THE MINISTRY of Justice has responded to criticism that HMP Usk is taking in Covid-19 positive prisoners.

The criticism centres around a Covid-19 positive prisoner being moved from HMP Prescoed to HMP Usk due to a non-coronavirus related medical condition which means he needs to be in confinement.

HMP Prescoed is a Category D prison, which means there are no locks on the cells, while HMP Usk is Category C with locked cells.

Prison staff, prisoners and Gwent residents have recently mourned the death of HMP Usk officer Rachael Yates, who died of coronavirus and one prisoner is known to have died with the virus.

After the Covid-19 positive prisoner was moved to Usk last week, a relative of an inmate at the prison who wishes to remain anonymous said: “Both inmates and staff in HMP Usk went through a great deal of hardship and loss to eradicate the virus that had attacked them.

“HMP Usk managed to contain the virus and it was my understanding that the inmates would have soon been able to have had more freedom in terms of lockdown.

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“My understanding is that they’ve been confined to their cells for 23 hours every day with no family visits or study opportunities for several weeks now.”

If you have urgent concerns about someone in prison during the coronavirus outbreak visit https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-and-prisons.

An anonymous source says a notice has now gone up in the prison informing people that the authorities elsewhere are looking to ease the lockdown where possible, but that this will not be possible in Usk.

“This is obviously because of the imported prisoner,” the source claimed.

“Other prisons are investigating ways to restart family visits soon on a restricted basis, so Usk inmates anticipated they would follow suit.

“I do fear another outbreak there. How on earth can the virus be better contained by moving someone who has it into a place which does not? This is what happened with nursing homes, and it did not end well.”

A Prison Service spokesperson said: “We have strong measures in place to protect our staff and prisoners - and independent public health monitoring suggests the steps we have taken are working and limiting the spread of the virus in our jails."