Details of young offenders at Brinsford handed out

May 26 2009 by Ben Hurst, Birmingham Mail

A BUNDLE of personal details about young offenders was handed to a man just visiting his brother inside.

Reece Chisholm said he was given up to 20 sheets of paper on which were the names, ages, offences, wing and sentence of about 230 inmates at Brinsford Young Offenders Institution, in Wolverhampton.

The Prison Service has since launched an investigation over the security breach and said it takes such matters “very seriously”.

Reece said he was concerned how easily he got hold of prisoners’ details, which included those of his 18-year-old brother Luke Kennedy, who was put away for an assault.

He said it happened when the prison was returning his own identification in which they included the documents.

The 21-year-old, who is unemployed and lives in Hall Green, said regularly visits his brother.

Luke had lived with him ever since his mum Claire Kennedy strangled his half-sister, six-year-old Courtney Mulroy, with a skipping rope.

Kennedy admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility in 2007 and was imprisoned for a minimum of three years.

Reece, who has himself been in prison five times, twice in Brinsford, said: “I’m the oldest so I take care of him.

“I try to go and see him as often as I can, once every week.”

He added the lapse could have made the youngsters vulnerable to attack if the wrong person had got hold of details about their backgrounds.

“These kids have done something wrong but some of them might be trying to turn their lives around,” he said.

“This could have fallen into the hands of someone else who could have been waiting for them to get out.