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The brutal slaying of Sundeep Ghuman inside the walls of HMP Belmarsh was not merely a random act of inmate violence; it was the predictable result of a catastrophic breakdown in British penal oversight. New evidence brought to light by Coroner David Manknell KC reveals that the Ministry of Justice and Belmarsh officials ignored their own protocols, effectively hand-delivering a vulnerable man to a member of a notorious white supremacist gang.
Sundeep Ghuman, a 36-year-old British Punjabi man of Indian heritage, was serving time at the Category A high-security facility in South East London when he was bludgeoned to death with a wooden table leg in February 2020. His killer, Stevie Hilden, was a high-ranking member of the "Racist Army of Woolwich," a violent gang known for targeting ethnic minorities. Despite Hilden’s documented history of extreme racial animosity and previous violent offenses, prison authorities bypassed critical safety checks, placing him in a triple cell with Mr. Ghuman.
The failure is rooted in the Cell Sharing Risk Assessment (CSRA) process, which is designed to be the final line of defense against targeted hate crimes. Investigations revealed that while Hilden arrived at Belmarsh from HMP High Down with an active "racist alert" on his file, a prison officer unilaterally decided to disregard the warning. The officer claimed that because the alert was old and Hilden "seemed fine" during a brief conversation, the risk was non-existent. This subjective judgment contradicted a mandatory Belmarsh policy—of which even senior management claimed to be unaware—stating that racist prisoners must be classified as "high risk" and never housed with inmates of different ethnicities.
This systemic blindness echoes other tragedies within the British custodial system, most notably the 2023 death of Mohamud Mohammed Hassan, a young man of Somali-Bangladeshi heritage who died shortly after being released from police custody in Wales, and the historic case of Zahid Mubarek. In 2000, Mubarek was murdered at Feltham Young Offender Institution under near-identical circumstances: placed in a cell with a known racist who bludgeoned him to death. The fact that the same fatal errors occurred two decades later at Belmarsh suggests that the lessons of the past have been systematically ignored by the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice.
The Coroner’s report paints a harrowing picture of HMP Belmarsh, describing it as an environment where "ubiquitous" drug use and unchecked violence are the norm rather than the exception. The prevalence of "Spice"—a potent synthetic cannabinoid—has created a volatile atmosphere where staff feel unable to take robust action. Mr. Manknell’s report, directed to Justice Secretary David Lammy and Governor Jenny Louis, warns that the prison is currently incapable of providing a safe environment.
The Ghuman family continues to demand accountability, pointing out that Sundeep’s death was entirely preventable had the prison simply followed its own written laws. While the Ministry of Justice claims to be "leaving no stone unturned" and investing £40 million in security upgrades like X-ray scanners and CCTV, these measures do little to address the human error and institutional bias that allowed a white supremacist to be locked in a room with a British Asian man for eleven days.
As Stevie Hilden serves his life sentence, the broader questions remain focused on the leadership at Belmarsh. The inquest concluded that if the risk assessment had been handled with even a modicum of professional diligence, the "Racist Army of Woolwich" member would have been flagged, the cell assignment would have been blocked, and Sundeep Ghuman would still be alive today. For the British Asian community, the case serves as a grim reminder of the "double sentence" faced by minority inmates: the one handed down by the court, and the one inflicted by a system that fails to protect them from radicalized hate.
