HM Prison Blantyre House

HM Prison Blantyre House is a Category C/D resettlement prison for men, located on the outskirts of Goudhurst in Kent, England. The prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.

History

Originally a country house, the Prison Service converted the building into a Young Offenders Institution in 1954. The prison was then re-classified as an adult prison in 1991. Blantyre House courted controversy in 1996 after an ex-inmate accused the prison regime of corruption. This followed an incident that resulted in the death of a grandmother when two prisoners caused a multiple-vehicle traffic accident during a 100 mph chase while out on day release.

In 2000 a large raid (named Operation Swinford) at Blantyre House caused controversy amongst the press and politicians. Prison authorities claimed the raid was needed to expose potential deep-routed corruption at the prison. The Prison Service claimed that investigations stretched back to the original allegations in 1996, and involved notorious underworld boss Kenny Noye allegedly placing a prisoner at Blantyre House as part of a fraud plot. The following year Blantyre House was singled out as having the best community relations of any prison in the UK along with one of the lowest re-offending rates.

Blantyre

Blantyre is Malawi's centre of finance and commerce, and its second largest city, with an estimated 1,068,681 inhabitants as of 2015. It is sometimes referred to as the commercial capital of Malawi as opposed to the political capital, Lilongwe. It is the capital of the country's Southern Region as well as the Blantyre District.

The Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), the country's state broadcaster and the provider of one of Malawi's television channels, has its headquarters in Blantyre. The Supreme Court is located here. The city houses the College of Medicine, the Malawi Polytechnic and the Kamuzu College of Nursing, constituent colleges of the University of Malawi. The Malawi College of Accountancy is also headquartered there. Its rather unconventional location has meant that Blantyre is surrounded by Mount Soche, Ndirande mountain, Chiradzulu mountain and Michiru Mountain which consolidates the Michiru Mountain Conservation Area.

Blantyre supports a small expatriate population of about 25,000, mainly from the United Kingdom, the rest of Europe, and South Africa.

Blantyre (disambiguation)

The name Blantyre may refer to several things:

See also