How Will British Murderer Rurik Jutting Be Treated in His Hong Kong Jail?

Last week, British banker Rurik Jutting was found guilty of murdering two Indonesian sex workers in Hong Kong. He raped and tortured his first victim over a three-day period, the court heard, and would have done the same to his second if he hadn't lost control and killed her first. He has been automatically sentenced to life in prison.

I'm usually the first to advocate for prisoners' rights. However, in this case, it's pretty hard to sympathise with the prisoner. Jutting has applied for a transfer to a British prison, but there's no guarantee he'll be granted it – so what does his sentence hold if he remains imprisoned in Hong Kong?

The first thing I wanted to know was if Jutting, accustomed to the kind of life you'd expect for a £350,000 trader, will be subjected to the same kind of hostility and violence in Hong Kong that sex offenders usually receive in British prisons.

Tobias Brandner – who is regarded as a Hong Kong prison expert, having served as a chaplain in jails there since 1998 and writing a book about his experiences – reminds me that the territory's prisons are regarded as the safest in the world due to the staff-to-inmate ratio of almost one-to-one. Prisoners are accompanied by staff wherever they go, he says, and the authorities ensure that those serving long sentences are always outnumbered by guards.

However, according to Brendan Toner – a Northern Irish man who spent just under a year-and-a-half in a Hong Kong prison after being wrongly accused of drug trafficking – all that security doesn't necessarily prevent "gang stuff" from going on inside. That said, he told me that inmates who were unaffiliated weren't affected, and that it was easy to avoid getting caught up. He wasn't aware of any specific targeting of people who had committed sex offences and seemed to think that Jutting would be left alone.

The next thing I wanted to know was what the regime and conditions are like. Brandner explained that there's far less freedom in Hong Kong prisons than in their British counterparts. He told me inmates are permitted a minimum of two half-hour visits each month, compared to two hour-long visits for prisoners in the UK. The Hong Kong prison culture emphasises authority and submission, which many non-Chinese find it difficult to adapt to. On the plus side, long-term prisoners all get single cells, which are regarded as a luxury in British jails.

Toner described the living space as "just bearable". He told me that one of the worst aspects of his time inside was the food, and that although the prison had a special menu for westerners he could barely tell what most of the meals were supposed to be. He said he couldn't bring himself to eat anything at first, but realised that if he didn't force himself he would eventually die.

Although Brandner didn't specifically say the food was shit, he branded it "boring". He also highlighted the repetitive nature of the menu; apparently the same meals cycle around every three or so days. In British jails, efforts are made to ensure that inmates aren't served the same meals too often, and they certainly wouldn't be given identical food twice in the same week.

I was also curious to know how foreigners are treated; the idea of Jutting gaining privileges for being English doesn't sit well with me. Unfortunately, according to Brandner, European inmates are usually quite popular with the other cons, and guards usually tend to be less strict with them, making allowances for the fact that non-Chinese prisoners are often ignorant to Chinese codes of conduct.

Toner didn't seem to think there was any difference in the treatment of western inmates by either the guards or the other criminals. He did, however, point out that each race in the prison he was in usually self-segregated. "They didn't mix much," he told me. "In the day room there were around 15 tables down each side, and maybe the first five would be Chinese. Then you'd have tables of Asians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia, and then you had the white and black contingent, who were mixed together. The black contingent was mostly Nigerians and Tanzanians. I only saw two other Englishmen in the whole time I was there."

There's also the fact that Jutting might not be able to get hold of drugs to take into consideration. He was described in court as being "deeply addicted to cocaine", snorting three grams a day, so presumably a drugless life will be a difficult one for him to adapt to.

Toner told me that although it might seem to the untrained eye as if Hong Kong's prisons are drug free, he wasn't so sure. "At the start, you think there's none, and then once you're in there for a while you see things happening," he said. He claimed there were obvious signs of staff being in cahoots with powerful Chinese inmates, and hinted that he suspected they might have been bringing drugs in.

Brandner told me that high-security prisons of the type that Jutting will serve his sentence in if he remains in Hong Kong are virtually drug-free because all visits are conducted through a glass screen. He said that drugs have only been detected on rare occasions, and that the punishments for being caught with them are severe.

So will there be any other recreational activities? Presumably a drug-free Rutting will want to find other ways of passing the time. According to Brandner, inmates serving long sentences are allowed an hour of football or basketball and an hour of walking in a courtyard every other day. In the UK, prisoners are supposed to be given at least half an hour's exercise each day, so Rutting might be better off in Hong Kong in this respect. Inmates in Hong Kong also have access to a table tennis table during their recreation time, and sometimes get to use weightlifting equipment. In the UK, most prisoners have access to the gym at least once a week.

Brandner told me that Jutting will also be able to spend the rest of his life doing simple work like tailoring or bookbinding – but it's doubtful he'd have the chance to occupy his time with the rehabilitative courses that are available in British prisons; inmates in high-security prisons receive little support for rehabilitation. Prisoners are allowed to enrol in study courses, and may partly receive funding from a charitable trust, but need to rely on each other for academic support. Bradner said this means that inmates who are highly educated can become extremely popular, as they're viewed as an educational resource. This was echoed by Toner, who pointed out that favour can be curried with other prisoners by giving them English lessons.

Overall, it's difficult to say if Hong Kong's prisons are more severe than the UK's. From what Toner and Brandner told me, they appear to be less violent, but also stricter. Either way, life in any sort of prison isn't likely to be a breeze.

@nickchesterv

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