A former officer at Wales’ most controversial prison has made allegations of serious failings in connection to three recent inmate deaths. Privately-run HMP Parc in Bridgend has seen 17 deaths in 10 months amid scandals over allegedly-rife corruption and drug-dealing.
Ex-employee James (not his real name) has now made claims of safeguarding errors linked to the deaths of Michael ‘Mikey’ Horton, Warren Manners, and Shay Andrews. The heartbroken family of teenager Mikey say they are “appalled” at the alleged failings. Meanwhile G4S – the private security giant that runs the jail – said it would be inappropriate to comment on “individual deaths” and added: “Our thoughts remain with the families of the men that have died and we continue to work hard to reduce risk of harm to the men in our care.”
James, who worked at the Category B jail for several years, also gave a damning account of “laughable” staff searches, failures to prevent frequent drone drops, and a “revolving door” of staff stretched too thinly to do their jobs properly. Last year WalesOnline spoke with other former Parc officers who claimed 24-hour shifts were common due to threadbare resources. At the time G4S strongly denied that staff had been working 24-hour shifts. But when James provided evidence G4S U-turned and accepted it had been happening in “unusual” circumstances.
G4S said James had been dismissed for dishonesty amounting to “gross misconduct”. But the firm did not dispute any of his allegations other than to say it did not “accept his characterisation of the security practices at HMP Parc”. WalesOnline understands his dismissal was linked to the reason he gave for a work absence and he denies dishonesty.
Deaths ‘should never have happened’
Michael ‘Mikey’ Horton with mother Cath
Since late February there have been 17 inmate deaths at Parc of which, according to G4S, five were drug-related, three self-inflicted, eight of natural causes, and one of unknown causes. In June the jail’s director was replaced following rioting and more recently four staff have been arrested for alleged misconduct and assault. A corruption probe is under way into staff messages about “excessive use of force on prisoners”. WalesOnline has reported on many allegations from former prison officers and inmates of rampant drug-dealing, violence, understaffing, and a lack of mental health support .
James has now come forward to voice concerns over the deaths of 19-year-old Mikey Horton from Newport, 23-year-old Shay Andrews from Birmingham, and 38-year-old Warren Manners from Cardiff. “These three deaths should never have happened,” he said.
Mikey’s aunt Frances Jones, 61, described him as a “lovable” person who cared deeply for his family. He loved motorbikes and had such a powerful voice that he could have made an opera singer, said Frances, who smiled at the memory of him booming out the Welsh national anthem around the house and – in a typical example of his quirky sense of humour – replacing “Wlad” with “Marc” in a bid to make his uncle Marc Jones laugh.
A still of Mikey with a friend in a funny TikTok video
Frances said the teenager spent time working on the upkeep of Tintern Abbey – where he had the “gift of the gab” to charm visitors – and had aspirations to become a stonemason. But addiction derailed his life. In 2023 his family called police after his drug abuse led to an episode of mental illness. When officers arrived he made knife threats towards them resulting in a 16-month term at Parc.
The family hoped prison would be an opportunity for Mikey to get sober. “We thought it was the right thing only to find out he would have been safer on the outside,” said Frances. The family started receiving messages from strangers asking for hundreds of pounds because Mikey “had run up a drug debt” while inside. Frances described her nephew as “petrified” for his own safety due to threats from dealers in the prison. At one point his family saw him with a swollen lip, which he told them was caused by an inmate striking him.
Michael ‘Mikey’ Horton
Mikey was found hanged on May 7. When James heard “code blue” screamed over the radio it “sent shivers” down his spine. James claims Mikey had been under self-harm monitoring protocols that required he be checked every half an hour. But when his body was discovered the healthcare team allegedly told James that Mikey had been hanged hours earlier.
This comes after similar controversy over another Parc prisoner, 29-year-old Justin Lewis, who died on March 16 in what is believed to be a suicide. In May we interviewed his sister Naomi who said Justin had been admitted to hospital for serious self-harm just weeks before he died. She alleged that at the time of his death he was meant to be under self-harm monitoring every hour but that he was not checked for five hours before his death.
Frances and Mikey’s mother Cath were brought to tears when WalesOnline made them aware of the alleged hours-long gap in Mikey’s self-harm monitoring. They had already felt that G4S’ £400m contract to run Parc was untenable due to the flow of drugs into the jail but the whistleblower’s claims left them “appalled”. Frances said: “We had hoped and even prayed that Mikey would get the help and support he needed in prison. There are no right words.”
Warren Manners and Shay Andrews
Self-harm incidents among Parc inmates rose last year by 113% and self-harm incidents requiring hospital treatment by a staggering 190%. Before his death on May 29 Warren Manners had reportedly spent weeks in hospital because of extremely serious self-harm. When he returned to Parc he was moved to a ‘safer custody’ wing where at-risk inmates are given extra support. James said Mr Manners was under “constant watch” for a couple of weeks with officers monitoring him 24 hours a day.
The former officer claimed that a manager then removed Mr Manners from constant watch and lowered the monitoring requirement to an observation every 15 minutes. James was surprised at this decision because he claimed Mr Manners still appeared to be in a seriously disturbed state. “The day after he was taken off constant watch he killed himself,” James claimed. “He was meant to be checked every 15 minutes but he wasn’t noticed until around 50 minutes later.” It is thought that Mr Manners allegedly took his own life by suffocation. James claims that by the time an officer entered his cell it was too late to save him.
The amount of drug equipment found at Parc surged by 185% last year. Shay Andrews died at the prison on March 18 and later that month an inquest opening heard his death was believed to be drug-related. We have previously reported on claims that the jail is flooded with drugs – sometimes brought in by officers, at other times dropped by drones, and in other cases even smuggled in children’s nappies during visits. “Every drug you can buy outside you can buy in Parc,” said one former prisoner.
James believed that Mr Andrews was one of the most vulnerable prisoners at Parc. “We were given guidance by a senior manager that he had the mental capacity of an eight-year-old,” James claimed. “He could be hard work but we had a really good rapport. He’d say: ‘All right, my battery’s not charging,’ and I’d charge his vape.”
The former officer believes Shay should have been on the ‘safer custody’ wing under regular observation. “I’d made my thoughts known to a senior manager because Shay was clearly super-vulnerable,” James claimed. “All I was told was: ‘Yeah – but where can we put him?’ He needed to be more protected. But instead he was moved to B wing, which was the worst in the prison for drugs. Within a couple of weeks of moving there he was dead from spice.” Efforts have been made to contact the families of Mr Andrews and Mr Manners.
‘A massive safety risk’
James claimed Parc’s problems started to become more serious around 18 months ago due to a “drastic” downturn in both staffing numbers and the quality of staff. Last month Parc’s director Will Styles faced questions in Parliament and admitted that “if I look back six months we have had situations where we’ve been short-staffed” although he claimed this was no longer the case.
The ratio of staff to prisoners has been a major issue, particularly during night shifts, claimed James. “Normally you’d have two staff to a block containing four wings. One would cover two wings and the other would cover the other two wings so they’d each be responsible for about 220 prisoners. But recently it started happening that quite often on a night shift you’d have just one member of staff in charge of all four wings.
“An officer might need to go with someone on an A&E run and you’d be left on your own, which I think is madness. If there’s a serious incident in a cell and someone is potentially dying you’re supposed to wait for two others although I know staff who have gone in by themselves when there’s a concern for welfare.” He further claimed: “One girl on B block was left five night shifts out of seven on her own with over 400 prisoners.
Michael Horton’s family were among those to protest outside Parc prison in 2024
“I have seen a prisoner getting battered by his cellmate while I was on a night shift. I wasn’t on my own that night but I often think: ‘What if I was?’ We wouldn’t have been able to open that door until security got there, which would have been a good few minutes. It’s the same with self-harm incidents, which we’ve had a big issue with. It’s a massive safety risk.
“I’ve argued the case with senior managers. You’ve got prisoners who need to be checked every half an hour. If I collapsed who is going to know? The answer I got was that we’d have to deal with that if it happens.” In response G4S said its day and night staffing levels “are based on the same staff-to-prisoner ratios as are used in all closed prisons, public or private”.
‘Do you know what? I’m gone’
Inadequate staffing allegedly led some prisoners to feel they could act with impunity. Some inmates have used illicit mobiles to share pictures of themselves bare-chested and flexing their muscles in the sunny exercise yard. James said some prisoners felt comfortable enough to film with their phones in full view of staff. “If someone is walking around with a phone and there are meant to be three officers on the landing but there are only two of you, and the other officer is a 20-year-old girl who’s just started, you are not going to challenge them,” said James. “You are not going to put a young colleague in that position.”
One of the pictures that appear to have been shared on Instagram by Parc prisoners
Last year Parc saw assaults on staff increase by 109%. James believes that some staff quit due to not feeling properly protected from violence. “There was one incident when two prisoners assaulted a member of staff and they were both moved to segregation,” he claimed. “Less than 24 hours later the prisoners were back in the same unit walking round the landing. They’d not even been moved to a different wing.
“It was put down to a lack of space. But these are things that will make a staff member say: ‘Do you know what? I’m gone.’ I’ve also had staff say to me: ‘I don’t care now – they can do what they want. I don’t care about doing the job properly anymore.’ James believes that in general the staff “work so hard and are so undervalued”.
He claimed that 18 months ago a vicious circle began in which staff numbers dropped, making the job more difficult for those remaining, which in turn prompted more to quit. “When I spoke to people who were leaving they said they couldn’t deal with it any longer,” James claimed. “Staff were constantly being asked to do 24-hour shifts and have the next day off.”
When previous whistleblowers made similar claims G4S told WalesOnline that 24-hour shifts simply did not happen. But James, who said he worked “many” 24-hour shifts himself, provided evidence that cast doubt on G4S’ position. The firm has now U-turned and said: “As with all prisons (public or private) there are circumstances where staff may be asked to stay longer than their scheduled finish time if, for example, they are dealing with a serious incident or a hospital escort. Such circumstances are unusual but where they do occur staff are remunerated and offered additional support.”
Drone drops and ‘laughable’ searches
Last month G4S admitted drops by “industrial-specification drones” were one of the key routes for drugs into Parc. James believes that the drone problem has become “unmanageable” in recent months. “In a good week you’d get one drone but sometimes you’d get two or three a night. The drone indicator system doesn’t always detect them.”
James gave an in-depth account of Parc’s alleged vulnerability to drone deliveries. We are not including the full details because G4S has warned it would “undermine the operational security of Parc”. In essence James accused the prison of failing to address serious deficiencies in the ability of staff to react to drones. He alleged this was partly due to inadequate staff numbers and partly the windows of some wings not having the same safeguards as others.
James spent time working at another G4S jail where “there was a proper random selection for staff searches – you’d take your boots off and you’d have to open everything you were taking in”. But he claimed the searches of staff entering Parc were “laughable”, adding: “You don’t get scanned. You just get a pat down and a search of your bag. And that’s not daily – it’s about once a week. A more targeted search would happen maybe once a year.”
What G4S says
A spokeswoman for G4S said: “[The former officer] was dismissed for serious dishonesty amounting to gross misconduct. We do not accept his characterisation of the security practices at HMP Parc. Since March 2024 HMP Parc has been working with HMPPS and South Wales Police to enhance and provide additional resources to the prison’s security measures. Actions have been taken on a local and national level to safeguard prisoners and mitigate the ingress of illicit substances. It would be inappropriate for G4S to comment publicly on individual deaths in custody cases in advance of the coroners’ inquests and it is hugely concerning that the former officer has chosen to do so.”
During a recent Parliamentary session on the Parc crisis prisons minister Lord James Timpson said bringing the prison under public control was not being considered. He said insufficient staffing and concerns over health and safety were among the reasons a prison could be nationalised but he was “not seeing those reasons” at Parc.
G4S says Parc carries out more than 1,500 staff searches each month “including entry and exit searches and spot checks”. It is working with the Ministry of Justice on “various programmes to enhance security”. And it says its recruitment and retention rates have “improved significantly” with a net increase of 45 prison officers over the last six months.
Following last year’s protests at Parc a G4S spokeswoman said: “We extend our sincere condolences to the family and friends of those who have died recently at Parc. As with all deaths in custody these are being investigated by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman. The safety of staff and prisoners is our priority. We have a zero-tolerance policy towards drugs and use a range of tactics to tackle the ingress of drugs and reduce demand. This includes robust security measures for staff, visitors, and prisoners as well as substance misuse support to those in our care.”
If you would like to talk to WalesOnline about an issue at Parc prison contact our investigations editor at conor.gogarty@walesonline.co.uk
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