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Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967
I am laying before Parliament under section 10(4) of the Parliamentary Commissioner Act this report which contains the results of two investigations (C.39/95 and C.993/97 with its supplement A.27/99) carried out by my Office into complaints against the Prison Service. There was a third investigation which, at the request of the family, I have decided not to publish.
All three investigations were initiated following the death of a prisoner in custody. All involved not only questions of maladministration but also the question of public access to official information, and in particular to information contained in the reports of the internal investigations carried out by the Prison Service immediately after each death. Access to that information had been refused to the prisoners' families and their representatives without reference to the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, the operation of which my Office monitors. In each of the cases information contained in the internal investigation report was eventually disclosed to the family, although in the first case (C.39/95) disclosure was by means of the information contained in my report. In the latter two cases I recommended that the internal inquiry report should be disclosed. I am very pleased to see that, with effect from 1 April 1999, the Prison Service now intends to release information to relevant parties before any inquest in relation to deaths occurring in prison after that date. So far as information in internal inquiry reports relating to earlier deaths is concerned, I shall treat on its merits any complaint I may receive about a refusal to provide such information.
M S BUCKLEY
Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
March 1999
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