`BNP brutality' at top security hospital
01 January 1991
`BNP brutality' at top security hospital
artdoc June=1992
A government inquiry, chaired by Louis Blom Cooper, QC, set up
to investigate reports of abuse on patients at Ashworth top-
security hospital in Merseyside has heard that a campaign of
intimidation has been carried out by a group of Prison Officers'
Association (POA) nurses who are also supporters of the fascist
British National Party (BNP).
Witnesses informed the inquiry that one patient had his head
submerged in a kitchen sink; another, who had undergone a frontal
lobotomy, found pictures of brains in his locker. A third patient
was sent a live snake in a parcel and another had his hand held
on an electric hotplate by a nurse. An interim report by the
inquiry reported that women patients had been stripped naked and
locked in solitary confinement.
The witnesses also told of death threats to members of staff
who belonged to a different trade union. Dr David Dines, who
spent a week at Ashworth on behalf of the Inquiry, said that a
group of 8-14 POA members were the ringleaders of the campaign
of intimidation.
Guardian 10.3.92; Independent 26.3.92
Statewatch, vol 2, no 3, May-June 1992