Inmates Sue Prison Service for Failing to Protect Them From Islamist Prison Gangs

In this file image, two people walk alongside the curtain wall of HMP Liverpool, northwest England, on Nov. 15, 2016 (Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images)

Inmates who refuse to convert and are being put in segregation “blocks” for their own protection are planning legal action against the Prison Service for failing to protect them from Islamist gangs in British prisons.

Prisoners face a “David and Goliath” battle against Islamic gangs in British jails, according to lawyers who are taking on their case to force a judicial review.

Criminal barrister Tony Wyatt told The Epoch Times that he wants to demonstrate that there is an “organised crime group within the prisons.”

Large groups of individuals in British prisons, under an Islamic banner, are operating in a criminal way, he said.

The claim is that prison services have effectively allowed the groups to take control because they fear being accused of racism.

Wyatt said that convicted drug dealer Richard Caswell is their primary client along with 20–25 prisoners, some of who are Christian, from prisons not just in London but over the whole country.

On his clients, he said: “We don’t claim that these are sympathetic people, they deserve to be in prison as they were sentenced, but they shouldn’t be serving in conditions that are ten times worse as everybody else merely because they are the targets of a group that can’t be touched.”

Islamist Gangs

Islamists are acting as a huge “gang” within the rules of British prisons, with many converting for their own protection and out of fear of the repercussions of not joining.

According to a 2022 government report (pdf) on prisons, there is evidence of “highly structured Islamist gangs operating within the prison estate.”

It said that the gangs make “insincere allegations of racism and Islamophobia or mistreatment against staff to delegitimise staff authority.” Furthermore, “charismatic or violent prisoners” act as self-styled “emirs” and exert “a controlling and radicalising influence on the wider Muslim prison population.”

The report found that gangs acted collectively to intimidate staff when their behaviour was challenged and that they assaulted other prisoners for faith-based reasons.

A 2022 House Of Commons report (pdf) found that the proportion of Muslim prisoners increased from 8 percent in 2002 to 17 percent in 2022.

A general view through the bars of Birmingham Prison in Winson Green in Birmingham, England, on Aug. 20, 2018. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Wyatt said that the prisoners he represents refused very early on to convert and would stick up for people who are being forcibly converted “back before the groups were the size they are and have the influence they have.”

He said that now that dispute has become “utterly David and Goliath in terms of scale.”

Due to them not being safe in the general population, prisons are now choosing to deal with the problem by putting them into “punishment conditions for their own protection.”

“So rather than taking on these gangs, these organised crime groups, rather than doing that, the prisons are effectively punishing their victims putting them in the ”Block,“ which is a prison within a prison,” he said.

In punishment conditions, prisoners in segregation units, known as “the Block,” tend not to have access to contact with their families, nor do they have normal everyday privileges, have a much-reduced regime, and have shorter periods of exercise.

‘Fear of Confronting These People’

Wyatt said that said he believed that this started due to fears of staff being called “racist.”

“I think that there’s a fear of confronting these people,” he said.

“I think it started that way with people who are not genuinely what they claim to be. They chose Islam and they chose to go under that banner exactly because they knew it afforded them protection from people who are afraid of being accused of racism,” he added.

He added that it’s a very important thing to understand “that this is in no way a dog whistle.”

“It’s not anti-Islamic. We don’t regard these people as Islamic ... they are using it as a shield,” he added.

A spokesperson for HM Prison Service told The Epoch Times by email: “Staff act swiftly to clamp down on intimidating or threatening behaviour regardless of cultural or religious sensitivities and we are investing £100m in prison security to stop the contraband which fuels violence and gangs behind bars.

“Prisoners may be moved wings for many reasons including for their own protection or if they are a risk to others,” she added.