Former supervising officer Lewis Millar is taking the Prison Service to an employment tribunal
Former supervising officer Lewis Millar is taking the Prison Service to an employment tribunal
A sacked HMP Liverpool officer claimed his repeated efforts to report personal safety concerns fell on deaf ears at the “increasingly unsafe” prison. Experienced former officer Lewis Millar, 33, is taking the Prison Service to an employment tribunal after he was dismissed for gross misconduct amid mental health struggles.
Mr Millar claimed he was promised a new support plan that included reduced prisoner contact, reduced hours, regular occupational health visits and the opportunity to report concerns when he moved to the Walton prison following 18 months away from work. However, the dad, who lives in St Helens, instead claimed he was sent to the busiest wing at the prison to cover for other senior members of staff who were signed off work due to sickness.
He further claimed he was sacked from the Prison Service for private comments he made to the user of an Instagram account which for months had threateningly asked its followers for personal information about him and his family. A spokesperson for the Prison Service told the ECHO it would be inappropriate to comment on the ongoing employment tribunal proceedings but added HMP Liverpool complies with Prison Service procedures in relation to staff misconduct.
Mr Millar, who left the Prison Service in June 2024, previously spoke anonymously to the ECHO but has now gone public about life inside the trouble-hit jail since his dismissal. He claimed the prison was previously run on good faith but relationships between its inmates and staff began to break down as senior officers left due to health struggles.
Mr Millar’s allegations come two months on from a weeks-long ECHO investigation which heard from a number of staff members, past and present, who alleged the prison was “in crisis” due to a series of assaults on officers. Although Mr Millar left the Prison Service while the Conservative party were still in government, the ECHO has spoken to multiple staff members in recent months who claimed the issues are still ongoing nine months on since Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour took the reins.
Mr Millar also alleged that the staffing crisis at HMP Liverpool stemmed from the governor, whose position was previously described as “untenable” by the Prison Officers’ Association, and senior management’s attempts to make the jail into a category C training and resettlement facility. He alleged this meant the prison would operate on less staff per inmate despite it still housing complex prisoners.
Responding to the claims, a Prison Service spokesperson told the ECHO: “Our prisons are overcrowded, have been neglected for too long, and our hardworking staff are overstretched. That is why we are building 14,000 prison places by 2031 and will invest up to £300m in the next financial year to improve conditions and keep prisoners and staff safe. Staffing at HMP Liverpool is at target levels and steps have been taken to improve staff welfare and working patterns.”
Mr Millar served five years in the British Army as a communications systems operator before he was discharged and joined the Prison Service. He first worked at HMP Risley in Warrington in 2017 and during his time at the prison was nominated for a performance recognition after he “potentially saved” the life of a prisoner who had seriously self-harmed.
But Mr Millar, who said he had struggled with his mental health for a number of years but had not initially sought help due to fears of losing his job, claimed he began to experience threats from a serving prisoner following the breakdown of a relationship. Mr Millar alleged this resulted in a number of menacing phone calls and direct threats from the inmate.
A heavily redacted Ministry of Justice report seen by the ECHO references Mr Millar’s claims including that the prisoner threatened to cut his face and that the officer would be dragged into a van and kidnapped. Following attempts to be transferred away from the prison due to safety concerns, Mr Millar said he was eventually moved to women’s prison HMP Styal following a promotion.
But he said in his new role as a supervising officer he was tasked with carrying out assessments on vulnerable prisoners at risk of self-harm or suicide at a time when the prison had recorded a number of fatalities. Mr Millar told the ECHO the pressure of putting in place suicide prevention procedures while his own mental health was spiralling due to increased paranoia and anxiety led to alcohol issues.
Mr Millar, who was under the care of two NHS trusts and was also self-harming, said he eventually was sectioned under the Mental Health Act following an overdose. The former officer, who by this time had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, said he later received a conviction for drink driving due to his alcohol issues.
However, he kept his job as a prison officer following an appeal and after a year-and-a-half off work was posted to HMP Liverpool following discussions to ensure an appropriate support plan was in place. But instead Mr Millar said he was sent to G Wing, where the largest number of prisoners are, to cover a number of other supervising officers who were off work due to illness.
He told the ECHO: “Staff straight out of university who had been with the Prison Service for less than six months were supervising prisoners who in some cases had been in custody longer than they had been alive. Staff shortages are most acute on the more challenging wings, which inevitably means that newer, inexperienced staff are sent to fill the gaps.
“None of the promises of support were kept and I was thrown into G Wing. I was one of the most experienced on the wing and had been away from work for 18 months. It was the blind leading the blind.”
Mr Millar said when he joined the prison it still had a number of experienced staff members who “had a rapport with the inmates so managed to keep a lid on things”. But he said wings which were supposed to be run with eight officers and a supervisor were soon being run with just two or three people at a time because cover was needed elsewhere.
He added: “What transpires is more work which results in mistakes and stress. Prisoners pick up on this. Little things that are really important to the prisoners will be missed, like handing out the mail. If a prisoner is waiting for a birthday card and it is delivered a day late because officers are needed elsewhere it will have a huge impact and everything then rolls downhill and makes our jobs harder. It’s in our best interests to make the prisoners’ lives easier.”
Mr Millar alleged the prison also at times did not have enough cover for patrols so staff carried out “rolling cover”. He said: “This meant we would leave the gates open and a staff member would be responsible for 400 to 500 people at a time. They would mainly be attending the call bell and answering questions.
“But if someone is at a cell then they can’t be elsewhere. Some people will also be on suicide and self-harm prevention measures which sometimes means they have to be checked on four times an hour. It’s just not going to happen.”
Mr Millar claimed incidents in the prison became more frequent and more staff went off sick due to stress. The ECHO has previously reported how a BMW car was “petrol bombed” by a moped gang outside the front of the prison, while the POA told the ECHO there had been “several serious assaults on staff which led to hospitalisation”.
Mr Millar told the ECHO: “The government and senior management said the staff going off sick were to blame for how the place was run, but never accepted people were going off because of how they were running it. We would regularly be missing 20 to 25 members of staff a day and wings would constantly be locked down. Imagine waiting all morning to be unlocked from your cell but then you’re not. We wouldn’t have enough staff to explain why.”
He continued: “It was too much stress to be under given my history. Because I was a supervising officer I was put in a position where I had to speak to prisoners who had self-harmed. I had to triage the likelihood of them doing it again. I was entrusted with the responsibility of making a professionally and legally-binding decision.”
Mr Millar said the pressures of the job began to affect his health once again but claimed promised support was never provided. In the early months of 2024 an Instagram account was created which featured screenshotted images of serving prison officers with the bio “we like to lock ur family and friends up as well as giving them a hard time, these all from Walton”.
Mr Millar said the account, which is still active at the time of this piece’s writing, sent out requests asking for “where we lived, where we trained, where our children went to school”. He told the ECHO: “My anxiety was through the roof and I turned to the Prison Service for support. Over the next few months it became a joke how many times I made a report. I was at my wit’s end. I believed what had happened before was happening again.”
Mr Millar said after a night of drinking he snapped and messaged the profile and admitted he had a “horrific conversation”. He said: “You can only be pushed for so long. I was giving them abuse and they were giving it back to me.
“The conversation was never public but when I went into work on the Monday I was told that a transcript of the conversation had been provided and I was called into a meeting with the governor. The governor told me I had embarrassed him and I was sacked for gross misconduct. I tried to challenge it and said if the support I was promised was in place this wouldn’t have happened but was told my dismissal was upheld.
“It bewildered me and made me so angry. I had nearly 10 years of service. I had received commendations, I had shaken hands with Rory Stewart when he was minister for prisons. I was doing well and was good at my job.”
Mr Millar told the ECHO had only ever worked for the Army and the Prison Service and “felt worthless” when he struggled to find a new job for six months. But he added he now is working for a homeless charity which he loves and feels “in a much better place now”. His employment tribunal has been adjourned to August this year.