News / HMP Bristol
Increase in arson attacks inside Bristol prison
The number of fires started deliberately by inmates at HMP Bristol has rocketed four-fold — and now stands at an average of one a week.
Fire crews were called to 16 arson attacks at the troubled jail, which was panned by government inspectors earlier this year, over the four months from April to July.
There were just four during the same period in 2018.
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The blazes have skewed Avon Fire & Rescue Service figures which show that without them, it would have hit its target for preventing incidents by firebugs.
Now the service is in urgent talks with prison chiefs to try to resolve the problems.
A report being considered by the fire authority’s performance review and scrutiny committee on Wednesday, September 4 said: “Deliberate primary fires (excluding vehicles) are off target with 89 recorded against a target of 78, a 22 per cent increase on the same period last year.
“Sixteen of these incidents have been at Bristol Prison compared to four in the same period last year.
“Our liaison officer is in communication with the prison management to mitigate the risk.”
A damning report revealed some of the problems at the prison
A prison service spokesman said: “All of these fires were minor and were quickly dealt with by staff.
“Those found to be putting others at risk will be punished.”
A damning report on HMP Bristol in June highlighted violence, “readily available” drugs and cockroaches.
An HM Inspectorate of Prisons draft paper revealed “squalid and degrading” conditions, as well as “very high” self-harm levels at the jail in Cambridge Road, Horfield.
The category B prison, which holds about 520 male inmates, has been in special measures since 2017.
But inspectors said they had “no confidence” of improvement.
Peter Clarke, HM chief inspector of prisons, called on secretary of state for justice, David Gauke MP, to intervene urgently.
Using the rarely implemented urgent notification protocol, Clarke wrote publicly to Gauke warning him the jail had not improved in any way, with cells described as overcrowded, “bleak and grubby”.
Clarke wrote: “On the basis of this latest inspection, I can have no confidence that HMP Bristol will achieve coherent, meaningful or sustained improvement in the future.”
Meanwhile, the report to Avon Fire authority’s committee members, which covers the four-month period since the start of the municipal year on April 1, said the organisation received 78 malicious false alarms from the public, of which 15 were successfully “call challenged” by 999 operators who determined they were hoaxes.
There were 12 injuries requiring hospital treatment from fire across the service’s region, although no fatalities.
Despite the rise in arson, calls for emergency assistance dropped by eight per cent compared with last year to just over 7,000 from April to July.
The report said long-term sickness, classed as more than 28 days, remained the biggest problem for achieving a reduction in employee absence over the next three years to match other fire and rescue services.
It accounted for 71 per cent of shifts/days lost, although at the end of the first quarter of the year since April, 482 of the 666 staff had taken no periods of sickness.
All six of the service’s response indicators were on target, including answering 999 calls within seven seconds.
Adam Postans is a local democracy reporter for Bristol
Read more: Bristol prison safety concerns amid increase in violent attacks on staff
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