THE British Home Office has denied saying that a bar of soap bearing a master-key impression was found in the cell of a decently repatriated IRA prisoner.
A report that a bar of soap with the key impression had caused the major alert or "lock down" at Full Sutton Prison near York was published last weekend.
The report quoted unnamed sources as saying the soap was fund in a cell vacated by Michael O'Brien, one of three IRA prisoners repatriated to Portlaoise Prison last week.
The Home Office Prisons Section yesterday said it had issued a statement saying there gas a full lock-down search affecting the whole prison at the weekend but had not issued any information about a key impression in soap. The Prison Section said it had no knowledge of this.
Mr O'Brien's wife, Theresa yesterday said the report about the soap was rubbish. She said her husband, who is serving a jail sentence for his involvement in an incident in which a part-time police officer was shot dead by another IRA man, would not jeopardise the transfer of other prisoners.