Field of Nightmares

The Never-Ending Expansion of Torture Units in England

On the 26^th March 2010, I was condemned to the Close Supervision Centre (CSC) system following the false and malicious allegations from the corrupt employees of HMP Frankland, who claimed I had committed an unprovoked attack upon multiple prison officers there on the 13^th March 2010. As was later proven in Newcastle Crown Court, I had actually unsuccessfully attempted to defend myself using lawful force against a brutal gang of racist prison officers.

The CSC system is purportedly designed to detain only the most dangerous and disruptive prisoners, utilising Prison Rule 46 of the Prison Rules 1999 as authority to effectively impose indefinite solitary confinement¹ upon those of us allocated to it. Since its creation in 1998, following the evil idea by the then low-ranking prison official Michael Spurr in his publication ‘The Spurr Report’, which advocated for the need for the CSC, it has been misused as an unofficial punishment and plagued by endemic discrimination easily amounting to institutional racism and Islamophobia, as well as institutional corruption.

This was exposed by the state itself when during the rare occasion its prison inspection body, HMIP, actually attended the CSC for a ‘full inspection’which took place in 2015, and was unable to ignore the fact that around half of the CSC population were Muslim. If not discrimination, then how else could a minority group possibly become the majority within the most oppressive conditions available within English prisons. Dare to resist the state or come from a minority background, and prison is where they send you; but resist within prison, especially as a minority, and the CSC is the state’s retaliation. Furthermore, many CSC victims suffer from extreme mental health conditions amounting to disabilities, often developed within the CSC itself, making us vulnerable.

This failing system costs the taxpayer in excess of £200,000 per prisoner per year, which is over 4-times the amount spent to detain those within the mainstream prison population. Despite these exorbitant costs, the CSC continues to expand like a cancer which became supercharged from the moment Spurr somehow managed to slime his way into becoming Director of HMPPS, the most senior role of all within the prison and probation service. Since March 2010, although the overall prison population has remained relatively static in terms of numbers, the CSC has almost tripled in capacity going from around 20 men (women have never been deemed dangerous enough to warrant detention within the CSC it seems) to almost 60 men detained within the CSC system today.

Although Spurr was rightfully unceremoniously dismissed from running the show as he drove the entire prison system in to despair and chaos, which inevitably made one too many headlines, he had already appointed his minions who share his sadistic views to senior positions where his CSC experiment could flourish.

This torturous CSC system forms part of a much wider structural drive for control and oppression by those in power within British society, but is at the most extreme end of it. Although it is easy to despise the individual who creates such harmful environments and/or processes, and we should remember Spurr rightly as the architect deserving of our disdain, following his removal two more scumbags sprang-up like a hydra advocating for further insidious development of the CSC as the concept of mass imprisonment breeds malevolence systemically.

Richard Vince, now the Executive Director of High Security Prisons having been appointed to the role by Spurr, who began his career as a prison officer being one of the first to work within a CSC unit; and his wife, Georgina Vince, a forensic psychologist who somehow managed to receive rapid promotion to what is now the third most senior psychology role within HMPPS following their marriage, is in charge of ‘specialist pathways’ which includes the CSC, are together pressing ahead with the Spurr agenda by creating another costly CSC unit. Their stupid idea is to close part of G-wing in HMP Frankland, which is where I suffered the racist events leading to my CSC detention, and have half of one landing designated as a CSC unit.

As each CSC unit only operates under the demands of the Prison Officers Association (POA) with massive numbers of prison officers in a wildly disproportionate ratio of them to prisoners, to enable them to feel safe to abuse the prisoners knowing back-up is ready should any resistance occur, HMP Frankland is due to be plunged in to a staffing crisis impacting the entire prison with long-term lockdowns inevitable. These lockdowns will build frustration, leading to behaviours which will result in CSC referrals so the unit will fast be filled. Intentionally destablising main population in order to satisfy the sadistic desires of Spurr’s gang to create and fill more expensive control units, which destroy the mental health of all made victims of them, is a sick priority for anyone to have but especially so when government funding cutbacks have savaged budgets to the extent that the daily prisoner food budget is as low as £2 per prisoner.

That said, it should come as no surprise when the direction of prisons emulates society, which at this time includes increasing police numbers and powers, creating new oppressive anti-resistance laws, and greater exploitation of the poor and disadvantaged who are directed to fight each other for scarce affordable handouts within this capitalist society. As the system expands, those referred to the CSC who would otherwise be returned to main population due to a lack of space instantly become more likely to be condemned to the system, and the chances of those within the CSC progressing out of it diminish further. This same principle applies with the expansion of all forms of prisons regardless of name or their target, it is the ‘Field of Dreams’ concept, “If you build it, they will come”.

Written by Kevan Thakrar

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As well as suffering from a miscarriage of justice having been convicted under the controversial and discredited legal doctrine of joint enterprise, Kev is one of the 50-men within English prisons to be detained within the Close Supervision Centre (CSC) system under Rule 46 of the Prison Rules 1999. When the Segregation Units disappear people, the CSC is where they end-up. This is the front-line in the battle against state violence where you must resist or capitulate, and Kev more than any other continues in the struggle as a champion of the people. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has raised the conditions of his detention with the government and he has taken a judicial review of the policy of allowing indefinite segregation which enables his ongoing solitary confinement, the appeal for which is due to be heard at the Court of Appeal on the 3rd and 4th of March 2026. 

Please help combat his isolation and help him endure the state inflicted torture by writing to him at:

KEVAN THAKRAR A4907AE
HMP Whitemoor
Longhill Road
March
PE15 0PR 

Cards can be sent to him via WWW.FUNKYPIDGEON.COM and it is also possible to email Kev using WWW.EMAILAPRISONER.COM. 

Read more from and about Kev on WWW.JUSTICEFORKEVAN.ORG.

1 The United Nations (UN) defines solitary confinement as an individual being kept locked inside a cell in isolation for at least 22-hours per day. The UN Nelson Mandela Rules prohibits this occurring in excess of 15-consecutive days, classifying any longer as inhumane which is precisely what the CSC is.