
Winchester is a Category B prison for adult males which also houses young offenders aged over 18. The prison is currently undergoing major refurbishment with a build programme lasting 5 years. Work already completed includes changes to the health care, first night and detoxification centres, as well as a new electrical system, renewal of the fire and general alarms, a new visits complex and pedestrian access at the main gate. The rebuilding of C wing, that was suffering from age decay, was completed in 2008 and the first prisoners were moved into the new cells in October 2008.
The Prison has 4 wings. The first being "A" Wing that was supposed to house induction inmates for their first night but has since turned into a permanent wing. "B" Wing is the biggest wing which is mainly there for remanded prisoners. "C" wing is the drug detox wing and houses prisoners that are there with drug issues mainly. "D" is the vulnerable prisoner wing and houses prisoners that are a threat to themselves or in fear of attack from other prisoners. E wing is used for offices. There is a category C offshoot called "Westhill" which has 3 wings. "Alfred", "Temple" and "Wykeham". There is also a D Cat offshoot called "The Herne" which has 40 cells, all single.
By December 2010, the Prison offered a limited selection of
Freeview Freeview may refer to:
*Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia
*Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand
*Freeview (UK), a ...
channels to all cells.
The regime at HMP Winchester claims to deliver an average of 22 hours of purposeful activity per prisoner per week. However, this is regularly disputed by inspection reports and prisoners themselves.
Education at the prison is provided through
Milton Keynes College
Milton Keynes College is a general further education and training college, serving the City of Milton Keynes. It also serves the surrounding areas (northern Aylesbury Vale, south Northamptonshire, north west Bedfordshire and north east Oxford ...
, and is available irrespective of academic ability, but only limited courses are available to prisoners segregated under Prison Rule 45. Other facilities include a prison
gym
A gymnasium, also known as a gym, is an indoor location for athletics. The word is derived from the ancient Greek term " gymnasium". They are commonly found in athletic and fitness centres, and as activity and learning spaces in educational ins ...
.
There have been many deaths in Winchester Prison. Daryl Hargrave aged 22 hanged himself in Winchester Prison on 19 July 2015, a day after another prisoner at the jail took his life. The inquest into Hargrave's death found adequate mental health care had not been provided, despite repeated warnings Hargrave was at risk of self harm. Hargrave had repeatedly self-harmed and attempted suicide and suffered mental health problems from a young age. In the days before his death Hargrave was clearly psychotic and told staff he planned to harm himself according to lawyers. The day before his suicide, Hargrave cut himself and told a nurse he was 'ground down by voices telling him to kill himself.' The nurse asked for him to be moved to an observation cell and put on constant watch. The prison’s two observation cells were in use and Hargrave was instead put in a corner cell which one nurse described as the "worst place to put someone who was suicidal, as it was out of sight, out of mind". Consultant forensic psychiatrist, Dr Dinesh Maganty, said Hargrave showed clear evidence of psychosis and a GP or psychiatrist should have seen him urgently. Maganty said Hargrave should have received medication to help with anxiety and agitation due to his psychosis and criticised failure to provide it. The governor told the jury in 2015, just 41% of staff were sufficiently trained in suicide and self-harm prevention. This has now risen to 61% but progress was slow as because of 'resourcing issues' and the governor accepted this is not good enough. A coroner found neglect contributed to Daryl Hargrave's death. A prison inspection found the prison was "insufficiently safe" and anti-bullying measures were ineffective.
Many prisoners spend just 45 minutes a day out of their cells. There is weak support for prisoners at risk of self harm and there have been five suicides since the last inspection in 2014. New prisoners are reasonably well treated, initiatives to prevent violence are good and the prison is making progress in many areas. However limits to time out of cells reduces the good the prison can do. After a prisoner took his own life in September 2016 there were complaints over lack of suicide prevention training among the staff.
Notable former inmates
* All but one of the
Richmond Sixteen
The Richmond Sixteen were a group of "absolutist" British conscientious objectors during the First World War. Conscripted into the British Army in 1916, they refused to undertake even non-combatant military duties. Brought together at Richmond ...
, First World War "absolutist"
conscientious objectors
A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...
*
Dennis Whitty
Dennis John Whitty (1941 – 17 December 1963) was, along with his accomplice Russell Pascoe, the third-to-last prisoner to be executed by hanging in a British prison. Whitty had been convicted for his part in the murder of 64-year-old Cornish f ...
*
Basil Bunting
Basil Cheesman Bunting (1 March 1900 – 17 April 1985) was a British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of '' Briggflatts'' in 1966, generally regarded as one of the major achievements of the modernist traditio ...
*
Keith Mann
Keith Mann is a British animal rights campaigner and direct action activist who acted as a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and was alleged by police in 2005 to be a ringleader for the ALF. He was imprisoned twice, and is the au ...
*
Rosemary West
Rosemary Pauline West (née Letts; born 29 November 1953) is an English serial killer who collaborated with her husband, Fred West, in the torture and murder of at least nine young women between 1973 and 1987;
*
Stephen Nicholson
Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; h ...
: Currently convicted for the murder of Lucy McHugh and 3 counts of child rape and serving life with the possibility of 33 years
*
Bob Higgins: Former football coach with
Southampton F.C.
Southampton Football Club () is an English professional football club based in Southampton, Hampshire, which competes in the . Their home ground since 2001 has been St Mary's Stadium, before which they were based at The Dell. The club play in ...
Implicated in the 2016 United Kingdom football sexual abuse scandal - held on remand at HMP Winchester until sentencing. Currently imprisoned at
HMP Wakefield
His Majesty's Prison Wakefield is a Category A men's prison in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. The prison has been nicknamed the "Monster Mansion" due to the large number of high-profile, high-risk ...
in Yorkshire.
In popular culture
* The prison featured (as Wintoncester Prison) in
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...
's novel ''
Tess of the D'Urbervilles''.
* The prison appeared in the 1971
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...
film ''
A Clockwork Orange
''A Clockwork Orange'' may refer to:
* ''A Clockwork Orange'' (novel), a 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess
** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (film), a 1971 film directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel
*** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (soundtrack), the film ...
'', as it was used for location shooting, as well as an aerial shot.
* The prison appeared in the 2019
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
programme 'Crime and Punishment' with the first episode broadcast on 16 September, and subsequent episodes being broadcast at 9pm each Monday.
References
*
External links
History of Winchester Prison from theprison.org.uk*
{{Prisons in South East England
Winchester
Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
Winchester
Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
Buildings and structures in Winchester
19th-century establishments in England
Winchester
Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...