Sunday 1 May 2016

Brutal Reception at Hydebank YOC

'Jim' spent most of the 1980's in Hydebank Young Offenders Centre, just outside Belfast.  He is now in his mid-fifties, is a single man living in a Housing Association flat in North Belfast.  He suffers from Clinical Depression, was a recidivist offender in his youth, has had a long history of Alcoholism/Addiction and looks older than his age.  'Jim' has agreed to share his experiences at Hydebank.

Q: What were your first experiences on being admitted to Hydebank YOC?

Jim: As soon as I entered the reception of Hydebank I was punched in the mouth and told by a group of screws that this is what I'd get every day if I ever didn't behave myself.  I then was given a 'Hydebank haircut' that was carried out by a reception screw with electric shears. It was designed to degrade you as basically half of my head shaved bald and the other half left untouched.
The next v embarrassing thing that happened was that all new prisoners were brought to the 'hospital' which really was just a sick bay. There was a panel of screws, some were supposedly Medical Officers (MO's) which I've since learnt is a screw who has the same training as a Healthcare Assistant, other screws and a female nurse. They made me strip naked in front of them while a non-medical screw examined my genitals with a pen. There was no medical reasoning for this, it was simply another method of humiliation and a means to degrade prisoners.

After this prisoners were assigned wings depending on whether they had been detained there before.  There was a complete atmosphere of hostility and fear in the wings.  Before a prisoner could enter his designated cell, he was forced to "mark time" which entailed marching at an impossible rate with screws shouting verbal abuse and slapping you for what seemed like an eternity.  When this eventually ended, there was more threats regarding folding your bedding into what were called 'bed packs'.  More often than not the threats were followed up by a slap or a punch.  On my first time in Hydebank I was terrified and was convinced that the screws were quite capable of killing you and having seen the absolute control they had, it was clear that they would probably get off with it.

5 comments:

  1. I picked up on the "bed-pack" incident ,when i could not get it right ,the bedpack was thrown out of E3 grill,down the stairs along with my shaving kit ,which had to be placed on a folded towel,exactly spaced,The officer who did this was well known for his crazy out-bursts,he also told us his name was Billy The Bastard, and he was

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know exactly what you sent through as I was in Hydebank 4 times in the 1980's it was a very strict regime physically and emotionalaly even with cleaning your cell they came in with a white glove (the white glove inspection) everything had to be spotless even with your black tolite seat which had to be polished

      Delete
    2. billy the bastard,he didnt get that name for nothing,he head butted me on the side of the face for not repeating my name and number correctly,Parky then appeared and punched me into my cell and said he would see me later,and he did,kidney punches,stamping on my feet,he was crazy bad,a real psycho,i was sent to the blocks until the bruises went down, and he charged me with fighting with another inmate who was already released,cruel,sick,grown men beating up teenagers,this was regular on E1

      Delete
  2. Another subscriber here had commented on the brown tiles fiasco,if you stepped on them Parky would pull you out of the sickbay group that was passing through E1 put you in the store room at the end of the wing,then come down with Mr Morrow and the two of the would hit you withwell directed digs,in the worst places,i felt there was no hope,when my dad heard about this he done some checking on parky,waited for him outside and told him what would happen to him if he kept this abuse up,my da got 4 months in the crum for threats,when officer Bennet had to be removed cause his brother turned supergrass,Parky seemed to disappear too,they were both ex-maze officers

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete