Scots prison boss says SPS should not be immune from prosecution

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The head of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) has said said that the service should not benefit from Crown immunity, which should be abolished to allow it to face prosecution.The families of Katie Allan, 21, and William Lindsay, 16, who took their own lives within months of each other at Polmont Young Offenders' Institution in 2018, met with the chief executive and deputy chief executive of the SPS on Wednesday, April 2.Aamer Anwar, the lawyer representing both families, said that during the “robust and painful meeting” chief executive Teresa Medhurst had accepted that state immunity for the prison service should end.He recalled that a former Police Scotland chief constable had once raised this issue with him, asking why the police can be prosecuted but that the prison service, which can “lock people up for 24 hours, seven days a week,” cannot.Katie’s mum, Linda Allan, also said the meeting was the first time the families had not felt “demonised” by the prison service in the last seven years, and that the meeting was a "complete reversal" of what they had experienced so far.Ms Allan, a student at Glasgow University, was found dead on June 4 while serving a 16-month sentence for drink-driving and causing serious injury.William – also known as William Brown – who had made repeated attempts on his life in 2017 which were detailed in reports provided on his admission, was found dead in his cell on October 7, three days after he was remanded due to a lack of space in a children’s unit.A fatal accident inquiry (FAI) was held last year at Falkirk Sheriff Court into their deaths and 25 recommendations were made by sheriff Simon Collins.Both the Scottish Government and SPS have already accepted in full the findings and