'Serious failings' at Loyalist murder prison

(Brian Little/PA Wire)

The official inquiry into the murder of Loyalist terrorist Billy Wright in the Maze Prison found that there was no "state collusion" in his killing, Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson said today.

But Mr Paterson told the Commons that there had been "serious failings" within the prison which "facilitated" Wright's death in December 1997, although these were due to "negligence" and were not intentional.

"His murder in a high security prison should never have happened. It was wrong and I am sincerely sorry that failings in the system facilitated his murder," Mr Paterson said.

The inquiry report released today said a review of the Northern Ireland prison service similar to Lord Patten's police overhaul should be launched.

Wright, the leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) splinter group who was allegedly linked to up to 20 murders, was sitting in the back of a prison van waiting to be taken to meet his visiting girlfriend when he was shot seven times.

Three republican prisoners belonging to the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a republican breakaway faction, were implicated in the killing.

Mr Paterson said that the inquiry panel found that the decision to allocate Wright and the LVF faction to H-Block 6 where the INLA were being held was a "wrongful act" which directly facilitated his murder.

The prison authorities also failed to strengthen roof defences at the jail, failed to ensure the exercise yards were checked and secured each night, and failed to carry out full risk assessment before LVF were moved to the block.

"Overall the panel identified a serious failure on the part of the Northern Ireland Prison Service and its chief executive to deal with recognised management problems in HMP Maze in 1997," Mr Paterson said.

The inquiry report published today concluded there was no evidence of collusion between agents of the State and the killers, but a series of major failings by the prison service and police were said to have "facilitated the death of Billy Wright".

The report said: "We have been critical of certain individuals and institutions or state agencies, some of whose actions did, in our opinion, facilitate his death.

"We were not, however, persuaded that in any instance there was evidence of collusive acts or collusive conduct."

The 700-page report, which cost £30 million and took more than five years to compile, made a string of damning findings against the Northern Ireland Prison Service and the police.

The prison service was criticised for a series of "wrongful omissions" which made it possible for the Wright murder to take place.

The authorities at the Maze were said to have failed to carry out risk assessments despite having rival paramilitaries housed in close proximity.

They failed to strengthen roof defences at the jail, or make nightly checks of the prison yard where fencing was cut to allow Wright's killers to launch their attack.

Prisoners were not classified, making it impossible to devise strategies for handling high-risk inmates, such as those INLA members who killed Wright.

The report added: "Bearing in mind that the Independent Commission on Policing led to the transformation of the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) into the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland), we recommend that the SOSNI (Secretary of State for Northern Ireland) and those with recently devolved authority should consider whether a similar process might pave the way for radical change in the way the NIPS (Northern Ireland Prison Service) is managed and, among other matters, how its industrial relations are conducted."