Bullied middle-class student took her own life in custody

A MIDDLE-CLASS university student locked up for a “stupid mistake” killed herself after being tormented by other inmates, a court heard.

Katie Allan, 21, was sent to Polmont Young Offenders Institution (YOI) in Stirlingshire in March 2018 after a drink-driving accident that involved a 15-year-old pedestrian who recovered from his injuries.

Her mother, Linda Allan, told an inquiry into her death yesterday that she had taken her own life after being repeatedly threatened by people from a “different demographic”.

Katie, who was studying geography at Glasgow University, was handed a 16-month sentence despite her victim’s family pleading with the courts for her to retain her freedom.

Mrs Allan, a nurse and former Scottish government adviser, said her daughter had been “like a rabbit caught in the headlights” and “petrified” in custody.

Other inmates had called her a “snob”, told her “go hang yourself”, warning she would be “battered” if she ventured into shared areas.

Ms Allan claimed a prison officer had shrugged as if to say “so what?” when she warned that her daughter was

“from a different demographic to other prisoners”. On her final family visit – the afternoon before she killed herself, in June 2018 – Katie told her mother and brother, Scott, then 15, she had not slept for three nights.

“She didn’t feel safe,” Ms Allan, an honorary clinical associate at Glasgow University, told the hearing. “She was terrified of the unpredictability of the environment she was in.

“She looked incredibly anxious and absolutely exhausted, she had big dark shadows under her eyes. I could see she’d been crying. She took a bit of coaxing to tell me what was going on. Eventually she burst out crying.

“She told me there had been a huge physical fight in the hall.”

At Falkirk Sheriff Court, Mrs Allan told the Fatal Accident Inquiry, the Scottish equivalent of an inquest, it was “the biggest regret of [her] life” that she had accepted reassurances from a Polmont officer with whom she raised concern about her daughter’s welfare at the end of her final visit.

Once home, she sent Katie an email through the institution’s system urging her to speak to a warder and to make sure that nothing happened to jeopardise her application for release on a home detention curfew that she would have become eligible for in four weeks.

The inquiry continues.