Some of UK’s worst killers can mark New Year with cranberry casserole
A festive menu is on offer to inmates at top security HMP Frankland.
Vegan festive cranberry casserole and turkey and gammon head a New Year’s menu given to some of the UK’s most notorious killers.
The multi-choice list handed out at HMP Frankland for the festive season also includes halal jumbo sausages and ‘turkey cordon bleu’.
Other options are halal diced pepper beef casserole, a ‘healthy option’ of salmon and sauce and chipolata sausage and stuffing, with all the mains coming with roast potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts and gravy.
Tea choices for January 1 include a Mexican spicy bean, cheese savoury or tuna mayo roll and a chicken pasta pot.
Inmates, who have been issued with a neatly decorated order form where they add their name and prison number, can also order a festive pack which includes a mince pie, satsuma, gingerbread man, crisps and apple juice.
The Category A jail, dubbed ‘Monster Mansion’, is running the seasonal catering through to January 6.
On Christmas Day, the menu was identical to the January 1 list, with breakfast consisting of Shredded Wheat, yoghurt and milk and desserts of Christmas pudding and custard or fruit cocktail.
Vegan beef tomato, mushrooms and beans and halal jumbo sausages were among the choices on Boxing Day.
Vegetarian prisoners were given the option of two meat-free jumbo sausages and there was an ‘ordinary’ choice of a bacon chop, with all the items coming with a boiled egg, tomatoes and a hash brown.
The high security jail, where Ian Huntley, Levi Bellfield and Wayne Couzens are among the inmates, is catering for all tastes with a carefully laid-out grid menu denoting dietary requirements.
Allergen information and lifestyle symbols are shown, along with a multi-coloured nutritional breakdown.
Inmates, including Soham child murderer Huntley, serial killer Bellfield and Couzens, who abducted and murdered Sarah Everard, place an X alongside their choices for the two weeks of Christmas at the men’s prison in Brasside, County Durham.
On January 5, six choices of mains include a ‘carrot and nut cluster’, a breaded pork cutlet and a roast chicken leg, all of which can come with beans and either boiled rice or a jacket potato.
The following day, the menu lists halal ‘turkey cordon bleu’, a Cajun chicken burger and egg salad among the first choices, with the sides listed as new potatoes or boiled rice, both with coleslaw, and desert consisting of either a chocolate doughnut or a seasonal apple.
Other notorious inmates at the high-security jail include Lee Rigby’s killer Michael Adebolajo, nail bomber David Copeland and Sally Anne Bowman’s murderer Mark Dixie.
Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was the prison’s most infamous inmate up to his death in 2020.
While Christmas fare comes with all the trimmings at the jails, the indicators this year are that the prison estate has been under strain.
In July, the Howard League for Penal Reform told Metro.co.uk that the system was ‘under-resourced and under-staffed’ and ‘increasingly unable to provide even basic levels of safety for staff and people in prison’.
Releasing the menu after a Freedom of Information Act request, the Ministry of Justice said: ‘Prison rules require that prisoners are provided with three meals a day that are varied and nutritious and that meet the religious, cultural, and medical needs of all.
‘His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) is working closely with catering managers and suppliers to ensure best value for money at a time of rising food prices.’
The Prison Service maintains that all prisoners are provided with three healthy meals a day which meet nutritional guidelines set out by the Food Standards Agency and the Department of Health and Social Care.
A spokesperson said: ‘Meals in prisons over Christmas and new year are paid for using existing budgets and at no extra cost to the taxpayer.’
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