AN ASSESSMENT of the mental health of Britain's 30 most dangerous prisoners - including convicted terrorists - is likely to get under way next month.
This was signalled last night by Prison Service sources after a warning from the former Chief Medical Officer that Special Secure Units are likely to pose a risk to the mental health of inmates.
The development is likely to fuel calls for the transfer of Danny McNamee - convicted of the 1982 Hyde Park bombing - to a prison in Northern Ireland. Mr McNamee will be visited later this morning at the Special Secure Unit of Full Sutton prison by Mr Seamus Mallon MP, deputy leader of the SDLP, and by the Labour MP Mr Kevin McNamara.
The two MPs will discuss Mr McNamee's case for a new appeal against his conviction for conspiracy, as well as the conditions under which he is being held. McNamee has consistently protested his innocence and denied IRA membership. His solicitor Ms Gareth Peirce is awaiting a
Home Office reply to a submission detailing new evidence supporting his claim of wrongful conviction.
A Channel 4 documentary to be shown later this month is set to give added impetus to his campaign, along with the establishment tomorrow of an all party group of TDs and Senators to lobby the British authorities for an appeal.
In a statement yesterday the Danny McNamee Support Group claimed he was routinely denied visits from family and friends "who have not been able to see him since February 1995".
Sir Donald Acheson, who recently conducted a review of the SSUs for the Prison Service, told the BBC that moral judgment of inmates' crimes should not dictate the severity of their prison regimes: "They have the same rights with regard to health and healthcare as any other person in the country. It is not part of the punishment that they be treated in such a way that their health inevitably suffers."
Speaking for the first time about the conditions in the three SSUs - at Full Sutton, Belmarsh and Whitemoor - Sir Donald said: "There is very limited meaningful work, and at least two of the units that we saw were somewhat cramped and claustrophobic, and there was a lack of social contact and incentives. It seemed to us that it was likely that over the course of years, a proportion of them would develop significant adverse effects to mental health."