The first of April had always been April Fools Day, a day to play jokes and when living in France sticking paper fish on each other’s backs.

But in 2016, all that changed. It was as though I had swapped the fish on my back for a target. On the first of April, I was invited to write an article in The Prisons Handbook with a deadline of a week later. The subject matter, My experiences of the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB).

I had been a member since December 2012, Vice-Chair for two years and the Chair for three months. My life had been overtaken with not just monitoring my local prison HMP/YOI Hollesley Bay but managing my team of nine individuals. I was tired and frustrated to say the least and the invitation by the Editor Mark Leech was just what I needed to release my thoughts. I had already written half of it even before Mark asked me as I often wrote to clear my head. 

Daisy Mallet

We had agreed that I would not put my name on the piece but to use a pseudonym. For me it was important for issues to be raised and not my profile. So, the author ‘Daisy Mallet’ was born and the article “Whistle-Blower without a whistle” was ready for publication, on time.

Sometimes you have to expect the unexpected

The President of the IMB, John Thornhill received a copy of my article before publication and sent it with a covering letter to every member of the IMB, including the Secretariat basically dismissing everything I had raised and added that he had forwarded it to the Ministry of Justice lawyers!

Oh boy I had opened a can of worms. Not the first time and probably not the last.

Two years previously the MoJ had commissioned, at taxpayers’ expense, Karen Page Associates to review the IMB. Its conclusion was that the IMB needed root and branch reform. They were so right, each board operating as a separate entity.

It wasn’t long before it was discovered that the author of the article was in fact me and to this day I don’t know how that happened.

There was nothing earth shattering about my article, I raised similar points to the Karen Page review so why did the MoJ/IMB try to shut me down and silence me? The Ministry of Justice, President of the National Council, IMB Secretariat, National Council and the local IMB board all decided that I needed to be shut up and shut up quickly.

The bullying started, then the intimidation, then the lies and then the prejudicial character assassination.

Over a period of nine months, they all tried unsuccessfully to silence me, I was suspended from my position by the Prisons Minister, investigated twice by the Ministry of Justice, faced a disciplinary hearing in Petty France, and finally dismissed from my role by the next Prisons Minister and banned from membership of the IMB for five years.

All because I told the truth.

But I stood by all I had written.

And still do.

Media interest

During this period, I was inundated with requests by the press for interviews, local, national and international, catapulted into the media world, a world I had little knowledge of. Suddenly my story was not only out in the open but was in every prison across the country. I was listened to and the invisible walls surrounding the IMB were slowly but surely crumbling away.

It wasn’t just me that had come to the realization that the IMB had become an ineffective organisation, its mission statement was not fit for purpose, claiming that:

“Their role is to monitor the day-to-day life in their local prison or removal centre and ensure that proper standards of care and decency are maintained”

In my experience this was grossly misleading because they were unable to ensure anything. I had seen for myself that proper standards of care had not been maintained in prisons and neither had proper standards of decency been maintained. In reality the IMB had therefore comprehensively failed in its purpose.

Not shutting up and not going away

Over the past 10 years I have not stayed silent and continue to write articles, some controversial, not just on my own blogsite www.thecriminaljusticeblog.com  but in magazines, newspapers and journals around the world.

A respected leader in the justice sector recently wrote this about me:

“Faith Spear is an independent criminal justice commentator, criminologist, and the author of The Criminal Justice Blog. She has become a powerful voice in the national conversation about prisons, justice, and reform.

Drawing on research, frontline insight, and lived experience, Faith shines a light on the realities of the prison system and the people within it. Her work is grounded in a simple belief: if we want a safer and fairer society, we must be willing to ask difficult questions and challenge the systems that are not working.

Through her writing and public commentary, Faith brings attention to the issues that too often remain hidden. She amplifies voices that are rarely heard, exposes systemic failings, and encourages honest dialogue about what meaningful reform should look like.

Over the years she has built a reputation as an advocate who is thoughtful, courageous and unafraid to speak truth to power. Her work seeks not only to highlight problems but to encourage solutions rooted in humanity, fairness, and hope”.

This accurately portrays what I have tried to do all along. Despite the pain, stress and abuse I have endured as a result of writing “Whistle-blower without a whistle”, I would not want to turn back the clock.

Ten years after my article was published, the IMB is still far from being independent, members are still not paid for the work they do, and annual reports are left sitting on the proverbial shelf to collect dust. Year after year the same issues are raised with little progress.

The President has been replaced by a National Chair; more layers of management have been introduced, and now an interim National Chair is in place, that person is Jane Leech (no relation to Mark)

Do I have high hopes for change?

No, not really and that’s because I have come across that name before.

The same Jane Leech was on the panel which considered my complaint of being bullied by members of my board in our April 2016 board meeting. My complaint was dismissed out of hand.  “that on a balance of probability (9 members versus myself) the complaint has not been substantiated”. This was on the basis of the evidence that was provided. That speaks volumes. In actual fact the members of my board had blindsided the investigator, they colluded against me and the panel including Jane Leech had accepted their assertion that “…there is consistent evidence that the meeting was managed in a professional and calm manner”.

It wasn’t professional and it wasn’t calm. It was bullying in the workplace, pre-meditated and organised with prior knowledge of the MoJ. They know it and I know it.

Exceptionally, no minutes of that meeting were to be found. The panel pointed out that formal minutes would have assisted in assessing what was said and by whom.

We always minuted every meeting.

The panel also mentioned that no independent person was present.

I’m sure that was intentional too.

I still have many questions, but I doubt they will ever willingly give me the answers.

The membership of the IMB has halved since I was part of it.

Their mission statement has changed too:

“IMB members are the eyes and ears of the public, appointed by ministers to perform a vital task: independent monitoring of prisons and immigration detention. They report on whether the individuals held there are being treated fairly and humanely…”

You can report all you like but when IMB annual reports are already wildly out of date by the time they are published and some IMB’s fail even to write an annual report, does the public receive the true picture of the crisis within our prisons?

Slow painful demise of IMBs sped up by cost cutting of all Arm’s-Length Bodies across government

Between writing this article and publishing it, the Insidetimes newspaper had a scoop, the headline:

“EXCLUSIVE: Prison watchdog merger spells the end for Independent Monitoring Boards”

The Independent Monitoring Boards, HM Inspectorate of Prisons and Lay Observers are to merge as a cost-cutting exercise as a result of a review within the Ministry of Justice.

This hasn’t come as a surprise to me as there have been many whispers in the so-called corridors of power in Westminster. In addition, in 2020 I was involved in writing a response on behalf of several charities in the consultation “Strengthening the Independent Scrutiny Bodies through legislation”

The final question: “Do you think that HMI Prisons, the IMB’s, and the Lay Observers should all be merged under HMI Prisons (the Scottish model) reflecting what HMI Prisons Scotland have where HM’s Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland (HMCIPS) has the responsibility for prison inspections, prison monitoring and prison escorts? Please give a reason/s for your answer.”

Five years and countless Justice Ministers later and the watering down of scrutiny bodies will be reaching its conclusion. In what form the merger will take place, who knows. But in my experience, cost cutting schemes rarely bring about effective solutions.

One thing I will be delighted about is that there will no longer be an independent monitoring board that is everything but independent. Hopefully the new revised organisation will finally fulfil its remit as part of the National Preventative Mechanism (NPM) and OPCAT.

But what I do know is that our prisons are in crisis and reform of our prisons is taking too long.