Decision Report 201303566

Summary

Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained that the prison failed to handle his complaint appropriately. He said the manager did not offer to discuss the complaint with him, even though prison rules said she was required to, and did not provide him with a full response. In addition, Mr C said he progressed his complaint to the prison's internal complaints committee (ICC) but he was not called to the hearing or provided with a response.

During our investigation, we obtained more information from the prison, who provided a copy of the manager's full response. However, they were unable to confirm whether the manager had offered to discuss the complaint. The prison also said they had no record of Mr C progressing his complaint to the ICC. Having considered the available evidence, we took the view that although it was unfortunate that the manager may not have offered Mr C the chance to discuss his complaint, we did not feel that this alone was serious enough for us to uphold his complaint.

Mr C also complained to us that the prison mishandled his complaint to the governor, in that it was either lost or the governor did not respond. As the prison provided confirmation that the governor received and responded to Mr C's complaint, we did not uphold this either.