Court criticises strip searching of women prisoners

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has welcomed a judgment in the High Court which criticised the practice of strip searching women prisoners at Hydebank Wood as an “unnecessary and humiliating policy”.

The application for judicial review of such searches was brought by Karen Carson, a prisoner challenging the conditions under which she is being held at the Centre.

The Commission, which assisted Ms Carson to bring her case, expressed grave concerns over the lack of in-cell sanitation available to female prisoners at Hydebank Wood and their subjection to strip searches.

The Court accepted that the experience of strip searching put forward by Ms Carson was “humiliating” and that, having failed to have proper and explicit regard to Ms Carson’s human rights, the policy of strip searching was “disproportionate and unnecessary”.

Commenting on the case, the Commission’s Investigations Worker, Dr Linda Moore, said: “We welcome the Court’s findings on the oppressive and humiliating strip searching regime operated at Hydebank Wood.

“By assisting Karen Carson with this case we hope that conditions for women prisoners can be improved to meet international standards and that the frequent practice of strip searching will now stop.”

The Court also found that while the sanitation arrangements for women at Hydebank may “not be ideal”, they could not be described as degrading.

(MB/GB)