Subj: Jailed women on sex assault charge

Date: Aug 2, 1998

Source: Scotland on Sunday

Jailed women on sex assault charge



By Sue Leonard

Health Correspondent



NINE women at Cornton Vale Prison have been charged with 

physically and sexually assaulting a new inmate during a 

violent search for drugs.



The alleged attack took place six weeks ago in Ross House, 

the remand block, the day after the woman arrived.



A Central police spokeswoman confirmed that the nine - aged 

from 21 to 41 - had been charged and a report had been sent 

to the procurator fiscal.



It is believed that hardened prisoners at Cornton Vale, 

desperate for drugs, regularly perform intimate body 

searches, which even prison staff are not permitted to carry 

out, on new arrivals. Such attacks may throw new light on 

the spate of suicides at Cornton Vale, near Stirling, where 

eight young women bave killed themselves over the last three 

years, the majority of them in the remand block.



It is understood to be the first time anyone has been 

charged with such an assault in a prison although alegations 

about similar incidents have been risked in English women's 

jails.



The most common way for drugs to be smuggled into prisons is 

by packing them in a condom or the finger of a plastic 

surgical glove, which is then inserted into the vagina and 

sometines wrapped in mint leaves to fool sniffer dogs.



Scottish Office home affairs minister Henry McLeish 

yesterday said the incident was "an operational matter" for 

the Scottish Prison Service and was now in the hands of the 

fiscal.



An SPS spokesman confirmed a remand prisoner had claimed she 

was assaulted by other prisoners and that the police had 

been called in.



One doctor, who did not want to be named, said such assaults 

amounted to rape and raised concern about the Scottish 

Office's new policy of abolishing single cell accommodation, 

which it is introducing in light of the rising death toll at 

the prison. "This is a risk when it comes to sharing roons," 

the doctor said.



"The idea that sharing rooms may reduce isolation needs to 

be examined against this and the culture of homosexuality 

that exists."



The Scottish Office said its new shared cell policy followed 

recommendations from the chief inspector of prisons, but 

acknowledged bullying, particularly relating to drugs, was a 

problem. A spokesman said a service had been set up to help 

prisoners report concerns.



A number of measures have been introduced at Cornton Vale - 

Scotland's only female jail - to improve conditions, 

including increasing the number of nursing and prison staff, 

improved cell observation and offering televisions to women 

considered to be suicide risks. The Scottish Office has also 

earmarked UKP40m to fund alternatives to imprisonment for 

offenders.



The prison, which houses on average 190 inmates, is 

currently awaiting the findings of a fatal accident inquiry 

into the suicide of 27-year-old Sandra Brown, who killed 

herself in her cell last December.