A cocker spaniel named Bailey has been ‘freed’ from a jail in Northern Ireland after concerns were raised over its welfare.
Bailey was introduced into Magilligan Prison in County Londonderry through a scheme offering comfort dogs for prisoners.
But insiders said the three-and-a-half-year-old dog was being held in Block H2, said to house the most violent inmates, including sex offenders, as first reported by Sunday World.
Prison officers alleged Bailey had been limping and ‘quivering’ at night because of the prison alarms, shouting and fights.
News about Bailey’s condition sparked campaigns such as #ProtectBailey and #AllDogsMatter as people lobbied the Department of Justice (DoJ) to relocate the former family pet.
Volunteers and staff at Causeway Coast Dog Rescue held peaceful protests outside the prison today.
Causeway Coast Dog Rescue, a charity organising the protest, said this morning that members had ‘unofficially’ heard Bailey has been released.
It added: ‘But only “temporarily”, with no formal confirmation of where he is, how he is, or what the long-term plan is for his welfare and for other dogs used in NI Prisons.’
The charity previously said that Bailey was sourced informally, spent 24 hours a day in the jail rather than do ‘shifts’ and wasn’t trained to be a therapy dog.
Jon Burrows, a UUP representative for North Antrim, confirmed to the Belfast Telegraph that the dog had been relocated to a ‘family home’.
He added: ‘This has been a disgraceful episode from start to finish.’
In a statement, a Prison Service spokesperson said Bailey was safe and cared for at the prison.
They added: ‘A perfectly happy and well looked after dog at Magilligan Prison has had to be moved after the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) made us aware of a callous and calculated external threat to say that Bailey was going to be harmed in an attempt to embarrass the governor.’
Prison environments dogs they added, are beneficial for people with poor mental health and addiction issues, as researchers have found.
The statement said: ‘The current challenges facing the Prison Service are well documented and this issue and the level of inaccurate and sensationalist reporting surrounding it has unfortunately been an unnecessary distraction.’
Campaigns to free Bailey and initial reports about his welfare were met with fierce criticism from the DoJ, the government department responsible for policy and legislative framework.
Bailey also caught the attention of Northern Irish politician John Burrows, who sent a letter this week to the assembly calling for his release.
In his letter, the MLA outlined his concerns for Bailey, including being without a primary handler or master, prison staff receiving little to no specialist dog handling training, and a place for Bailey to recuperate.
‘The core of my concern is the apparent lack of a robust legislative and policy framework, along with necessary safeguards, for the place of a dog in a high-risk prison environment,’ Burrows wrote.
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