Home office to step up security at Archer jail after 17 walk out of open unit

Security measures are being stepped up to stop prisoners absconding from the jail where the former Conservative Party vice-chairman Lord Archer is being held, a Home Office minister said yesterday.

The Prisons and Probation Minister, Hilary Benn, said that steps had been taken to review and strengthen risk assessment procedures following a number of escapes from Hollesley Bay Colony near Woodbridge, Suffolk. Seventeen prisoners have walked out of the jail's open unit in just over two years, figures show.

"The processes at Hollesley Bay have been reviewed in light of recent cases to ensure that potential indicators of an increased risk of absconding are properly identified and that the appropriate action is taken," said Mr Benn.

"The rate of absconds at Hollesley Bay is relatively low given the turnover of prisoners, and it compares favourably with other open establishments."

Mr Benn revealed the increased security measures in a letter to the East Anglian Daily Times, which had written to the Home Office expressing concerns about Hollesley Bay. In a letter to the editor, Terry Hunt, Mr Benn said: "I can assure you that steps have been taken to review and strengthen prisoner risk assessment procedures."

He added: "The Prison Service is doing all that it can to strike the right balance between protecting the public and rehabilitating those placed in its care."

Lord Archer, 62, was jailed for four years at the Old Bailey in July 2001 after being convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice. Jurors found that he had lied during a libel trial against the Daily Star newspaper in 1987, following allegations that he had slept with a prostitute.

The millionaire author was moved to Hollesley Bay earlier this month. He was being held at North Sea Camp Open Prison in Lincolnshire, where he was allowed to visit his wife Mary at the family home in Grantchester, near Cambridge.

Those visiting rights were revoked and he was temporarily moved to Lincoln Jail after it emerged that he had attended a party at the home of the former Conservative Education Secretary Gillian Shephard during home leave. It also emerged that he had lunched with a police officer and the head of prison security while at North Sea Camp.