UK: Alton Manning inquest - unlawful killing verdict
01 March 1998
The jury at the inquest into the death of Alton Manning, who was one of three black prisoners (the others being Dennis Stevens and Kenneth Severin) to die after being restrained by prison officers between October and December 1995, reached a unanimous verdict of unlawful killing in March. Manning died at Blakenhurst prison, Redditch, Worcestershire, which is run by UK Detention Services Ltd (a subsidiary of Corrections Corporation of America), as the result of an unlawful neckhold by one or more prison officers. Seven prison officers have been suspended on full pay pending a decision by the Crown Prosecution Services on whether to bring charges against them. The director general of the Prison Service, Richard Tilt, attempted to dismiss the spate of black deaths in custody by asserting that black prisoners had differences that made them more susceptible to suffocation than white prisoners.
The events leading-up to Alton Manning's death were initiated when prison officers removed him from his cell to carry out a search after claiming that there was a smell of cannabis in the area. Although later tests showed that he had taken neither drugs nor alcohol, he was removed to another cell for a strip-search and co-operated without protest, removing his t-shirt, then his boots and trousers. However, when ordered to squat, for an inspection of his genital and anal areas, he refused and a struggle ensued in which several more prison officers became involved. Interestingly, one of the prison officers claimed that anal and genital searches were standard procedure at the prison - a fact that would mean that the privatised prison was breaking Home Office regulations.
The prison officers told the inquest that Manning attacked them and was restrained in Home Office approved manner. None of the eight officers were able to offer an explanation for his visible injuries nor means of his death; indeed all of them denied seeing injuries or using excessive and unreasonable force. Their evidence was contested by other prisoners who witnessed them using an illegal neckhold; their evidence was consistent with the injuries to Manning's neck and the cause of death as established by pathological evidence "that the cause of Mr Manning's death was respiratory impairment/restriction during restraint leading to asphyxia".
When giving evidence to the inquest the two most senior officers also pleaded ignorance concerning Home Office guidelines, issued in 1992, warning officers of "restraining prisoners in the prone position or applying pressure to the neck, chest or abdomen." The officer responsible for the training of control and restraint techniques, and his deputy, also denied seeing Home Office guidelines before 1995. Moreover, it became apparent during the inquest that UK Detention Services Ltd operated the prison without even having a copy of the Control and Restraint Manual for at least a year.
The jury took less than four hours to conclude that Alton Manning was unlawfully killed and had died from asphyxia after warders restrained him face down. He was the third black man to die under restraint in prison in a period of less than three months between October and December 1996. The inquest into the death of Kenneth Severin returned an open verdict (indicating that the jury were not satisfied with the official version of events) while the inquest into the death of Dennis Stevens returned a highly controversial accidental death verdict. Following the result of the Manning inquest Deborah Coles, of the Inquest organisation, criticised the "alarming failure at both individual and management level within Blakenhurst and within the Prison Service as a whole...". Pointing to the "catalogue of lies and evasions by officers and management at HMP Blakenhurst and lawyers acting for UK Detention Services Ltd" she went on to demand "a close scrutiny and examination of the case by the Crown Prosecution Service with a view to instigating criminal pro