| Prison Name: | HMP Ford |
| Location: | Ford, West Sussex |
| Classification: | Adult Male/Category D |
| Capacity: | 521 |
| Opened: | 1960 |
| Managed By: | HM Prison Services |
| Governor: | Mark Drury |
HM Prison Ford (informally known as Ford Open Prison) is a Category D men's prison, located at Ford, in West Sussex, England, near Arundel and Littlehampton. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
An site next to Yapton village opened as an airfield for use by the Royal Flying Corp (RFC) and later the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Service (USAAS) training squadrons in March 1918 and known as Ford Junction military aerodrome. In 1920 it closed and it wasn’t until 1933 that it reopened for civil flying. In 1936 the Air Ministry acquired it and in 1937 RAF Ford was reactivated. On 24 May 1939, as part of the Fleet Air Arm moving to the Royal Navy, four airfields were transferred from the Air Ministry to the Admiralty: Donibristle, Lee-on-Solent, Ford, and Worthy Down, the airbase became known as Royal Naval Air Station Ford, (RNAS Ford) and commissioned as HMS Peregrine, with Captain (A) R. de H. Burton as the initial Royal Navy commanding officer of the airbase. The RN Observer School was formed out of the disbanded School of Naval Cooperation RAF at HMS Peregrine and its aircraft were allocated across three new Fleet Air Arm Squadrons which were also formed on that day.[1]
The three squadrons were: 750 Naval Air Squadron designated an Observer Training squadron, which was allocated with Hawker Osprey, the navalised carrier-borne version of the Hawker Hart, and Blackburn Shark, a carrier-borne torpedo bomber, 751 Naval Air Squadron, also designated an Observer Training squadron which received some Supermarine Walrus, a single-engine amphibious biplane, and a third Observer Training squadron, 752 Naval Air Squadron, which was provided with Percival Proctor, a radio trainer and communications aircraft, and Fairey Albacore a single-engine biplane torpedo bomber. In July the Fairey Swordfish equipped 820 Naval Air Squadron arrived from RAF Gosport. Two days after arriving, it embarked its biplane torpedo bombers in HMS Ark Royal and it was the single first-line squadron of the Fleet Air Arm that passed through HMS Peregrine in 1939. In the following October, the Observer School had two more squadrons stand-up with 782 Naval Air Squadron, tasked as an Armament Training Squadron, and 793 Naval Air Squadron, whose role was an Air Towed Target Unit, and was equipped with Blackburn Roc, a naval turret fighter aircraft, but 782 NAS disbanded after just three weeks and having received no aircraft.
January 1940 saw the formation of 819 Naval Air Squadron at RNAS Ford, which was a Torpedo, Spotter, and Reconnaissance Squadron, equipped with Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber aircraft. The Fairey Swordfish equipped 821 Naval Air Squadron arrived from RNAS Lee-on-Solent (HMS Daedalus) in March, then almost immediately embarked in HMS Ark Royal. 819 NAS left HMS Peregrine and had a brief spell at RAF West Freugh, located in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, before returning during March, then moving onto RNAS Roborough (HMS Drake II), near Plymouth, Devon, at the end of May. Around the same time 816 Naval Air Squadron arrived with Fairey Swordfish. It moved briefly to RNAS Jersey on 4 June but returned on the 11, although the airbase had already been evacuated and had closed down on 31 May, (the Island fell to the Germans on 1 July). The squadron embarked in HMS Furious on 14 June.
During the 18 August 1940 the airbase was attacked by the Luftwaffe.[1] It was on this day the Germans attempted to destroy a number of airfields with three air raids taking place during the afternoon comprised 850 sorties and involving 2,200 aircrew.[2] Sturzkampfgeschwader 77, a Luftwaffe dive bomber wing, supplied a total force of 109 Junkers Ju 87 or “Stuka” dive bombers. It was the largest concentration of Ju 87 to operate over Britain to date and of those twenty-eight aircraft were assigned to attack Ford. The casualties at the airbase included naval, army and civilian personnel with 28 dead[3] and 75 wounded. 17 aircraft were written off and a further 26 were damaged. Two hangars and about a third of the men’s accommodation huts were destroyed. Many buildings were damaged including the ratings' and Petty Officers' canteens.[1]
With the German invasion of France during May and June 1940, the increase in the risk of an attack on HMS Peregrine due to its proximity was soon acknowledged[1] and therefore 750, 751, and 752 Naval Air Squadrons were despersed at RNAS Yeovilton (HMS Heron) in May. The attack on the airbase caused more extreme action. 751 NAS departed for RNAS Arbroath (HMS Condor) the following day, 750 Naval Air Squadron stood down and the unit prepared to sail overseas for the island of Trinidad. 752 and 793 Naval Air Squadrons moved to RNAS Lee-on-Solent and also prepared for a move to Trinidad. All three units were to relocate to RNAS Piarco, where the RN No. 1 Observer School reformed.[4] The Admiralty then determined it was to leave Ford and hand the airbase back to the Air Ministry. HMS Peregrine was ‘paid off’ on 30 September 1940, and the next day Ford was under the control of No. 11 Group, Fighter Command, with the RN retaining rights for a lodger unit.[1] The RN school of Photography formed from an unnumbered Flight of Blackburn Shark torpedo-spotter-reconnaissance biplane and Fairey Seal spotter-reconnaissance biplane, at RAF Ford in December 1940.
The Westland Wyvern went into service first here in the early 1950s with 813 Naval Air Squadron.
The following units were here at some point:[5]
The prison has been criticised for its lax security – especially after 70 people, including three murderers serving the last three years of their sentences, absconded in 2006 alone.[6]
In March 2009, the prison's own Independent Monitoring Board issued a report stating that an outdated CCTV security system and a staffing shortage were contributing to burglars breaking into the jail to steal equipment from workshops. The report also found that drugs, alcohol and mobile phones were being smuggled into the prison for inmates.[7] Two months later, an inspection report from His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons found that inmates were leaving the prison complex at night to acquire alcohol. The report also stated that the prison was underperforming in preparing inmates for resettlement on release.[8] In October 2009, an investigation was launched after it emerged that a prisoner at Ford had been able to remove documents from a disused office in the prison complex.[9]
In July 2010, managers of Ford Prison had to apologise after Muslim prisoners at the jail were served burgers containing pork. 20 Muslim inmates were served the non-halal food before they noticed that the packaging for the burgers listed pork as an ingredient.[10]