Mahmood and Lammy breached human rights law over segregation of prisoner, judge finds
Shabana Mahmood and David Lammy have been found to have breached a prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to a prisoner who spent months segregated from other inmates, in what is believed to be a legal first.Sahayb Abu was confined to his cell at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes, for 22 hours a day and prevented from associating with other prisoners for more than four months after Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, allegedly attacked prison officers at HMP Frankland.Abu, a convicted terrorist serving a life sentence, was already being held in a separation centre for prisoners believed to be at risk or radicalising others, which has also been described as small group isolation, but was moved to even more restrictive conditions following the attack by Abedi in April.In what is believed to the the first instance of ministers being found in breach of article 3 of the European convention on human rights, Mr Justice Sheldon found that Lammy, the justice secretary, and Mahmood, his predecessor, should have considered Abu’s existing mental health issues before he was moved.In his written judgment, the judge said: “In the context of a prisoner who has a history of trauma and where there was a failure to obtain an assessment of his needs even though he was known to have mental health issues, and a failure to provide him with any therapeutic treatment to address his trauma, a contravention of article 3 is made out, notwithstanding the importance of the aim behind the segregation regime.
“The suffering that the claimant has experienced goes way beyond the inevitable element of suffering that is connected with segregation: an otherwise legitimate form of treatment,An individual who is segregated from others and deprived of the usual activities available to prisoners (education, work, communal prayer) will inevitably suffer isolation and an element of distress and anxiety,What the claimant experienced was much more severe than that: he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, brought on (at least in part) by the segregation,”He said that his judgment did not mean that the same segregation regime would contravene article 3 in the case of a prisoner with an ordinary level of resilience, but the “claimant was not such a prisoner, given his history of trauma and associated mental health needs”,The judge said he would consider whether damages were necessary at a later date.
In a witness statement, Abu said he suffered “paranoia and flashbacks” in the separation system, and in segregation “[my] mental health has deteriorated to the point that I am experiencing constant thoughts of suicide and self-harm”,Sign up to Headlines UKGet the day’s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morningafter newsletter promotionSeparation centres, which currently house 12 prisoners, according to the judgment, have come under increased scrutiny this year,In another judgment, handed down in January, the high court found that the decision to place Denny De Silva, who was serving a life sentence for a gangland murder, in a separation centre was unlawful as it had relied on allegations of radicalisation activities in prison by De Silva, without establishing whether or not they were true,In comments that were also referred to in the Abu case, Mrs Justice Hill said: “Research indicates that small group isolation regimes can produce serious and adverse psychological effects similar to solitary confinement,”Earlier this month, an independent commission set up by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law said there was “limited research evidence and evaluation of the effectiveness of separation centres”.
North by Northwest: Hitchcock’s funniest, most ambitious film
Imagine: you’re a handsome and relatively successful ad man in idyllic 50s New York. You’re having a delicious mid-afternoon snack in the lobby of the Plaza hotel, which presumably cost all of $2.50, when suddenly you are abducted in broad daylight at gunpoint by two polite and well-dressed men. You don’t put up a fight. You merely walk with them to their car, trying to object in the only way you know how: asking nicely for them to stop
David Nicholls to adapt The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ for BBC
A writing team led by the One Day author, David Nicholls, and that includes Caitlin Moran is bringing Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ to the small screen in a 10-part BBC One adaptation of the classic tale of teenage life in British suburbia.Nicholls, who described the book as “a classic piece of comic writing and an incredible piece of ventriloquism on Sue Townsend’s part”, will adapt the book that produced one of the best-known literary creations of the 1980s.Known for Mole’s comically dramatic assessments of his life in a Midlands cul-de-sac – “I feel like a character in a Russian novel half the time” – the book sold 20m copies worldwide and was translated into 30 languages.The BBC said: “With only a multi-coloured ballpoint pen as his guide, Adrian worries about his spots, his parents’ divorce, the torment of first love and the fact he’s never seen a female nipple.”None of the cast has been revealed, and producers say “a nationwide … search is currently underway to find Adrian”
‘People still blame me for their perforated eardrums’: how we made the Tango ads
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Memoirs, myths and Midnight’s Children: Salman Rushdie’s 10 best books – ranked!
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High art: the museum that is only accessible via an eight-hour hike
At 2,300 metres above sea level, Italy’s newest – and most remote – cultural outpost is visible long before it becomes reachable. A red shard on a ridge, it looks first like a warning sign, and then something more comforting: a shelter pitched into the wind.The structure stands on a high ridge in the municipality of Valbondione, along the Alta Via delle Orobie, exposed to avalanches and sudden weather shifts. I saw it from above, after taking off from the Rifugio Fratelli Longo, near the village of Carona – a small mountain municipality a little over an hour’s drive from GAMeC, Bergamo’s Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea – the closest access point I was given for the site visit.The Frattini Bivouac is not staffed, ticketed or mediated
Spanish Armada-era astrolabe returns to Scilly after mysterious global journey
It spent hundreds of years languishing on the seabed off the Isles of Scilly in the far south-west of Britain before being hauled back to the surface by divers and setting off a circumnavigation of the world.Finally the Pednathise Head astrolabe – a rare example of a 16th-century navigational instrument once used by sailors to determine latitude – is back on Scilly after being rediscovered on the other side of the Atlantic.It turns out that after being sold and leaving the UK, the astrolabe passed through private collections in Australia and the US, its true identity forgotten along the way, before ending up in a museum on the Florida Keys.“It’s been on quite a journey,” said Xavier Duffy, the curator of the Isles of Scilly Museum. “We’re thrilled to have it back on Scilly and in the care of the museum
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