Yet, as Det Insp Alan Wilson and British Transport Police officers began their investigation, new questions emerged.In interviewing every guest, some under caution, Det Insp Wilson established that glass embedded in Sean’s shoes came from the windscreen of one of the damaged cars. His dress shirt, cuff-links in place, had been in the basement car park.To have fallen down the shaft, which ran from the old station up to the top of the building used by the services unit, Sean must have been on the roof Unit members maintained the door to the roof was locked. However, a plumber said he probably left a key in the door.Yet, in 2,000 man-hours of inquiries, Det Insp Wilson failed to nail down Sean’s final minutes. “This has been the most frustrating inquiry I’ve worked on,” he said. “We have done so much, but there’s a period between 6am and 7am that we can’t account for.”His theory, voiced at the inquest, was that a gang from the party chased, or came upon Sean, in the car park. The vehicles were damaged as he ran across bonnets and roofs to escape.
His shirt was ripped off in the process.Sean was then either chased, or taken, up the stairs leading past the bar onto the roof. He may have been locked out, or during a chase seen the ventilation shaft as a means of escape. How his laced-up shoes came off remains unexplained.”I am certain that someone knows more than they are telling us about Sean’s death,” Det Insp Wilson said “The police believe no-one outside the party was involved. With the open verdict the investigation is still live, though our inquiries are finished.”In their Newmarket home the Harpers, barred from tomorrow’s inquiry, simply want the truth. “We’re not out for vengeance,” Mrs Harper said.White no longer mixes with the unit’s officers and is to resign.
“I’ve a feeling that we’re never going to get to the bottom of this,” she said “It destroys your faith in people I wake up thinking of all the possibilities I hate to think the last part of his life was in fear.”. BY HEATHER MILLS
Home Affairs Correspondent
About 100 Prison Service staff, including Derek Lewis, the director general, have been formally warned that they may face criticism over January’s Parkhurst Prison escape.General Sir John Learmont, who is conducting a review of all prison security, has in a draft report identified weaknesses within the service which allowed three high-risk prisoners to go on the run.His warning letters – about 40 to staff at Prison Service headquarters and 60 to governors and officers at the Isle of Wight jail – invite comment before his final conclusions are sent to Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, next month.The number of warning letters – double those sent out following the inquiry into the Whitemoor escape only a few weeks earlier – indicate that far more people will be held responsible.The former governor, John Marriott, and six other staff have already been removed from their duties by the Home Secretary following an initial inquiry by Richard Tilt, the director of security, pending the outcome of all inquiries. He identified the deployment of inexperienced staff and the failure to check prisoners as factors contributing to the escape.But Sir John’s criticisms of Parkhurst, contained in one chapter of his security report, go much further, focusing on confused management lines and the Prison Service’s failure to respond to repeated calls for security alarms on the jail’s perimeter. These are provided at all other top security jails and would, he concludes, have prevented the escape.Sir John’s inquiry, set up in the wake of the Whitemoor debacle and extended after Parkhurst, is damning. In his draft report, Sir John says that governors are sometimes prevented from performing their duties because they spend 50 hours a week dealing with a blizzard of paperwork from headquarters.He concludes that the service should be streamlined and run on fully accountable command lines. Although he favours more devolved powers to governors, he is concerned that the country’s 134 jails all operate differently.For this reason and contrary to government policy, he comes down against jail privatisation – but believes all ancillary services could be put out to tender. He also favours in-cell prison service television.Yesterday, Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said that while some of the report appeared constructive, he was concerned that a “military model” would not solve the problems of Britain’s jails “Prisoners are not volunteers or conscripts.
