IT’S the toughest jail in Northern Ireland and it has never been as packed.
Inmate numbers have rocketed at high-security Maghaberry Prison, home to brutal killers, vile sex offenders and hundreds of remand inmates.
Inmate numbers have rocketed at high-security Maghaberry PrisonPacemaker Press
And it houses around 40 hardline dissident republicans and loyalists segregated from each other due to fears of violence.
With an official capacity of 970, the tinderbox jail, battling a drugs epidemic, has a total of 1,254 lags within its walls this week.
Five years ago the population was less than 800.
Two older jail blocks that had been earmarked for demolition – known as Bann and Foyle – have had a stay of execution as management pull out all the stops in the search for accommodation.
And now a journalist has been given “unprecedented access” to get in behind the towering gates of HMP Maghaberry and meet some of those inside.
Located 20 miles from Belfast, the jail took over after the notorious Maze Prison closed down.
That came after the Good Friday Agreement, as part of the deal to end the Troubles, gave the green light for terrorist prisoners to go free.
But as new gunmen emerged to shun the piece, all-male Maghaberry would be the new home for those who got caught.
We can reveal that jail bosses have said ‘No’ to a request to take in prisoners from Britain amid a rising inmate population across the UK and rising tensions in the Co Antrim jail.
Resources and staff are already stretched to the limit, and prison officers know they are under constant death threats just for doing their job.
In 2012 Maghaberry Prison Officer David Black, 52, died after a horrific high-speed drive-by shooting while on his way to work.
A dissident republican group, unhappy with the peace process, said it carried out the murder on the M1 motorway near Lurgan, Co Armagh.
A LOOK INSIDE
And in 2016 fellow warden Adrian Ismay, 52, died eleven days after a dissident republican bomb exploded under his van in east Belfast.
Recently BBC journalist Stephen Nolan gained exclusive access to the lock-up to explore the often harrowing stories behind its walls.
Jailed: Inside Maghaberry Prison lays bear the drugs problem and mental health challenges facing staff.
In one of a string of shocking scenes, inmates, crammed into cells, are seen refusing to want to return after being let out for a brief spell to exercise.
DRAMATIC STAND-OFF
The move sparks an angry stand-off.
Specially trained riot officers – the Emergency Reaction Force – are seen moving in to resolve the drama, dragging inmates back to the cells.
A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Prison Service said: “The incident at Maghaberry Prison was brought to a conclusion following successful engagement between staff and the prisoners.”
The scene is said to have offered an insight into the tensions that infest daily life at Maghaberry.
NEW ROLE
Two months ago Beverley Wall, the new director general of the Northern Ireland Prison Service, told how she was “delighted and privileged” to take up the role.
She said she was “committed to ensuring prisons remain a modern and progressive service, and one that focuses on delivering for the staff who are at its heart, and for those within our care.”
But the outgoing boss Ronnie Armour was less upbeat in the face of what he called “a rapidly rising prison population.”
He said: “While it is important that we don’t seek to make excuses for the decline in service delivery at the Prison since the pandemic, no-one should underestimate the pressures prison staff are currently facing.
“It is important to recognise the exceptional work staff undertake with some of the most complex, challenging and dangerous members of our community.”
Watch Jailed: Inside Maghaberry on BBC2 October 3, at 10pm.
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