Welcome to Unfair Dismissals

The age old archaic practice of slopping out requires prison inmates, without access to modern lavatory facilities during the night, to use a pot within their cell which must be emptied, or slopped out, the following morning. In 1996, England and Wales banned this inhumane practice, but it is still present in Scotland prisons at Perth, Peterhead and Polmont Youth Offenders Institution.

Thousands of prison staff members in Scotland are now suing ministers for approximately £4m, claiming that their basic human rights are being violated because they have to watch inmates complete the slopping out chore each morning. The Prison Officers' Association (POA) contends that prison staff has endured harsh working conditions such as health endangerment from extended exposure to the foul odours of human waste. Violent inmates are known to have doused prison staff on occasion with buckets filled with human excrement.

POA officials cite the success of a 2004 slopping out case brought into litigation by a former inmate which that alleged that facility conditions during the several weeks he spent in Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow were detrimental to his health. The Prison Officers Association firmly believes that the £2,450 the inmate received was a low dollar value claim settlement because the inmate was only at Barlinnie Prison for a few short weeks. Prison staff would be entitled to receive much higher compensation amounts as their exposure ranges from a few months to many years.

The success of the 2004 case regarding the inmate that spent several weeks at Barlinnie Prison, caused a sizeable influx of new slopping out cases from prisoners all across Scotland. The legal costs alone for the 2004 case cost the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) £1.5 million pounds. Subsequently, during 2005, approximately 800 new slopping out claims from inmates surfaced, and forced the Scottish Prison Service to expand its fund from £26 Million to £44 Million, representing a staggering increase of 70% just to handle the costs of these claims.

The POA say the 15-year campaign aimed at eradicating the practice of slopping out has failed due to the successive Labour and Tory governments' inability to ban the practice. They have also determined that since 1999, when the European Court of Human Rights was adopted into the Scottish constitution, approximately 2,000 individuals have been made to work in prisons that require slopping out.