A FORMER inmate has spoken out against alleged drug use, violence and corruption at HMP Winchester.
Speaking to the Chronicle in an interview, David Smith, 32, told how he witnessed two disturbing acts of self-harm by other inmates within his first week in custody as he awaited trial.
Both, he said, happened while the prisoners were on spice, an umbrella term for synthetic cannabinoids commonly consumed in jails. David said: “One of the guys got a razor blade, snapped the plastic off, got the metal blade out and cut his own throat because he was smoking [spice].”
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Despite the inmate losing “a hell of a lot” of blood, David said the prison guards did not take him to hospital. “There's a hospital right across from the prison,” he said. “They've got a medical unit in the prison. They didn't take him there. They took him down into segregation because of his actions, because they thought he was too high risk.”
The second incident came soon afterwards: “Somebody else cut up their body. It was so bad they got the DST [dedicated search] team in with the riot shield, pinned him up against the wall inside his cell, and again carted him down to the segregation unit. They left his cell door open – they had the plastic riot shield outside covered in blood.”
David attributes this self-harm to the combination of mental issues, stress and drug use, which he said sniffer dogs cannot detect, making it easy to smuggle into prison. On top of that, David claimed, many prison officers receive only six weeks of training before starting work.
While he did not use spice himself in prison, David described how the atmosphere of HMP Winchester and the prison guards’ disregard for his own health issues left him suicidal.
“I'd been in pain,” he said. “I was meant to go for hospital appointments, to have an endoscopy camera down my throat. The prison cancelled my hospital appointment. Why? Because they were saying it's too much risk for me to go and have a camera down my throat, thinking that I might be plotting something.
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“I was throwing up blood in there. I was self-harming. I tried to take my own life in there, because of how bad the system is.”
He added: “I'd rather be dead than go to HMP Winchester again.”
David was handed a suspended sentence for an offence which he did not want to disclose. He is currently homeless.
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