HM Prison Styal is a

Closed Category In category theory, a branch of mathematics, a closed category is a special kind of category. In a locally small category, the ''external hom'' (''x'', ''y'') maps a pair of objects to a set of morphisms. So in the category of sets, this is an obje ...

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 ...

for female adults and young offenders in

Styal Styal (, like ''style'') is a village and civil parish on the River Bollin near Wilmslow, Cheshire, England. History Styal village grew during the early years of the Industrial Revolution when industrialist Samuel Greg built a cotton mill and ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

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

The prison occupies some former buildings of the Styal Cottage Homes. These opened as an

orphanage An orphanage is a Residential education, residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the Childcare, care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parent ...

for destitute children from the

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

area in 1898. In 1956 this closed and the site re-opened as a women's prison in 1962, with women transferred from

HMP Manchester HM Prison Manchester is a Category A and B men's prison in Manchester, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. It is still commonly referred to as Strangeways, which was its former official name derived from the area in which it is ...

. From 1983 Styal began holding young offenders, and in 1999 a wing was added to accommodate unsentenced female prisoners following the closure of Risley's remand centre. This increased the size of the prison by 60%. In June 2003, Styal Prison was singled out as having one of the worst records for suicides in England and Wales. The

Howard League for Penal Reform The Howard League for Penal Reform is a registered charity in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest penal reform organisation in the world, named after John Howard. It was founded as the Howard Association in 1866 and changed its name in 1921, ...

called for an independent inquiry into the jail, stating that bullying, drugs and overcrowding were probable causes for the high number of deaths. In June 2004, an inspection report from

Her 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 inmates at Styal Prison were being put at risk by a lack of support during drug withdrawal and with mental health problems. The report also expressed concern about the use of special cells to hold disruptive prisoners, including

self-harm Self-harm is intentional behavior that is considered harmful to oneself. This is most commonly regarded as direct injury of one's own skin tissues usually without a suicidal intention. Other terms such as cutting, self-injury and self-mutilatio ...

ers. However, the report did praise the prison's staff–prisoner relations, education provision and resettlement services. The Chief Inspector also said that

race relations Race relations is a sociological concept that emerged in Chicago in connection with the work of sociologist Robert E. Park and the Chicago race riot of 1919. Race relations designates a paradigm or field in sociology and a legal concept in the ...

at Styal were "among the best" she had seen. An inspection report in June 2018 found that the incidence of self-harm was high, but noted that it mainly occurred in a small number of women. The report was positive and particularly praised the prison's strategies for resettling inmates in the community on release. An average of 1.3 deaths from all causes occurred per year in inmates of the prison between 2000 and 2018. In 2020, a woman serving an eight-month sentence gave birth to a

stillborn Stillbirth is typically defined as fetal death at or after 20 or 28 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the source. It results in a baby born without signs of life. A stillbirth can result in the feeling of guilt or grief in the mother. The term i ...

baby in the prison toilets. Despite having alerted prison staff several times, it took several hours for the woman to receive medical attention, the prison radio system failed when an ambulance was finally attempted to be called, and no attempts to perform CPR on the baby had been made. If the prisoner had received proper medical attention, the baby might have been saved. In 2021, the prison was placed under investigation by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.

Deaths

Since 2001, at least eleven women have died at HMP Styal:

The prison today

Styal is a Closed Category prison for sentenced and remanded female adults and young offenders. There are also facilities for mothers with babies up to age 18 months. The education provision at Styal is contracted out to

The Manchester College The Manchester College is the largest further education college in the United Kingdom and the largest single provider of 16-19, adult and higher education in Greater Manchester, with more than 25% of Greater Manchester’s learning provision un ...

. Courses offered include

hairdressing A hairdresser is a person whose occupation is to cut or style hair in order to change or maintain a person's image. This is achieved using a combination of hair coloring, haircutting, and hair texturing techniques. A Hairdresser may also be refe ...

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...

art and design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

, ESOL,

catering Catering is the business of providing food service at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, hospital, pub, aircraft, cruise ship, park, festival, filming location or film studio. History of catering The earliest account of major services be ...

, industrial

cleaning Cleaning is the process of removing unwanted substances, such as dirt, infectious agents, and other impurities, from an object or environment. Cleaning is often performed for aesthetic, hygienic, functional, environmental, or safety purposes. Cl ...

, painting & decorating, and

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

support. Other facilities at HMP Styal include a

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

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 ...

and multi-faith

chaplaincy A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution (such as a hospital, prison, military unit, intellige ...

. A Visitors Centre is available, run by Contact Cheshire Support Group with play area and refreshments. In the main Visits Hall, facilities include a tea bar and a children's play area (also run by Contact Cheshire Support Group).

In popular culture

The prison was featured in the

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

documentary ''Women on the Edge – the Truth about Styal Prison'' on 27 February 2006.

Notable inmates

Notable people currently imprisoned or who were imprisoned at HMP Styal include: *

Lauren Jeska use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , body_discovered = , resting_place = , resting_place_coordinates ...

, transgender fell-runner convicted of the attempted murder of

Ralph Knibbs Ralph Andrew Knibbs is an English former rugby union player who played for Bristol. Rugby career He made his debut as a seventeen-year-old against Pontypridd RFC in 1982, scoring with his first touch of the ball.Farzana Ahmed, mother of Shafilea Ahmed, who she murdered in 2003. Sentenced to a minimum of 25 years imprisonment in 2012 * Savannah Brockhill, woman who abused and murdered her female partner's 16-month-old child,

Star Hobson A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth mak ...

. Her case was widely publicised in 2021, shortly after the similarly high-profile child murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes by Emma Tustin. Brockhill was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years imprisonment. * Sarah Williams, given a 25-year minimum sentence in 2016 for the murder of a woman with her friend Katrina Walsh * Corina Smith, was sentenced to life in prison for killing her husband with a boiling mixture of water and sugar after she was told he had sexually assaulted her two children. She will serve a minimum of 12 years at HMP Styal before she can be considered for parole. *

Mary Bell Mary Flora Bell (born 26 May 1957) is an English woman who, as a juvenile, murdered two preschool-age boys in Benwell and Scotswood, Scotswood, an inner suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1968. Bell committed her first murder when she was 10 yea ...

, stayed here for sometime in the 60s and 70s. She and another girl, Norma Joyce Bell (no relation), had murdered two young boys.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Styal

Prisons in Cheshire 1962 establishments in England Styal