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| Northallerton Young Offenders Institution |
THE Government faced condemnation last night for refusing to release any details about a huge compensation payment made to a suicidal prison inmate.
Despite a request made under the Freedom of Information Act by The Northern Echo, officials insist their veil of silence must be maintained "in the public interest".
However, they have denied claims the out-of-court settlement was made because of the actions taken by staff to save the inmate's life after a suicide attempt.
And they say they would have had to pay out even more if the case had gone to trial.
Instead, officials fear they may be open to more compensation claims if the facts about the pay-out are ever made public.
But The Northern Echo believes the full facts about the deal - which involved more than half-a-million pounds of taxpayers' money - should be revealed in the public interest.
The newspaper plans to appeal against the decision and has the backing of MPs and prison officers.
The Northern Echo revealed in January that an inmate at the Northallerton Young Offenders Institution, in North Yorkshire, had received a £575,000 out-of-court settlement from the Prison Service.
Uproar followed, with local Tory MP and Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague labelling the payout a disgrace, and leading Liberal-Democrat MP Phil Willis demanding an inquiry.
The Northern Echo submitted its request for details under the Freedom of Information Act on January 11. Such requests are usually dealt with within 20 days.
But a full response has only now been received - three months later - and it said the information was being withheld because releasing it would not be in the public interest.
Home Office information access practitioner Christina Nath said: "I can assure you that the Prison Service did not concede this claim lightly.
"It followed a full analysis of all the evidence and was based on strong legal advice from the Home Office-appointed solicitor and barrister.
"The value of the settlement was determined by the available medical evidence and the Judicial Studies Board's guidelines on general damages."
She said the claim was finally settled - in March last year - to minimise costs to the taxpayer.
She added: "It was assessed that if the claim had proceeded to trial, it would have resulted in considerably more expense to the public purse."
Following the response, Mr Willis - an outspoken opponent of public
waste - immediately tabled a series of
written questions to the Home Office demanding
answers.
"It is totally unacceptable that hundreds
of thousands of pounds of tax payers'
money is handed out in compensation
without an explanation of why.
"The cover up at Northallerton, aided
and abetted by the Home Office, illustrates
just how prevalent is the claim culture
and why the authorities need to
stand up and test these cases in court.
"I doubt that the victims of the crimes
committed by the individual receiving
such mega-compensation have received
such generous payouts."
The Prison Officers' Association said it
was "incredulous" at the response.
Assistant secretary Glynn Travis said:
"We think it's appalling that the Prison
Service won't disclose information about
money paid out of the public purse.
"If a compensation payment of this
size is justified, how can it not be in the
public interest to say why?
"If there's been some fault, then we
need to learn from the mistakes.
"There is also a community around
that prison. They see the headlines and
think no one gets that sort of money
without someone doing something
wrong.
"It makes everybody look at fault - and
that's why we want full disclosure."
6:02am Wednesday 18th April 2007
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