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UK: Scrubs lawyer "victimised" by prison officers

01 September 1998

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Jane Hickman, a partner in the Hickman and Rose legal firm, who published a dossier of assaults on prisoners by staff at Wormwood Scrubs prison in west London, has claimed that she is being victimised by prison officers. Her firm is representing 20 prisoners who allege racism, intimidation and systematic brutality by prison officers at the prison. In July Hickman was arrested at Wandsworth prison, south London, while delivering clothes to a prisoner. Officers found a piece of cannabis in the pocket of a pair of jeans after she requested the officers search the bag; she was accused of trying to smuggle the drug into the prison and released on bail charged with possession of drugs with intent to supply. The incident was merely the latest incident which has seen Ms Hickman being verbally abused and refused access to her clients. Ms Hickman said: "I am suffering harassment and disruption to my work. The bad feeling against me is because of the Wormwood Scrubs investigation and the fact that my name is on top of the firm's headed paper." In a further development her firm have claimed that some of the prisoners assaulted at Wormwood Scrubs are now being harassed after being moved to other prisons. The situation prompted one of their solicitors to call for them to be moved to private prisons because "they do not feel safe in any place where the Prison Officers' Association is the staff representative body." (see Statewatch Vol. 8, no 2, 3/4)

Assaults on prisoners by staff at HMP Wormwood Scrubs - an interim report. Hickman & Rose (March) 1998; Independent 10.7.98.

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