Mixing between sexes at Mountjoy suspended on fresh concerns

MIXING between male and female inmates at the country’s largest prison campus has been suspended indefinitely following fresh concerns over inappropriate behaviour by some convicted criminals.

The Irish Prison Service, however, has refused to comment on reports that one of the inmates at the centre of the concerns, Linda Mulhall, was claiming to be pregnant after an affair with a fellow inmate.

Mulhall, 33, and her sister, Charlotte, 26, dubbed the “Scissor Sisters”, are serving 15 years and life respectively for killing their mother’s boyfriend, Farah Swaleh Noor, whose remains they cut up before burying parts of him and dumping others.

Charlotte Mulhall caused uproar just over a week ago after a photograph taken on a camera phone in the Dochas Women’s Prison on the Mountjoy Jail campus was circulated showing her jokingly holding a carving knife to the throat of a male prisoner from Mountjoy while the two were on joint kitchen duties.

The practice of allowing select male prisoners, termed “trustees”, to work with the women inmates was halted for review following the incident, but is thought likely to be scrapped completely or reinstated with severe curtailments in light of the latest reports in a Sunday newspaper.

Linda Mulhall apparently told family members she was expecting a baby, which would be her fifth child, after a relationship with another Mountjoy inmate.

The Irish Prison Service would not comment on the claims.

“We don’t discuss details of individual prisoners,” a spokesman said.

However, it is known that concerns were raised internally about the amount of contact male and females inmates from the two prisons enjoyed, and that questions were asked after male prisoners were found in the women’s area some hours after the kitchen had closed.

Although kitchen work, and other duties, are supervised by prison staff, inmates judged sufficiently trustworthy are allowed a degree of freedom from close monitoring.

Whether or not Linda Mulhall’s claims turn out to be true, authorities are understood to be wary that the practice, if continued, could be abused and damage public confidence.

Charlotte Mulhall, a mother of one, was transferred to Limerick Prison after the incident with the carving knife was revealed and a probe was ordered into how a mobile phone got into the prison and how a woman convicted of a knife murder was allowed to joke around with a similar weapon.