HM Prison Ford (informally known as Ford Open Prison) is a Category D men's

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...

, located at

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

, in

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, near Arundel and

Littlehampton Littlehampton is a town, seaside resort, and pleasure harbour, and the most populous civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. It lies on the English Channel on the eastern bank of the mouth of the River Arun. It is south sout ...

. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.

Air Force and Navy use

The site was initially RAF Ford before changing into Royal Naval Air Station Ford (RNAS Ford/HMS Peregrine) a

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...

station. The

Westland Wyvern The Westland Wyvern was a British single-seat carrier-based multi-role strike aircraft built by Westland Aircraft that served in the 1950s, seeing active service in the 1956 Suez Crisis. Production Wyverns were powered by a turboprop engine dri ...

went into service first here in the early 1950s with 813 Naval Air Squadron. The following units were here at some point: ;Naval units: ;Units:

Prison recent history

The prison has been criticised for its lax security – especially after 70 people, including three murderers serving the last three years of their sentences, absconded in 2006 alone. In March 2009, the prison's own Independent Monitoring Board issued a report stating that an outdated CCTV security system and a staffing shortage were contributing to burglars breaking into the jail to steal equipment from workshops. The report also found that drugs, alcohol and mobile phones were being smuggled into the prison for inmates. Two months later, an inspection report from

Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons is the head of HM Inspectorate of Prisons and the senior inspector of prisons, young offender institutions and immigration service detention and removal centres in England and Wales. The current chief inspe ...

found that inmates were leaving the prison complex at night to acquire alcohol. The report also stated that the prison was underperforming in preparing inmates for resettlement on release. In October 2009, an investigation was launched after it emerged that a prisoner at Ford had been able to remove documents from a disused office in the prison complex. In July 2010, managers of Ford Prison had to apologise after Muslim prisoners at the jail were served burgers containing pork. 20 Muslim inmates were served the non-

halal ''Halal'' (; ar, حلال, ) is an Arabic word that translates to "permissible" in English. In the Quran, the word ''halal'' is contrasted with '' haram'' (forbidden). This binary opposition was elaborated into a more complex classification k ...

food before they noticed that the packaging for the burgers listed pork as an ingredient.

Notable former inmates

* Chris Atkins * Andy Cunningham *

Khalid Masood On 22 March 2017, a terrorist attack took place outside the Palace of Westminster in London, seat of the British Parliament. Khalid Masood, a 52-year-old Briton, drove a car into pedestrians on the pavement along the south side of Westminster ...

Gerald Ronson Gerald Maurice Ronson, CBE (born 27 May 1939) is a British business tycoon and philanthropist. He became known in the UK as one of the 'Guinness Four' for his part in the Guinness share-trading fraud of the 1980s as a result of which he was conv ...

References

External links

Ministry of Justice pages on Ford

HMP Ford - HM Inspectorate of Prisons Reports
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ford (Hm Prison) Category D prisons in England Prisons in West Sussex 2011 riots Arun District 1960 establishments in England Prison uprisings in the United Kingdom Men's prisons