The government reportedly abandoned a deadline to make cells safer
HMP Stocken is near Oakham in Rutland(Image: Tim Williams)
A local prison has been named among dozens of jails failing to meet fire safety standards, according to a report by a prison reform charity.
HMP Stocken, near Oakham, is one of more than 60 prisons identified as awaiting vital improvements after the government reportedly abandoned a deadline to make cells safe.
The Howard League for Penal Reform uncovered the information through a Freedom of Information Act request, revealing that the Ministry of Justice has reneged on a commitment to fix high-risk cells by the end of 2027 or take them out of use.
No new deadline has been set by the government since then.
The findings identify Stocken as one of seven prisons on the list to have had a fatal fire in the last 15 years.
Richard Charles Hunt, 42, died from smoke inhalation at the prison on July 11 last year after his cell smouldered undetected for two hours, with a coroner’s investigation subsequently finding that fire alarm panels had been deliberately tampered with by staff.
An aerial view of Stocken Prison(Image: Leicester Mercury)
The coroner found that the fire was only discovered by chance when an officer carrying out checks on a nearby prisoner smelt smoke.
His Majesty’s Assistant Coroner for Rutland and North Leicestershire, Miss F Butler, found that staff had tampered with fire detection systems across the prison by inserting rubber gloves into alarm panels to silence warning buzzers, describing the practice as “systemic across the HMP Stocken Estate.”
It was not the first time fire detection systems had failed Hunt. He had set fire to his cell four months earlier, on March 19 last year, in similar circumstances, and on that occasion raised the alarm himself by sounding his cell bell, requiring CPR before being hospitalised for three days.
Investigations following his death in July found that the alarm buzzer on K Wing, where the March fire occurred, had been deliberately silenced for 12 months prior to that incident.
The coroner also raised concerns that wing fire alarm panels at Stocken do not link with the main control room, meaning there is no central oversight of faults.
Miss Butler warned in her report: “Whilst HMP Stocken may have a system of maintenance of the aspirating fire detection system within the prison, that maintenance system is futile if staff are going to deliberately tamper with that system to disable the buzzer which is designed to alert them as to risk. This is not an isolated occurrence and is systemic across the HMP Stocken Estate.”
The Howard League revealed that in the autumn of 2025, more than 40 prisons were still awaiting the installation of in-cell automatic fire detection equipment.
Andrea Coomber KC, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “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.
“After almost two decades of inaction by the Ministry of Justice, worried families are having to listen to yet more broken promises. We know that at least 11 people have died in cell fires since the government accepted its responsibility to install automatic fire detection equipment. How many more lives will be lost?”
A Prisons Service spokesperson previously told LeicestershireLive: “Our thoughts remain with the family of Richard Charles Hunt.
“We cannot respond properly until the Prison and Probation Ombudsman investigation has concluded and the inquest is heard so as not to prejudice the outcome, we will respond to the findings as soon as we are able to.”
