A prisoner who had no history of hard-drug use and who was discovered unconscious by staff in his prison cell had consumed a fatal amount of methadone, an inquest has heard.
John Wallace (21), Kilcorral, Castlebridge, Co Wexford, was discovered unconscious in his Mountjoy cell on the afternoon of August 24th, 2006. He was brought to the A&E of the Mater hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Dublin City Coroner's Court heard yesterday.
Wallace, who was not known to have used drugs in prison apart from cannabis, had 0.16 micrograms per mil of methadone in his blood at the time of his death, a toxicology screening revealed.
The court heard this quantity of methadone was within the ranges of methadone maintenance and methadone overdose.
Wallace had been an inmate at Mountjoy prison for less than three weeks at the time of his death.
A postmortem by Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis found that he died of bronchial pneumonia due to methadone intoxication.
Wallace, who was in cell one on B base, had been selected as a trustee prisoner or cleaner prisoner as he had no previous prison record.
As a trustee prisoner, he had a number of cleaning duties as well as privileges which included his cell remaining open from early morning until late at night.
Prison officer Graham Wilkinson told the inquest that on August 24th, between 2.45pm and 2.50pm, he went to cell one to speak to Wallace about his duties following a complaint by his cellmate that he was not doing his share of the work.
However, he was unable to wake him and immediately alerted the prison medics.
Wallace was removed to the Mater hospital by ambulance.
Counsel for the Irish Prison Service, Stephen Byrne, said it appeared that Wallace may not have been used to taking methadone and it could have been the first time he had taken the drug.
Coroner Dr Brian Farrell said it was not an unreasonable speculation, but this was not known for definite.
A jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure.