A prisoner who had threatened to harm himself was not properly monitored by staff before he took his own life, a report has found.
The Inspector of Prisons report into the incident at Mountjoy Prison also found that earlier that day the inmate had swallowed two batteries in front of a nurse so that he would be admitted to hospital to have a painful medical condition dealt with.
A medical officer judged at the time that he would not require hospitalisation and that the batteries “would eventually pass naturally”.
The 33-year-old died in the Mater hospital on April 16th last year after being found in his cell two days previously.
The report, carried out by Judge Michael Reilly, is one of seven reports into prisoner deaths just released by the Department of Justice.
The deceased was not named in the report, however, it is understood he is was serving an eight-year term for offences including burglary and possession of a handgun.
The report stated that because of his recent behaviour, the prisoner was put on “special observation”, meaning that officers were required to check his cell every 15 to 20 minutes.
After reviewing CCTV footage, the judge found there were gaps of up to 57 minutes between cell checks that evening.
When the prisoner was found at 11.24pm, he had not been checked since 10.59pm.
He had been diagnosed with an inguinal hernia the previous February. The man told his family it was causing him extreme pain, that he found it hard to walk and that he had to stop going to the gym, which upset him.
Hospital appointment
On the day of his death, before he swallowed the batteries, he was told by a doctor that he had a hospital appointment within the “next few weeks”.
Two hours later he swallowed two AAA batteries in front of a prison nurse and said he did it “because youse are doing nothing for me about this pain”. When informed he would not be going to hospital, the man told staff he would “cut the f***ing thing out with a knife”. As a result he was placed on special observation.
‘Must be checked’
According to the report, a general order for Mountjoy Prison states special observation prisoners must be checked “at least every 15-20 minutes.” An entry in the night guard report book for that period also ordered that they be checked every 15 minutes.
The report states that the inmate did not suffer from any psychiatric problems and that he was described by one prisoner as “a happy outgoing guy”.
“Neither the deceased’s family nor his partner could offer any reason for the deceased taking the action that he did apart from a perceived inaction on the part of the authorities to deal expeditiously with his hernia problem,” Judge Reilly wrote.
He concluded that the batteries did not contribute to his death “per se”. He said that “while a finding of a cause of death is a matter for the coroner, it was suspected to be cerebral hypoxia.
Irish Penal Reform Trust spokeswoman Deirdre Malone said yesterday that it is a matter of grave concern the prisoner was not monitored properly and repeated calls for an independent prison ombudsman to deal with prisoner complaints.
“In light of both the physical situation and evident mental distress of the prisoner, it is wholly unacceptable that he was not checked every 15 minutes in contravention of the standard operating procedures for those on special observations,” she said.
Ms Malone also suggested the death could be a breach of human rights law: “Case law is crystal clear. A State will have failed to protect a person’s right to life under the European Convention on Human Rights if its prison authorities knew or ought to have known of a risk to the person’s life and did not take reasonable steps to avoid it.”
The Prison Service has not published prisoner death figures since 2010. The annual report in 2010 recorded 11 deaths in custody but it is not clear what proportion took their own lives.
