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UK: MPs’ confidential phone calls with prisoners were monitored - Chris Grayling apologises for monitoring of at least 32 MPs’ calls, along with some between prisoners and lawyers

11 November 2014

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"Confidential telephone calls between prisoners and at least 32 current MPs or their staff have been recorded, and in some cases listened to, by prison staff, the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, has revealed.

He also disclosed that confidential calls between prisoners and their lawyers have been monitored in at least a “handful of cases”.

The chief of inspector of prisons, Nick Hardwick, has been asked to investigate the scale and extent of the problem. At least one phone call to the office of the current Liberal Democrat justice minister, Simon Hughes, has been monitored as well as five or six calls to the office of Jack Straw when he was justice secretary.

Grayling said he was only told late last week about the problem, which he said stretched from 2006 to autumn 2012 when changes were made to tighten up the system of monitoring prisoners’ phone calls."

See the full story: MPs’ confidential phone calls with prisoners were monitored - Chris Grayling apologises for monitoring of at least 32 MPs’ calls, along with some between prisoners and lawyers (Guardian, link)

See also: Oral Statement on prisoner communications by the Secretary of State for Justice, 11 November 2015(link)

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