Lawyers join call on prison

Press, 30 March 1989, Page 7

Lawyers join call on prison

DEBORAH MCPHERSON

Seven Christchurch lawyers have supported a call by Christchurch prison chaplains to close Addington Prison immediately. The chaplains have likened the organisation of the prison to a zoo and have called for its closing and immediate demolition.

The lawyers say they have come to agree with the chaplains, after their experience in representing some of the defendants charged with rioting at the prison in October last year. A spokesman, Mr Michael Knowles, said the poor conditions at the prison, outlined by the chaplains, were an underlying cause of the riot.

“While we did not advantce the conditions as a justification for the actions of those involved, the Crown did not challenge the contention that the conditions were poor and the sentencing judge accepted that the conditions there were bad,” he said.

The fact that persons remanded to Addington immediately go into those conditions was in itself a severe punishment, he said.

“We believe, furthermore, that these conditions do not compare at all favourably with those for sentenced prisoners at Paparua Prison.” Considering that many of those detained at Addington were remand prisoners only, the conditions at the prison were inconsistent with the important legal principles that an accused person was innocent until proven guilty and that a remand in custody before sentence should not be for the purpose of punishment, Mr Knowles said.

The other lawyers supporting the chaplains were Messrs M. J. Glue, P. H. B. Hall, D. J. Taffs, W. Rosenberg, A. N. D. Garrett and R. Granville Glover.