BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – SUPERINTENDENT OF PRISONS Franklin Dorset has refuted the allegations made by murder accused Kevin Horstwood concerning conditions at Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP).
In a July 18, 2012 article published by BBC News Lincolnshire, headlined “Murder accused Lincolnshire man in St. Kitts prison complaint”, Horstwood has denied murdering US citizen Matthew Murphy and claimed that the penal institution falls “well below recognised standards” for treatment of prisoners.
The British media house noted that in a letter to a friend, Horstwood said: “Ordinarily I’m in a cell 18ft by 26ft with 40 other men for 23 hours per day.”
He is also quoted as saying: “Although I put a brave face on things, I am very concerned about my health. One of the prisoners in my cell was taken out a few days ago with TB. I have signs of scurvy and everything aches.”
Horstwood’s lawyer, Saul Lehrfreund MBE, told BBC News that “the conditions in the prison in St Kitts, in the main prison where Kevin is being held, fall well below recognised standards for the treatment of prisoners”.
“The prison was built in the mid-19th century for maybe less than a hundred prisoners and today there are over 400 prisoners being held in that prison, which is quite unbelievable when you see how small it is,” he added.
BBC News however noted that Dorset had refuted Horstwood’s allegations.
“I've treated Horstwood the same way I treat any other prisoner and I don’t think he’s entitled to any special privilege. I give him all the support, all the help, and he’s still not satisfied. I think he’s very ungrateful.
“All the prisons in the Caribbean are overcrowded. This is not the only prison that’s overcrowded. I’m fed up and tired of Horstwood. He believes that he deserves special treatment because he was born in England.”
When contacted by SKNVibes, Dorset categorically sated that he would stand by the statement he had given to the BBC reporter.
“When she called me and stated all that Horstwood had said, I told her that I tried my best to help him but Horstwood is ungrateful. Horstwood feels that because he is a British national he must get special treatment, but I don’t have any special treatment to give him. Every prisoner in this institution gets the same treatment…no one is entitled to special treatment and for Horstwood there is no difference.”
In response to the tuberculosis matter, the Superintendent of Prisons said that was also a false allegation made by Horstwood and that the penal institution follows a strict medical regimen in accordance with Prisons Regulations.
“When there is a case of tuberculosis, everybody got to be tested. Anytime somebody leaves this institution to go to the hospital, the prisoners are always speculating. If a prisoner has taken ill with tuberculosis, only the doctor can diagnose that and he or she will tell me about it. I am not learned in the medical field and there is no report from the doctor that any prisoner, for a very long time, has tuberculosis. So, I don’t know what Mr. Horstwood is talking about.”
He also condemned the statement Horstwood’s lawyer made about the institution, but admitted that it is overcrowded.
“We don’t have 400 prisoners at Her Majesty’s Prison but, at the same time, what the gentleman didn’t know is that there were some additions to the main prison that was constructed in 1840. There is an additional compound in St. Kitts and also an open prison in Nevis.”
On Monday, January 2, 2012, Horstwood, the General Manager and owner of Rawlins Plantation Inn situated in the Belmont Estate area in St. Paul’s Village, was officially arrested and charged with the murder of 60-year-old Matthew Murphy.
Murphy, who was employed at the Inn as a handyman, was killed between December 28 and 30, 2011.
The body of the US citizen was discovered on Friday (Dec. 30) within a canefield in St. Paul’s Village with what police claimed to be apparent stab wounds in his torso.
Murphy’s death had taken to 34 the number of homicides committed in the twin-island Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis for 2011.
