HM Prison Cardiff (Welsh: ) is a Category B men's

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where Prisoner, people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state ...

, located in the

Adamsdown Adamsdown (sometimes or , ) is an inner city area and community in the south of Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. Adamsdown is generally located between Newport Road, to the north and the mainline railway to the south. The area includes C ...

area of

Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

. The prison is operated by

His Majesty's Prison Service His Majesty's Prison Service (HMPS) is a part of HM Prison and Probation Service (formerly the National Offender Management Service), which is the part of His Majesty's Government charged with managing most of the prisons within England and ...

History

By 1814, the existing Cardiff Gaol was deemed insufficient for coping with both the scale of demand and quality of building to cope with the quickly expanding industrial town, and so proposals were made to build a new county jail for Glamorgan. Construction commenced in 1827, and the new stone building located south of

Crockherbtown Cardiff city centre () is the city centre and central business district of Cardiff, Wales. The area is tightly bound by the River Taff to the west, the Civic Centre to the north and railway lines and two railway stations – Central an ...

opened at the end of 1832, capable of housing 80 prisoners, including 20 debtors. The three

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

wings of Cardiff Prison underwent a major refurbishment programme in 1996, and the prison's capacity was extended by the commissioning of three new wings (C, D and E), with the number of places for life-sentenced prisoners increased also. In 1997 Cardiff Prison was criticised for chaining sick inmates to their hospital beds after a probe into the death of one of Cardiff's prisoners. Three years later one of Cardiff's Assistant Governors was found dead after an investigation into

child pornography Child pornography (also abbreviated as CP, also called child porn or kiddie porn, and child sexual abuse material, known by the acronym CSAM (underscoring that children can not be deemed willing participants under law)), is Eroticism, erotic ma ...

. The manager had been arrested at the prison days earlier by detectives investigating the alleged misuse of a personal computer. Cardiff Prison was criticised in 2001 for its cell-share policy in the wake of an inmate's death. Prison officials were advised to carry out full checks on prisoners on their arrival, to prevent violent or even fatal incidents from occurring. A year later the prison was criticised again for its poor record in dealing with drug abuse and providing decent recreation facilities for inmates.

Execution site

A total of 20 judicial

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in ...

s took place at Cardiff prison. The condemned prisoners were

hanged Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

for the crime of

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

. Their names, ages and dates of execution are: * William Augustus Lacey, 29 yrs, 21 August 1900 * Eric Lange, 30 yrs, 21 December 1904 * Rhoda Wills, 44 yrs, 14 August 1907 (female) * George Stills, 30 yrs, 13 December 1907 * Noah Percy Collins, 21 yrs, 30 December 1908 * Hugh McLaren, 29 yrs, 14 August 1913 * Edgar Lewis George Bindon, 19 yrs, 25 March 1914 * Alexander Bakerlis, 24 yrs, 10 April 1917 * Thomas Caler, 23 yrs, 14 April 1920 * Lester Augustus Hamilton, 25 yrs, 16 August 1921 * George Thomas, 26 yrs, 9 March 1926 * Edward Rowlands, 40 yrs, 27 January 1928 * Daniel Driscoll, 34 yrs, 27 January 1928 * William John Corbett, 32 yrs, 12 August 1931 * George Edward Roberts, 29 yrs, 8 August 1940 * Howard Joseph Grossley, 37 yrs, 5 September 1945 (an

AWOL Desertion is the abandonment of a military duty or post without permission (a pass, liberty or leave) and is done with the intention of not returning. This contrasts with unauthorized absence (UA) or absence without leave (AWOL ), which ...

Canadian soldier) * Evan Haydn Evans, 22 yrs, 3 February 1948 * Clifford Godfrey Wills, 31 yrs, 9 December 1948 * Ajit Singh, 27 yrs, 7 May 1952 * Mahmood Mattan, 28 yrs, 3 September 1952 (conviction quashed in February 1998) The remains of executed prisoners were buried in

unmarked grave An unmarked grave is one that lacks a marker, headstone, or nameplate indicating that a body is buried there. It may also include burials that previously had identification but which are no longer identifiable due to weather damage, neglect, dist ...

s within the prison walls, as was customary. In late 2003, after

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

had been abolished in the UK, the remains of Corbett, Roberts, Grossley, Evans, Wills and Singh were exhumed from the prison grounds and reburied elsewhere in order to make space for the construction of a new cell block. The precise location of the new cell block is . The remains of Mahmood Mattan (executed in 1952 but cleared of murder in 1998) had previously been exhumed from the same location for reburial in 1996. Mattan is now buried in the

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

section of Western Cemetery, Cardiff. His tombstone bears the epitaph "Killed by Injustice". After Mattan's conviction was quashed, his widow Laura and three sons (David, Omar and Mervyn) received the sum of £725,000 in compensation from the British Government.

The prison today

Cardiff Prison accepts male adult prisoners remanded into custody who are drawn predominantly from the surrounding court catchment area of South Wales. In addition Cardiff also houses sentenced Category B and C prisoners. Cardiff's regime includes full-time education, employment in the prison workshops, and training courses. There is a resettlement unit that offers prisoners various offending behaviour programmes and work based courses, and a Detoxification Unit accommodating 50 prisoners. In 1999 the actor Keith Allen played a Probation and Parole officer at the prison, in the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

television series ''

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''.

Notable former inmates

John Straffen John Thomas Straffen (27 February 1930 – 19 November 2007) was an English serial killer who committed the murder of three preadolescence, prepubescent girls between the ages of five and nine in the counties of Somerset and Berkshire, England, ...

References

External links

Ministry of Justice pages on HMP Cardiff

HMP Cardiff – HM Inspectorate of Prisons Reports
{{Prisons in Wales Adamsdown

1832 establishments in Wales

Execution sites in the United Kingdom