Jail’s failures saw teen give birth to dead baby alone
A NEWBORN baby died after a teenager was left to give birth alone in her cell in Europe’s largest women’s prison, a watchdog reports.
The 18-year-old mother, who was behind bars for the first time while facing a robbery charge, suffered a string of failings in her care at HMP Bronzefield in Middlesex, prisons and probation ombudsman Sue McAllister said.
Ambulance crews were called to the scene in September 2019 but the baby girl did not survive. It is not known if she was stillborn and police have treated the death as ‘unexplained’.
The prisoner, referred to as Ms A, had a ‘traumatic childhood’, was vulnerable, and ‘sad, angry and very scared’ that her baby would be taken away from her.
She refused to engage with neo-natal care at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Trust in Surrey but, according to the report, prison staff regarded her as ‘difficult’ and having a ‘bad attitude’.
It found maternity services at Bronzefield were ‘outdated and inadequate’ and the approach to Ms A’s care by midwives was ‘inflexible, unimaginative and insufficiently trauma-informed’.
It said there was no plan for dealing with her pregnancy and a ‘lack of clarity’ over her due date. There were ‘ several missed opportunities’ to increase observations and the response to her request for a nurse the day before giving birth was ‘completely inadequate’.
Ms McAllister said: ‘ Ms A gave birth alone in her cell overnight without med
ical assistance. This should never have happened.’ Justice secretary Dominic Raab described the events as ‘harrowing’ and said improvements have been put in place for pregnant women in custody.
The Ministry of Justice said the NHS has taken over the budget for maternity services at the prison and put an ultrasound scanner inside the jail. Prison director Vicky Robinson said the jail’s operator Sodexo was ‘deeply sorry’.