Parkhurst (HM Prison)

Infobox HM Prison
name = HMP Parkhurst


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opened = 1895
type = Adult Male/Category B
figures = 497 (August 2008)
location = Parkhurst, Isle of Wight
governor = Carole Draper
prisonid = 1017

HM Prison Parkhurst is a prison situated in Parkhurst, Isle of Wight.

Parkhurst prison (or to use the correct name HM Central Prison) is one of three closely associated prisons, the other two being Camp Hill, and Albany. Parkhurst and Albany were once amongst the few top-security prisons (called "Dispersals" because they dispersed the more troublesome prisoners rather than concentrated them all in one place) in the United Kingdom, but were downgraded in the 1990s.

The downgrading of Parkhurst was preceded by a major escape: three prisoners (two murderers and a blackmailer) made their way out of the prison on 3 January 1995 to enjoy four days of freedom before being recaptured. One of them, Keith Rose, is an amateur pilot. During those four days, they were living rough in a shed in a garden in Ryde, having failed to steal a plane from the local airclub. Parkhurst enjoyed notoriety as one of the toughest jails in the British Isles and many notable criminals, including the Richardson brothers, the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, Kenny Carter, Moors Murderer Ian Brady, and the Kray twins, were incarcerated there.

Camp Hill is located adjacent and to the west of Albany and Parkhurst, on the very edge of Parkhurst Forest. Originally on the site of an army camp (both Albany and Parkhurst were barracks) with a small estate of tree-lined roads with well-proportioned officer's quarters (with varying grandeur according to rank but now privately owned) to the South and East, having been converted to a borstal and later a category C prison.