Anne, I just had a phone call from an old colleague and friend who currently works for the Home Office and has contacts with prisons in the Midlands area.

While she was on the phone I asked her if she knew anything of the situation you were told. She thinks it extremely unlikely that decorations would be restricted for any reason other than basic health and safety, security or (as in some hosiptal wards this year) to prevent spread of infection.


btw I understand HMP Featherstone is where Kevin Hughes* is currently serving a 30 month sentance for an unprovoked assault on an Iraqui asylum seeker - a 'volatile' prisoner indeed!

*Hughes, former BNP Worcestershire Organiser and election agent for BNP councillor David Enderby, who was voted the BNP's 'Activist of the Year' at their annual Red White and Blue festival, was convicted back in June for attacking an Iraqi in a pub after asking him where he came from. The original sentence was for thirty months and provoked outrage from the BNP who chose to ignore the fact that Hughes was the instigator of the attack, choosing instead to criticise his victim for 'having the means and time to drink in the public houses of Worcester'.