Prisoner’s spice death prompts call for shakeup

CHECKS on prisoners should be carried out regularly and at unpredictable times – an ombudsman’s report into the death of an inmate has found.

Luke Morris Jones of Blaenau Ffestiniog suffered heart failure after smoking the synthetic cannabinoid Spice, and was found unresponsive in his cell at HMP Berwyn on March 31, 2018.

Residue from psychoactive substances was found on pieces of paper and a milk carton in his room.

An inquest held last November found that a failure to prevent drugs entering the Wrexham super-prison contributed to the 22-year-old’s death. It heard fake letters coated in substances such as Spice and Mamba were being used to smuggle the drug into the prison, spurring the coroner to issue a Regulation 28 report for prevention of future deaths.

A report has now been published by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, who carried out an independent investigation.

The report said that Mr Jones had a history of mental health problems, substance misuse, and self-harmed frequently.

He said his low mood had been “worse since arriving at Berwyn”.

He was managed under prison service suicide and self-harm prevention procedures (known as ACCT) on several occasions. He admitted to them that he used psychoactive substances (PS) in prison as a coping mechanism. He “continued to use PS despite being made aware of the dangers and despite losing privileges,” the report says.

It adds that Mr Jones had would have been due for release a month before he died, but had his sentence pushed back to August 2018 for “poor prison behaviour.”

The investigation carried out by ombudsman Sue McAllister, found Mr Jones “received appropriate support”, and she was “satisfied” staff responded appropriately when he was found to be under the influence of the drugs.

“However, I am concerned that PS is so readily available at Berwyn and the scale of the problem appears to overwhelm efforts which can be taken locally,” she wrote. “Despite a comprehensive local drugs strategy, more needs to be done to limit supply and demand.

“In our view there is now an urgent need for the prison service to issue national guidance, rather than leaving individual establishments to develop their own local strategies on a piecemeal basis.”

Mr Jones was jailed in February 2016 and was serving a four-year sentence for robbery. He was moved to HMP Berwyn on April, 12 2017 and was being monitored by the ACCT on the day he died.

On March 26 – five days before his death, he was found with a noose made from torn bedding around his neck and was monitored under constant supervision.

But on March 30, checks were reduced to four an hour and on the afternoon of March 31, observations were set at two an hour.

On that day, Mr Jones was locked in his room at 5pm. An officer checked on him at 5.33pm and recorded he was watching television and “appeared to be in good spirits”.

At 6.07pm, the same officer returned to find him lying on the floor unresponsive.

He was taken to Wrexham Maelor where he was pronounced dead at 7.20pm.

The report says: “We found that for the most part staff managed the ACCT procedures very well and that the decision to stop constant supervision on 30 March was a reasonable one.

“We feel obliged to note that on the afternoon of March 31, Mr Jones should have been observed twice an hour. Checks were made at 4.30pm, 5pm, 5.33pm and 6.07pm. Within any one-hour period, there should have been two checks, so they did not quite meet the frequency required.

“However, we accept they were only slightly out and we consider it unlikely that this made a difference to the outcome for Mr Jones.

“Mr Jones died of an acute cardiac episode caused by his PS use. It is tragic that, despite their best efforts, staff were unable to prevent this sadly predictable outcome.”

Mr Jones was the first prisoner to die at Berwyn, a year after it opened in 2017.