Defending Prisoner’s Rights

At Deighton Pierce Glynn we have solicitors with long-standing expertise in defending prisoners’ rights.

How we can help

If you are in prison, we can help you to challenge your current treatment or to claim compensation in relation to past treatment. Due to restrictions on legal aid, we can only help with issues that are of a significant level of seriousness and cannot be resolved effectively through the complaints system. To give your case the best chance of success, please ensure that you keep a record of all the times you complain about your treatment to the prison authorities and the responses that you get.

• We have represented people in prison who have been assaulted by prison staff and then placed on false charges.
• We have brought claims for those assaulted by other prisoners, when they should have been protected by the prison authorities.
• We have successfully sought or assisted with investigations into inhuman and degrading or life-threatening treatment suffered by vulnerable people in prisons, whether by staff, by other prisoners or through self-harm.
• We have also helped detained clients in relation to their treatment by the probation service following release on licence.
• We frequently bring claims on behalf of people in prison who have suffered discrimination based on race, religion or disability (including mental health and neurodiversity).
• We have also represented people in prison in cases about strip-searching, handcuffing, inadequate medical treatment and transgender rights.
• We have been successful in getting national and local rules changed.

We represent bereaved families in inquests and claims for damages, helping them to seek accountability and the truth about how their loved one died in prison, shortly after release or while supervised by probation services. More details about our work on inquests is here.

Get expert advice

If you would like our expert advice and are in detention, please call us on 0117 244 3236. If you are in the community, please complete our new enquiries form and a specialist solicitor will review your enquiry, and we will respond as soon as possible within two working days.