Decision report 201104879

Summary
Mr C, who is a prisoner, submitted a request for a same-day visit. The normal process requires that prisoners give 24 hours notice. The prison try to adopt a flexible approach to late requests and had accommodated such requests from Mr C in the past. However, on this occasion they were unable to do so. Mr C complained that hall staff had unreasonably failed to pass his request to visit staff. He also complained that the prison failed to fully investigate his complaint because they did not address this specific concern when responding to him.

When we investigated this, the prison explained that the officer did not pass Mr C's request to visit staff as he was distracted by other duties. We acknowledged that it would have been helpful if the prison had explained this to Mr C. However, the officer did not in fact breach any policy in not passing on the request as Mr C did not submit it within the relevant notification period. The prison highlighted the process to Mr C and apologised that they were unable to be flexible on this occasion. We considered this reasonable and we did not uphold his complaints.