Source · SPSO (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman)

Scottish Prison Service

SPSO (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman) Upheld Reference 201305305 Sector Prisons Category accuracy of prisoner record Decided 01 May 2014

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Full decision

Summary

Mr C, who is a prisoner, told us that the prison did not investigate his complaint appropriately. Mr C had complained that his parole dossier (the documents prepared by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) for the parole board) contained inaccurate information. In particular, the dossier said that Mr C had assaulted a prison officer, which Mr C said was untrue.

In responding to his complaint, the prison had suggested that the information referred to stemmed from one of two possible incidents. However, when we made enquiries with the SPS, they confirmed that no such incident had taken place and said the inaccurate information was contained within a report prepared by an assessor for another purpose. We upheld Mr C's complaint, because we found that the prison's response to his complaint was inaccurate and misleading.

Recommendations

We recommended that SPS: apologise to Mr C for failing to adequately investigate the circumstances of his complaint.

Related reading

View Decision Report 201305305 as a PDF (12.01 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

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