A PRISONER at Les Nicolles has unexpectedly given birth. Neither drug importer Danielle Farrer, 20, from Middlesex, nor anyone else at the prison was apparently aware that she was pregnant.

Miss Farrer, sentenced to two years and three months’ youth detention in February for her involvement in bringing in cannabis, gave birth last Wednesday night.

‘The Guernsey judicial system takes crimes and sentencing very seriously,’ said a former inmate who did not wish to be named.

‘However, once you have got into the prison system, incompetence takes over.

‘Danielle didn’t know she was pregnant; no one knew. The night she gave birth, she was in pain and was ringing the bell; her waters broke and now she’s in segregation with the baby.’

The former inmate could not understand how the authorities failed to realise that one of their prisoners was pregnant, despite her having been locked up there for at least six months.

‘They test you for drugs all the time and screen you for sexual diseases, so how come they didn’t pick up the pregnancy of a 20-year-old girl?

‘They are very stringent on drug testing. They keep you in such confined conditions, yet they couldn’t pick that up.’

Home Department minister Mike Torode yesterday confirmed that last week a female prisoner was taken to hospital after she told prison authorities she was about to give birth.

He strongly defended the prison’s handling of the situation.

‘All prisoners are given a routine medical but that does not automatically include a pregnancy test. Beyond that, everybody is entitled to a degree of privacy.

‘If she had told us she was pregnant, she would have been monitored but I think the arrival was as much of a surprise to her as us,’ he said.

Women’s rights campaigner Deputy Jean Pritchard said: ‘It’s a bit surprising that within a confined situation like that and regular contact, nobody noticed she was pregnant.

‘I would be extremely interested to read the report from the Home Department on the treatment of this prisoner – I think we have a right to know.

‘They are prisoners but they do have some rights, particularly when they are pregnant. I would prefer women to be treated as normally as possible and to have the opportunity to have their baby in hospital and be treated like a woman about to give birth normally.’

Deputy Torode said that Miss Farrer and her child were still in hospital.

Talks on their future were taking place involving Miss Farrer, her family and the children’s section of the Health and Social Services Department.

He said that previously, a mother and child had been accommodated in prison. Mother and child could be put in adjoining cells.

This would mean that the mother would still be subject to the normal corridor security but would have access to the adjoining cell and the baby.

Miss Farrer’s sentence runs from 31 October 2003, when she was taken into custody.

She arrived in Guernsey on the ferry with a young man.

Four packages of cannabis weighing nearly 1kg and with a local street value of up to £8,700 were found beneath an interior panel of their car.