Banning paper

 Here at HMP Berwyn the governor has ordered the canteen to stop selling writing paper because prisoners can spray Spice onto it. 

We are still allowed access to paper in the form of complaints forms, legal paperwork, photocopied mail and internal memos. But we need writing paper to write legal cases, letters, educational notes, etc. This is the craziest rule I have seen in 35 years of imprisonment. What world are we living in now?

Editorial note – We received an update from Mr Stellato in mid-December. He said that after about three months in which paper was unavailable for prisoners to buy, during which time he complained to the prison and to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, it was restored to the canteen sheet. A Prison Service spokesperson told us: “Prisoners [at Berwyn] can buy an A4 pad of paper. If they require a single piece of paper staff will provide them with this.”