Founded 1980
Chair:        
Secretary: 
Treasurer: 

Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft


Issue No. 72 Spring 2015
There are a total of nine states which have to date not ratified the deal thus leaving 1,600 of their kinsfolk being detained in our jails. 

All 28 member states were supposed to have ratified a deal allowing the compulsory transfer of prisoners back to their respective states by the end of 2011. This deadline has now been pushed back to May 2015. 

You can further bet that once/if ratification is agreed, few if any of those in our prisons will be in a rush to be repatriated, and our courts will be bursting with appeals under the Human Rights Act. 

Retirement 

Having served 10 years as a PGA representative at Littlehey and Gartree respectively plus almost 15 years serving on the RPGA Committee, I feel the time has come for me to step down and allow younger fresh blood, who will be more up to date with current prison service regimes, to take my place. This therefore will be the final edition of the Newsletter which will be edited by me. Paul Laxton has offered his services to take over as your new editor and I look forward with some degree of pleasure in reading the future editions. I would wish to take this opportunity to give my thanks to all of you who have contributed the many and varied articles to me. They have and continue to be the very lifeblood of this publication. 

I must further record my special thanks to Jenny Adams Young who has acted as proof reader to the Newsletter, a task which is not only extremely onerous but also extremely important. I will continue to manage the email register until my term of office on the committee expires at the next AGM in June of this year.  

Submissions for inclusion in the Autumn edition of the Newsletter should be sent to Paul. 

Harry Brett will be acting as your email register coordinator from June onwards. I started the register some 13 years ago and, in addition to the newsletter, it has proved to be a successful means of communication between retired colleagues.

My understanding that countries wishing to be eligible to join the European Community is that their public services and human rights must be of a standard acceptable to fellow members and on a par to that which fellow members deliver. It comes therefore, (although I know it shouldn’t) as somewhat of a surprise to discover that of the 10,500 foreign nationals being held in British prisons, almost 2,000 are E.U citizens. A recent court ruling prevented the transfer back to Lithuania of one of its citizens because the jail conditions in that country breaches human rights. I’m led to believe there are over 400 Lithuanian prisoners incarcerated in our prisons, who, because of this court ruling, must continue to be a burden to the Service and a cost to the British tax payer.  
Mick Roebuck