“We’ve lost control here. We don’t control the prison — you f***ers do.”
That’s the response a former inmate at Bridgend’s HMP Parc claims he got from a prison officer after he voiced concerns over drugs, violence and corruption at the privately run jail. The former prisoner is one of many people to have come forward to WalesOnline with disturbing allegations about life at Parc. They include vicious drug debt retribution, some staff “turning a blind eye” to blatant dealing, and one exploited prisoner giving sexual favours in the showers in exchange for spice.
It is not only ex-inmates who have spoken to us about their experiences, but also former staff. They claim the “desperately understaffed” workforce fails to safeguard prisoners at Parc, where at least four of six recent sudden deaths are thought to be drug-related. One woman who recently worked at the jail told us: “The prison was ultimately run by the prisoners, with officers being paid to bring in contraband items. The enhanced red band prisoners, who were able to roam, would then ferry these items across the prison.” Rampant drug use, she claims, would go “unnoticed or ignored”.
Parc is run by private security giant G4S, which has a history of controversy over its management of other prisons and young offender units. Responding to the crisis at Parc, a spokeswoman for the firm said it has “a comprehensive drugs strategy to reduce supply and demand in the prison” and that “the vast majority of our staff are hard-working and honest”. The Ministry of Justice, which is ultimately responsible for the prison, has refused to comment beyond saying that it won’t be stepping in. When we asked the MoJ if it had even raised concerns with G4S, its spokesman told us “it wouldn’t be fair on G4S” to answer that question.
**’You can make yourself a very wealthy man by being in prison’**
Phil (not his real name) was imprisoned at Parc for 12 months up to April 2023. He was in his early 60s and it was the first time he had been in jail apart from a short spell at HMP Cardiff four decades earlier. His experience at Parc was, he says, “the shock of my life”.
Phil claims he had never seen so many illegal drugs in one place. The most popular was spice — a psychoactive substance which has been linked to the recent series of deaths — but Phil says it was also common to see Class As like heroin and cocaine, as well as unprescribed opioid medication like Subutex. “I witnessed drones come over to drop packages off but the vast majority of items were brought in by staff,” he said. “A bit of cardboard or paper soaked in liquid spice would sell for £50. They’d use an A4 sheet of paper from the classroom or from the officers. If you had 100 sheets on the wing, they’d be sold within an hour. One day at least 20 prisoners couldn’t speak or stand up. The prisoners running the supply were making more than £100k a year. You can make yourself a very wealthy man by being in prison.
“Tuesday was when a lot of the illegal drugs were brought on the wing. Friday was called ‘Black Eye Friday’ because people weren’t able to pay their debts for the drugs. A lot of men were assaulted, and I witnessed a lot of men locking themselves in their cell for fear of being attacked. Prisoners would go in the showers, where there were no cameras, to assault people. I’m not frightened of anything but I feared for my safety in there.”
“Skeletal” staffing meant the prison struggled to deal with violence among inmates, says Phil, who recalls a fight breaking out when only three officers — two of them female and one of those a new starter — were on duty in a wing with around 100 prisoners. He claims one brawl started with two well-built men “hitting ten bells out of each other”, and when the rookie female officer of slight build tried to stop it, she was herself assaulted.
One prisoner, a drug addict, was exploited by inmates who demanded oral sex in the showers in exchange for spice, says Phil. “There were some prisoners who were off their face on drugs in the night, then the next day they’d be taken for a urine test and it would come back clear. Everyone would be laughing, asking: ‘How was that clear? He couldn’t stand up.'”
Phil believes imprisonment in Parc is more likely to offer “an education in criminality” then rehabilitation. “I turned down offers from other prisoners to work for drug rings when I was released, to drive drugs to Liverpool and collect drug money. In Parc, people would make a line out of sheets and pass drugs between different floors. One day an officer saw what was going on and a prisoner said, ‘It’s alright guv, they’re just sending teabags.’ It was actually quite a large amount of spice. The officer turned a blind eye to it for a quiet life.” In response a G4S spokeswoman said: “We have a zero-tolerance policy towards drugs and completely reject claims that staff at the prison turn a blind eye to drugs and other illicit items.”
There were occasions, claims Phil — who takes 16 tablets a day for serious heart issues — when he did not receive his medication until a week after it was due. He says his life would have been at risk if he didn’t resort to buying the medication from fellow inmates. “Within 25 minutes of asking prisoners on the wing, I had every single one of the tablets in my hands. You’d either pay in vapes or put money in their account. I paid in vapes.
“Six times I had to purchase tablets from prisoners. When I couldn’t get them on time from the prison, I said to one of the officers, ‘I’ll have to go and purchase them on the wing now,’ and they said, ‘I know, that’s how Parc runs.’ The whole medical black market in there stems from the prison not giving you your tablets on time.” The Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board, which is responsible for medical care in the prison, responded that “we would encourage [a prisoner with concerns] to get in get in touch with our concerns team directly”.
Phil says delays to prescriptions for mental health issues had a serious impact on some prisoners, including one who allegedly set fire to his cell and became seriously ill from smoke inhalation. “You’ve got men going crazy because of [the delays], attacking officers and other prisoners,” Phil added. “So many people would threaten to jump off the handrail on the third floor and the staff would then send everyone into their cells and bring out a bouncy castle. I never saw anyone jump but quite a few would stand there threatening it.” A G4S spokeswoman said: “We do not recognise the picture painted by [Phil]. The health, safety and security of prisoners and staff is our number one priority.”
**Families sick with worry**
A Parc prisoner did jump from a height earlier this month, which as we previously reported led to the inmate being rushed to hospital. His partner later told us the prisoner had made an attempt on his life after struggling with mental health and “begging” for more support from staff. “I have been continually emailing, ringing, telling them to help him but have not even had one email answered,” said his partner. “He is luckily enough injured but not life-threatening.” The inmate is under a care plan to support people at risk of self-harm.
The wife of another inmate, a 41-year-old man with health issues including type two diabetes, told us he had a harrowing experience on April 1 while in his cell. He started vomiting blood and pressed his emergency buzzer at around 9pm but, his wife claims, a nurse did not come out until 11.30pm. We previously reported on the case of Parc prisoner Ross Appleby, who allegedly waited more than an hour for help after pressing his buzzer when he was stabbed.
In the incident on April 1, a nurse came to the cell but allegedly took no action beyond advising the prisoner to stop taking antibiotics he had been prescribed for a tooth infection. “After she left he was violently sick and collapsed on the floor,” claimed the prisoner’s wife. “He woke at 2am in the freezing cold and shouted for help. He thought he was going to die. When the nurse returned she said, ‘I didn’t know if you were putting it on to go to hospital, I thought something wasn’t right because your heartrate was high.'”
In the morning, the prisoner was taken to hospital and diagnosed with serious internal bleeding and abscesses. The doctor allegedly told the prisoner he should have been immediately taken to hospital after vomiting blood. A G4S spokeswoman said: “We responded promptly to [the prisoner’s] concerns and he was taken to hospital by ambulance.”
The inmate’s wife claims he recently went a week without his diabetes tablets until she complained to Parc. He has also allegedly gone months without access to a device he previously had in HMP Cardiff for checking his blood sugar levels. These worries have left his wife “so frightened” for his health. “I haven’t slept, I haven’t eaten, I can’t get any sense from anyone,” she said. The Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board responded that “we would encourage [the prisoner] and his family to get in touch with our concerns team directly”.
revealbrilliance on
Sorry about Reach’s shite website (use an adblocker to read it, or in the comments) but it’s actually a decent piece of journalism. Article shows that once again, G4S should not be offered a thing in the public sector. Incompetence, corruption and gross mismanagement on show at Parc Prison, like in every other prison they’ve run.
AnalThermometer on
I just posted in another thread about this, most people don’t realise the UK puts more people in privately built and operated prisons than the USA. It’s another public service contracted out to G4S at bottom of the barrel levels of quality.
not-napoleon on
Sexual favours!? That’s crazy!
You have to pay for it with money when you’re not incarcerated.
ash_ninetyone on
Another example of how prisons should not be privatised but in the hands of HM Prison Service. The prisons nearby my town have had issues with smuggling, inappropriate relationships between officers (and other staff) and inmates. That one isn’t operated by G4S but it is operated by Serco, a company with it’s own track record of gobbling up Government contracts and mismanaging them.
Is that to say those ran by HMPS is perfect? No. But it is at least directly accountable to the public.
5 Comments
“We’ve lost control here. We don’t control the prison — you f***ers do.”
That’s the response a former inmate at Bridgend’s HMP Parc claims he got from a prison officer after he voiced concerns over drugs, violence and corruption at the privately run jail. The former prisoner is one of many people to have come forward to WalesOnline with disturbing allegations about life at Parc. They include vicious drug debt retribution, some staff “turning a blind eye” to blatant dealing, and one exploited prisoner giving sexual favours in the showers in exchange for spice.
It is not only ex-inmates who have spoken to us about their experiences, but also former staff. They claim the “desperately understaffed” workforce fails to safeguard prisoners at Parc, where at least four of six recent sudden deaths are thought to be drug-related. One woman who recently worked at the jail told us: “The prison was ultimately run by the prisoners, with officers being paid to bring in contraband items. The enhanced red band prisoners, who were able to roam, would then ferry these items across the prison.” Rampant drug use, she claims, would go “unnoticed or ignored”.
Parc is run by private security giant G4S, which has a history of controversy over its management of other prisons and young offender units. Responding to the crisis at Parc, a spokeswoman for the firm said it has “a comprehensive drugs strategy to reduce supply and demand in the prison” and that “the vast majority of our staff are hard-working and honest”. The Ministry of Justice, which is ultimately responsible for the prison, has refused to comment beyond saying that it won’t be stepping in. When we asked the MoJ if it had even raised concerns with G4S, its spokesman told us “it wouldn’t be fair on G4S” to answer that question.
**’You can make yourself a very wealthy man by being in prison’**
Phil (not his real name) was imprisoned at Parc for 12 months up to April 2023. He was in his early 60s and it was the first time he had been in jail apart from a short spell at HMP Cardiff four decades earlier. His experience at Parc was, he says, “the shock of my life”.
Phil claims he had never seen so many illegal drugs in one place. The most popular was spice — a psychoactive substance which has been linked to the recent series of deaths — but Phil says it was also common to see Class As like heroin and cocaine, as well as unprescribed opioid medication like Subutex. “I witnessed drones come over to drop packages off but the vast majority of items were brought in by staff,” he said. “A bit of cardboard or paper soaked in liquid spice would sell for £50. They’d use an A4 sheet of paper from the classroom or from the officers. If you had 100 sheets on the wing, they’d be sold within an hour. One day at least 20 prisoners couldn’t speak or stand up. The prisoners running the supply were making more than £100k a year. You can make yourself a very wealthy man by being in prison.
“Tuesday was when a lot of the illegal drugs were brought on the wing. Friday was called ‘Black Eye Friday’ because people weren’t able to pay their debts for the drugs. A lot of men were assaulted, and I witnessed a lot of men locking themselves in their cell for fear of being attacked. Prisoners would go in the showers, where there were no cameras, to assault people. I’m not frightened of anything but I feared for my safety in there.”
“Skeletal” staffing meant the prison struggled to deal with violence among inmates, says Phil, who recalls a fight breaking out when only three officers — two of them female and one of those a new starter — were on duty in a wing with around 100 prisoners. He claims one brawl started with two well-built men “hitting ten bells out of each other”, and when the rookie female officer of slight build tried to stop it, she was herself assaulted.
One prisoner, a drug addict, was exploited by inmates who demanded oral sex in the showers in exchange for spice, says Phil. “There were some prisoners who were off their face on drugs in the night, then the next day they’d be taken for a urine test and it would come back clear. Everyone would be laughing, asking: ‘How was that clear? He couldn’t stand up.'”
Phil believes imprisonment in Parc is more likely to offer “an education in criminality” then rehabilitation. “I turned down offers from other prisoners to work for drug rings when I was released, to drive drugs to Liverpool and collect drug money. In Parc, people would make a line out of sheets and pass drugs between different floors. One day an officer saw what was going on and a prisoner said, ‘It’s alright guv, they’re just sending teabags.’ It was actually quite a large amount of spice. The officer turned a blind eye to it for a quiet life.” In response a G4S spokeswoman said: “We have a zero-tolerance policy towards drugs and completely reject claims that staff at the prison turn a blind eye to drugs and other illicit items.”
There were occasions, claims Phil — who takes 16 tablets a day for serious heart issues — when he did not receive his medication until a week after it was due. He says his life would have been at risk if he didn’t resort to buying the medication from fellow inmates. “Within 25 minutes of asking prisoners on the wing, I had every single one of the tablets in my hands. You’d either pay in vapes or put money in their account. I paid in vapes.
“Six times I had to purchase tablets from prisoners. When I couldn’t get them on time from the prison, I said to one of the officers, ‘I’ll have to go and purchase them on the wing now,’ and they said, ‘I know, that’s how Parc runs.’ The whole medical black market in there stems from the prison not giving you your tablets on time.” The Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board, which is responsible for medical care in the prison, responded that “we would encourage [a prisoner with concerns] to get in get in touch with our concerns team directly”.
Phil says delays to prescriptions for mental health issues had a serious impact on some prisoners, including one who allegedly set fire to his cell and became seriously ill from smoke inhalation. “You’ve got men going crazy because of [the delays], attacking officers and other prisoners,” Phil added. “So many people would threaten to jump off the handrail on the third floor and the staff would then send everyone into their cells and bring out a bouncy castle. I never saw anyone jump but quite a few would stand there threatening it.” A G4S spokeswoman said: “We do not recognise the picture painted by [Phil]. The health, safety and security of prisoners and staff is our number one priority.”
**Families sick with worry**
A Parc prisoner did jump from a height earlier this month, which as we previously reported led to the inmate being rushed to hospital. His partner later told us the prisoner had made an attempt on his life after struggling with mental health and “begging” for more support from staff. “I have been continually emailing, ringing, telling them to help him but have not even had one email answered,” said his partner. “He is luckily enough injured but not life-threatening.” The inmate is under a care plan to support people at risk of self-harm.
The wife of another inmate, a 41-year-old man with health issues including type two diabetes, told us he had a harrowing experience on April 1 while in his cell. He started vomiting blood and pressed his emergency buzzer at around 9pm but, his wife claims, a nurse did not come out until 11.30pm. We previously reported on the case of Parc prisoner Ross Appleby, who allegedly waited more than an hour for help after pressing his buzzer when he was stabbed.
In the incident on April 1, a nurse came to the cell but allegedly took no action beyond advising the prisoner to stop taking antibiotics he had been prescribed for a tooth infection. “After she left he was violently sick and collapsed on the floor,” claimed the prisoner’s wife. “He woke at 2am in the freezing cold and shouted for help. He thought he was going to die. When the nurse returned she said, ‘I didn’t know if you were putting it on to go to hospital, I thought something wasn’t right because your heartrate was high.'”
In the morning, the prisoner was taken to hospital and diagnosed with serious internal bleeding and abscesses. The doctor allegedly told the prisoner he should have been immediately taken to hospital after vomiting blood. A G4S spokeswoman said: “We responded promptly to [the prisoner’s] concerns and he was taken to hospital by ambulance.”
The inmate’s wife claims he recently went a week without his diabetes tablets until she complained to Parc. He has also allegedly gone months without access to a device he previously had in HMP Cardiff for checking his blood sugar levels. These worries have left his wife “so frightened” for his health. “I haven’t slept, I haven’t eaten, I can’t get any sense from anyone,” she said. The Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board responded that “we would encourage [the prisoner] and his family to get in touch with our concerns team directly”.
Sorry about Reach’s shite website (use an adblocker to read it, or in the comments) but it’s actually a decent piece of journalism. Article shows that once again, G4S should not be offered a thing in the public sector. Incompetence, corruption and gross mismanagement on show at Parc Prison, like in every other prison they’ve run.
I just posted in another thread about this, most people don’t realise the UK puts more people in privately built and operated prisons than the USA. It’s another public service contracted out to G4S at bottom of the barrel levels of quality.
Sexual favours!? That’s crazy!
You have to pay for it with money when you’re not incarcerated.
Another example of how prisons should not be privatised but in the hands of HM Prison Service. The prisons nearby my town have had issues with smuggling, inappropriate relationships between officers (and other staff) and inmates. That one isn’t operated by G4S but it is operated by Serco, a company with it’s own track record of gobbling up Government contracts and mismanaging them.
Is that to say those ran by HMPS is perfect? No. But it is at least directly accountable to the public.