Prison officers warned unit was not secure

PRISON officers warned over a year ago that a pre-release female prison unit, from which two inmates escaped last Sunday, was “out of control”.

A major report by the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) in February 2001 was damning in its review of Phoenix House, part of the Dóchas Centre, located at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.

“This unit appears to be beyond the control of prison staff,” the report stated. The authors said when they visited the unit they were asked by a prisoner what they were doing there.

“The general impression of staff is that they do not go near this area. They are not encouraged to visit this area.”

The report said that the only person who did so was the unit supervisor who visited to check if the prisoners needed anything on his or her nightly rounds.

The report said while many of the prisoners in Phoenix House were a low security risk, the real problem was ease of access to the rest of the female prison.

“It is totally inappropriate that they should have access to other parts of the prison and indeed to other prisoners while they are allegedly in a half-way type hostel as part of their pre-release programming,” the report stated.

During Sunday’s escape, the two prisoners, Julie Ann Stokes and Elizabeth Cumberton, managed to leave the medium-security Hazel House, where they were being held, before getting into Phoenix House. There they smashed a reinforced window with a fire extinguisher and escaped.

It is thought a door to Phoenix House was either left open for them or that a prisoner in Phoenix House gave them the keys to the unit.

A POA spokesman said officers did not have keys to this area. The POA report said pre-release units like Phoenix House should not be in the environs of the prison, and should be separate from other secure or semi-secure areas. “There needs to be a total review of security of the female prison in light of this event and the concerns raised in our comprehensive report,” the POA spokesperson said.

The two escaped prisoners have not yet been apprehended by gardaí. Stokes, 21, and Cumberton, 20, both serving 18 months for assault, were due to be released next January. The Irish Prison Service was not available for comment.