href="#ulink_6869bc5a-91bf-5926-a10b-e9c658a62b92">276.Statement of Archbishop Tomas O Fiaich, 1 August 1978 in Faul and Murray, H Blocks, p. 28.
277.For reaction to O Fiaich’s comments see Hibernia, 3 August 1978, Irish Times, 5 August 1978 and Irish Press, 2 August 1978. In January 1978 O Fiaich, in his first major interview after becoming Primate, stated his opinion that the British ‘should leave’ Ireland. Irish World, 21 January 1978. He regarded Cork IRA leader Tom Barry, an acquaintance, as a man devoted to ‘freedom for the Irish people to be themselves and to be masters of their own country’. O Fiaich cited in Meda Ryan, Tom Barry, IRA Freedom Fighter (Cork, 2005), p. 14.
278.See Irish World, 26 August 1978.
279.Sr. Sarah Clarke to the Editor, Catholic Herald, 1 September 1978.
280.Mason, Paying the price, p. 210.
281.NIO, 1 August 1978, ‘Comment by Northern Ireland Office spokesman on Archbishop O’ Fiaich’s statement’, PRONI, NIO/12/68.
CHAPTER 2
Gartree, Wormwood Scrubs and the Blanket Protest in England
The Gartree Riot of 5–6 October 1978 was a non-political and essentially spontaneous upheaval in which IRA men played a part. As with Hull in 1976, the trigger for what mushroomed into a major protest was a belief amongst the prison population that one of their associates had been maltreated. In this instance, the bone of contention revolved around the alleged involuntary drugging or tranquilization of a black prisoner.1 Complaints on such practices had been smuggled out of Gartree to the prisoner’s organization PROP for two years before the matter sparked a riot.2 Martin Brady noted the general deterioration of conditions, with reductions in association time, during which ‘exercise yards only opened if the sun shone’. He identified the ‘abuse of drugs from the medical side’ as the primary cause of the violence which ensued. In Gartree, Brady claimed, ordinary prisoners received ‘whatever … [they] wanted – Mogadon, any kind of sleeping tablets … Nothing recorded’.3 Ronnie McCartney likened the surreal atmosphere at times to the disturbing chaos and alternating chemically induced conformity depicted in Stanley Kubrick’s feature film One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.4
Allegations persisted that inappropriate dosages of dangerous drugs were being administered in English prisons in pursuit of an agenda to either conduct experiments in a controlled environment or simply render prisoners more subject to control. Establishing the truth proved extremely difficult in the face of the numerous defence mechanisms devised by the Home Office. The BBC was successfully sued in the High Court in July 1978 for alleging improper practices in Albany on the part of Dr. Brian Cooper and Dr. Andrew Todd.5 Dr. Cooper was a familiar name to IRA prisoners, and despite his public and private disavowals, was widely regarded as the man who force-fed Michael Gaughan to death in June 1974. His professional position had been consolidated in Parkhurst by the October 1969 riot from which he emerged with a modicum of credit. From 1970, he and Mr. Anthony Pearson supervised an experimental unit in Parkhurst’s C Wing for mentally disturbed prisoners. Inmates were given small financial inducements to work and to behave well during leisure periods. Payment was calculated on a sliding scale from zero to ninety pence a week and overall conduct was linked to other forms of amelioration. Cooper and Pearson administered a ‘progression’ path in C Wing ‘from the ground floor living area to a top floor pre-release area’. They were, in consequence, influential figures on the Isle of Wight in 1972 prior to the return of significant numbers of IRA men to the prison.6 The operation of C Wing in this mode ceased abruptly in March 1979 when the destruction of the roofs of two other wings by the IRA inspired the relocation of its inhabitants into the ill-appointed Hospital Wing.7
A BBC documentary entitled South Today alleged in February 1978 that men were being drugged in Albany to render them docile. This tangentially implicated Dr. Cooper and Dr. Todd, who both had overall responsibility for issuing prescriptions on the island. Cooper, moreover, was meaningfully described by the BBC as being ‘principal medical officer and psychiatrist to the prisons on the Isle of Wight’. Such charges were serious in that Dr. John Whitehead, consultant psychiatrist of the Brighton health district, and Peter McCann of the BBC, claimed that up to 70 per cent of Albany’s inmates were being dosed with drugs harmful to liver function. The High Court found on 28 July 1978 that this dire accusation could not be sustained in law while awarding damages to both practitioners. If the most actionable malpractice charges had been rejected amid the decorum and dignity of the elitist forum, both doctors admitted prescribing drugs for undefined ‘therapeutic reasons’. Details of exact dosages and prevalence of individual treatments remained unspecified in published trial press reports.8 Many English prisoners, nonetheless, genuinely feared ‘Dr. Cooper’s wing for dangerous and insane inmates … the “Psycho Wing”’.9 Sedated men were unflatteringly dubbed ‘Cooper’s Troopers’ by those who watched, transfixed, as they were obliged to bear witness. Scottish militant Jimmy McCaig claimed his instinctive wariness of ‘Doctor Death [Cooper] … nutting [him] off’ to the much - feared Rampton inspired the seizure of Parkhurst Assistant Governor Gerry Schofield as a hostage on 4–5 January 1983.10
Regardless of legal processes, a substantial element of the prison population believed that they were vulnerable to the consequences of irresponsible drug administration. A combination of unhealthy drug dosages and bad diet presumably lay at the heart of the Blood Transfusion Service policy of rejecting donations offered by inmates of Wormwood Scrubs.11 The Gartree allegation touched a raw nerve on 5 October 1978, and Dr. Whitehead restated his opinion that the prison was a location where Largactil and other powerful drugs were routinely used to pacify inmates. Former prisoner George Coggan of PROP averred that the concerns raised related to the ‘use [of drugs] that cannot be countenanced as medical’.12 Paul Hill was shocked at the sight of ‘mad’ prisoners under Dr. Cooper’s care in Parkhurst:
They can have Largactyl, Mogadon, Triptosal – as much of it as they want. The screws take a little plastic cup and mix up the drugs like a cocktail. They ask you if there is anything else you want. They will not let you have tobacco, fresh fruit, vegetables, but you can have as many of their drugs as you like. The men on F2 stagger about all day out of their heads. Cooper’s Troopers have knives and shifts [i.e. ‘chivs’] and there is violence. The screws are happy to let it continue – it gives them an excuse for the wing’s existence.13
The Home Office insisted that normal National Health Service ‘conditions’ pertained in all prisons, although the lack of independent oversight rendered this defence incredible to informed observers.14 Dr. C H McCleery, ex-Medical Officer in Parkhurst, created a sensation in October 1978 when his ‘Treatment of psychopaths with Dexipol’ appeared in the
