Defendant hasn't made 125 mile trip from Kent prison to Oxford court

Judge Michael Gledhill KC told barristers on Wednesday (March 22) afternoon that the man due before him to enter pleas to charges of assault and having an unauthorised weapon at Bullingdon prison was like ‘the tail wagging the dog’.

The defendant, who is an inmate HMP Swaleside in Kent’s Isle of Sheppey, had failed to turn up at Oxford Crown Court for earlier hearings.

After that aborted court hearing, Judge Gledhill issued an order for the prison service to move him to a jail closer to Oxfordshire ahead of the case being heard this week – and gave the gaolers permission to ‘use force’ in order to get him to court.

HMP Swaleside Picture: PA (Image: Press Association)

But on Wednesday, the judge said his orders had been ‘blatantly ignored’. “No proper explanation has been given as to why he is not here,” he added. Similarly, there was no explanation why the governor at Swaleside was not in court to explain the failure to bring the defendant to court.

“In these circumstances what am I supposed to do? Let this tail continue to wag the dog – both of the prison and this court?” he questioned.

Judge Gledhill said he had arrived at court on Wednesday morning to be told the case was being listed in the afternoon to give the private contractor responsible for prison transport time to drive the defendant from the Isle of Sheppey to Oxford – as he had not been moved to a closer jail.

Later, the judge was told that the prison van would not arrive in the city of dreaming spires until 3pm.

Judge Gledhill stressed in communications with the prison that the accused had to be brought to Oxford ‘as soon as possible’.

“If that meant getting a taxi and accompanying the defendant by prison officer so be it,” he said.

“Failing that, a prison governor from Swaleside had to attend in person to explain to me why my orders were being ignored.”

Oxford Crown Court Picture: Ed Nix (Image: Ed Nix)

When the case was called on at 2pm, there was no taxi waiting outside court and no governor waiting in the green baize benches of the public gallery in courtroom two.

What the judge did have was an email from HMP Swaleside saying that the defendant could be beamed into court via video link and attaching a document.

That document, the judge said, was a guidance letter issued by the prison authorities in 2019 pressing the importance of prisoners being produced at court. The Crown Prosecution Service had raised the ‘increasing problem of prisoners who are refusing to attend court’ and resulting in delays, the letter said.

Mystified at the missive’s significance, Judge Gledhill pondered: “The irony is that Swaleside has sent me that letter. It doesn’t support the prison governor’s stance, namely the prison are not bringing him to court. It rather undermines his approach. Or, indeed, her approach; I don’t know.”

He suggested that the private contractor responsible for bringing prisoners to court ‘will not take prisoners who don’t willingly go on to their transport’ as there were security implications and ‘they don’t have enough security staff’.

The judge ordered the prison governor to attend this morning (Thursday) to explain what had happened. He said the governor ‘hardly needs me to spell out’ the consequences of not turning up.

“It’s an outrageous abuse of the court’s processes. It’s costing this country and its taxpayers thousands of pounds in a situation which should have been resolved as long ago as November,” he added.

“Here we are approaching April in exactly the same position.”

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