Castle Huntly not the place for ‘Hawk’

May 29 2009 by Johnathon Menzies, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

A SERIOUS offender who went on the run from Castle Huntly open prison should never have been sent there in the first place.

The Scottish Government’s justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill said prison service officials failed to follow newly-tightened guidelines in the case of Brian Martin, known as “The Hawk”.

The 51-year-old, who handed himself in after seven days on the run on Monday (May 25), is serving 10 years for firearm offences.

He absconded from the jail, near Longforgan, just three weeks after being transferred.

Martin, from Ballingry, Fife, has since had four months added to his sentence.

Mr MacAskill told parliament this week that, had the guidelines been followed, it was likely Martin – who previously absconded from another prison 22 years ago – would not have been transferred to Perthshire.

He said: “If the process had been properly followed, the likelihood is that Martin would not have been transferred to the open estate.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) has apologised for what was described as a failure in its “information-sharing processes”.

The justice secretary said former prison governor, Professor Alec Spencer, would compile a report on the incident and did not rule out disciplinary action against SPS staff further down the line.

In March last year, Mr MacAskill apologised to a schoolgirl in Cumbernauld who was raped by another prisoner – Robert Foye – after he absconded from Castle Huntly.

Mr MacAskill said: “It would appear that the processes I put in place following the Foye case last year was not in this instance properly followed by staff within the SPS.

“This is not a situation which I, or indeed any of us, find acceptable,” he said.