Report expected to recommend separating inmates

A report on safety in Northern Ireland’s top security prison was today expected to recommend separating loyalist and republican inmates.

Tensions have been running high inside Maghaberry Prison outside Lisburn, Co Antrim for months.

There have been a series of violent clashes between the rival groups who want to be housed in separate wings.

A group of dissident republicans have also been staging a “dirty protest” as part of their campaign.

A report of a Safety Review Team into the situation was expected to conclude the current situation is unsafe for both inmates and prison staff and to recommend some form of separation.

However segregation along the lines operated in the now closed Maze Prison is thought to have been ruled out.

The British government will not want to see a return to a system which divided inmates into their paramilitary groups and virtually handed the running of the H Blocks to the various groups.

The review was commissioned earlier in the year by Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy.

The report has been produced by John Steele, a former head of prisons in Northern Ireland who went on to become director of security policy at the Northern Ireland Office.