Blunkett in prisoner 'machine-gun' claim
Tuesday, 17 October 2006 12:00 AM
David Blunkett ordered the prison service to bring in the army and "machine-gun" prisoners during a jail riot when he was home secretary, it has been claimed.
The former cabinet minister apparently made a "hysterical" phone call to the director general of the service when a disturbance broke out at Lincoln prison in October 2002 and demanded staff take control of the jail regardless of the risks to them or inmates.
The claim is made by the director general at the time, Martin Narey, who went on to become permanent secretary at the Home Office. He spoke out in response to Mr Blunkett's claim in his diary that the prison service had dithered over their reaction.
However, Mr Blunkett has firmly denied the allegations and insisted his account of that night - the only prison riot during his time as home secretary and one that he said may have got out of control if he had not taken decisive action - was accurate.
Writing in The Times, Mr Narey said Mr Blunkett was "unpredictable" as home secretary and "inclined to rush to a decision, sometimes on the basis of what had been read to him that morning from the tabloid press".
"When under pressure, he could be almost impossible to work with," the former prison chief recalled.
When news of the riot at Lincoln broke, Mr Narey said he was happy to leave his deputy, now prison director general Phil Wheatley, to take charge, but received an angry and "hysterical" call from the home secretary.
"He directed me, without delay, to order staff back into the prison. I told him we did not, at the time, have enough staff in the prison to contemplate such a move but that many more staff were on their way from other prisons," Mr Narey wrote.
"I insisted, however, that although I was determined to take the prison back as quickly as possible, I could not and would not risk staff or prisoner lives in attempting to do so.
"He shrieked at me that he didn't care about lives, told me to call in the army and 'machine-gun' the prisoners. He then ordered me to take the prison back immediately. I refused. David hung up."
Mr Narey said he thought he would be sacked for disobeying Mr Blunkett's orders, but the prison came back under control before dawn and the following day the home secretary appeared to have forgotten his outburst.
The former director general said he had never intended to make the incident public but "I cannot allow David's version of events to go unchallenged".
However, Mr Blunkett's spokesman has firmly rejected the claims, saying he had ordered the retaking of the prison but "he did not say anything about machine-guns. Quite apart from anything else, they do not carry machine guns in the prison service".
He said: "Any such phone call would have been monitored by Mr Blunkett's private office.During the Lincoln prison situation Mr Blunkett offered Martin Narey absolute political cover for dealing with the situation."
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