Writers rejoice at ruling against ‘cruel and ludicrous’ prison books ban
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Version 0 of 1. The high court’s ruling that the ban on sending books to prisoners is unlawful has been hailed as “the halting of an iniquitous and draconian ban” and a “rare victory for common sense” by the award-winning novelists who have battled for it to be quashed. Announcing the judgment, Mr Justice Collins said that justice secretary Chris Grayling’s blanket policy, which prevented families sending in small items to prisoners, including books, should be amended, describing it as strange to regard books as a privilege. “I see no good reason, in the light of the importance of books for prisoners, to restrict beyond what is required by volumetric control … and reasonable measures relating to frequency of parcels and security considerations,” he added. The policy had been roundly condemned by a united front of the UK’s best-known writers, with poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy leading a protest outside Pentonville prison, and major names including Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, Mark Haddon, Ian McEwan and Mary Beard championing the cause. “This is a wise, just and irrefutably correct ruling,” said Duffy. “We all look forward to hearing to which prison library Mr Grayling will be sending books for Christmas.” McEwan added: “The imagination triumphs over small-mindedness. This is great news for prisoners, great news for the book.” Barnes described the ruling as “terrific news, and a rare victory for common sense”, while Philip Pullman, who had previously described the rules as “despicable”, said he was “delighted” to hear of the judge’s decision. “Clearly the Ministry of Justice was taken aback by the public reaction to their mean and vindictive ban, and tried to claim that there was nothing new; it only enforced an already existing rule, and so forth. Bluster. I’m very glad that the courts have seen through it, and stated that reading is a right and not a privilege.” On Twitter, JK Rowling wrote: “Delighted to hear this.” Ali Smith, whose novel How to Be Both recently won the Goldsmiths prize, went further, calling the decision “the best news: the halting of an iniquitous and draconian ban, and an end to a move so reactionary that it was near unbelievable, a kind of surreal and appalling cherry on top of the recent barrage of pressures on civil liberties”. “What a sensible decision. I’m so pleased,” added bestselling novelist Kathy Lette, who had protested the ban in an unusually literary fashion. “I’m so glad I sent the baddie in my latest novel Courting Trouble, one Christopher Grayling, to a prison where there were no books which consequently drives him mad, as it drives home the point that books are a staple, like bread and water, not a luxury or a privilege.” Lette said she would “have to write a sequel to Courting Trouble now, where the Grayling character is redeemed by books and has a total personality-ectomy and is released, a born again human being”. The test case had been brought on behalf of a prisoner, Barbara Gordon-Jones, who has a doctorate in English literature, and who the ruling notes wished to read books which were “not normally required by fellow prisoners”. A neurologist who saw her in March 2014 “noted her love of reading and the importance to her of access to books”. At that time she was reading three books, one by Alan Bennett, one by Monica Ali and the dialogues of Marcus Aurelius. “What’s important for us is the recognition in the judgment that books are not a privilege but a necessity,” said Jo Glanville, director of English PEN, which together with the Howard League for Penal Reform has spearheaded the Books For Prisoners campaign against the blanket ban. “This is fantastic news, but it has taken longer than it should have. I’ve never worked on a campaign before which has had so much external coverage, and where the government has refused to move, where it has turned its face away. We’ve had the most celebrated authors in the country, wall-to-wall media coverage, and still they’ve refused to budge.” Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, began the protests in March after she outed the book ban in an essay for the website Politics.co.uk. “I think the Ministry of Justice managed to unite all the country’s top writers, and the general public, against them, which is a huge achievement. Banning books for prisoners was the most cruel and ludicrous decision. What I hope they do now is act quickly so that families can send their loved ones a book for Christmas,” she said. What happens next is “up to the Ministry of Justice”, said Crook. “They can either delay and prevaricate, or they can appeal, in which case it would probably go into the middle of next year. Or they can act quickly … If they can change stamp duty overnight, they can do this. An appeal would just look petty and spiteful. At this time of year, they would just look like Scrooge.” “We’ll have to see how they respond,” said Glanville. “They clearly haven’t cared until this point how awful they have appeared. All the way through it could have been an easy win for them to lift these restraints because they were so clearly, deeply unpopular. But Chris Grayling does not seem to want to change his mind.” Earlier, a Prison Service spokesperson said: “This is a surprising judgment. There never was a specific ban on books, and the restrictions on parcels have been in existence across most of the prison estate for many years and for very good reason. “Prisoners have access to the same public library service as the rest of us, and can buy books through the prison shop. We are considering how best to fulfil the ruling of the court. However, we are clear that we will not do anything that would create a new conduit for smuggling drugs and extremist materials into our prisons.” |