IAPDC chair discusses COVID concerns on Sky News podcast

Juliet Lyon CBE, chair of the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody (IAPDC), has contributed to the latest episode of the Sky News Daily Podcast (26 January 2021).

The podcast focuses on the outbreaks of COVID-19 in more than half of UK prisons and how many of them are running on skeleton staff. The pandemic has forced the prison estate to move to 'an exceptional delivery mode'.  

Juliet emphasises the IAPDC’s call for the government to urgently consider prison staff and prisoners among priority groups for COVID-19 vaccines to protect against infection and prevent further spread of the virus. She also remarks that the enduring impact of the measures in place across the prison estate “is severe”.

Also joining host Noel Phillips on the podcast was Andrea Albutt, president of the Prison Governors Association, Lucy Martindale, youth worker and anti-violence campaigner and John Drake, an ex-inmate at HMP Coldingley Prison.

You can listen to the podcast in full here: