HMP Stocken waiting for fire safety improvements
Richard Hunt died from smoke inhalation after a fire in his cell at Stocken in July 2025
HMP Stocken has been named as one of seven prisons still waiting for vital safety improvements – despite fatal fires at the category C facility.
According to the Howard League for Penal Reform, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has known for almost 20 years that tens of thousands of people in prison are forced to occupy cells that do not meet lawful fire safety standards.
The campaign group says the government has now reneged on a commitment to make all cells fire-safe by the end of 2027 or take them out of use.
The Howard League says that in the autumn of 2025, more than 60 prisons were waiting for work to improve fire safety.
They included Stocken, Eastwood Park, Swaleside, Risley, Wealstun, Chelmsford and Holme House, all of which have seen fatal fires in the last 15 years.
Richard Hunt died from smoke inhalation after a fire in his cell at Stocken in July 2025.
An inquest is yet to take place, but a coroner’s prevention of future deaths report was sent to the prison’s governor and HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), which expressed concerns that staff had “deliberately tampered” with fire alarm control panels.
Other jails listed as requiring action include Nottingham, Sudbury, Lincoln, Whatton, Morton Hall, Foston Hall and Lowdham Grange.
More than 40 prisons were waiting for the installation of in-cell automatic fire detection (AFD) equipment, which alerts staff to fires immediately. They included Eastwood Park, where Clare Dupree was fatally injured in a fire in December 2022.
Last week, an inquest jury at Avon Coroner’s Court found that there had been “missed opportunities” to prevent Clare’s death, and that a “lack of automatic in-cell fire detection caused a delay in detecting the fire”.
Andrea Coomber, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “From chronic overcrowding and rising violence to record levels of self-harm and people being released by mistake, chaos in the prison system is rarely out of the headlines.
“Fire safety has largely remained under the radar until now. But the long-running detention of tens of thousands of people in fire-risk cells, and the government’s U-turn on a deadline to solve this, amount to a national scandal.”
The Howard League has threatened the government with legal action if it does not remedy the situation.
An HMPPS spokesperson said: “We take the safety of our prisons extremely seriously, and we are carrying out our plans to meet fire safety standards as fast as possible across the estate.
“In the meantime, we have put measures in place to keep people safe, with every cell either linked to an automatic fire detection system or using a smoke detector.”