Jail ‘unable to stop drug supply’ to inmate who overdosed

A PRISON was “unable to stop the drug supply” to an inmate who died from an overdose.

Daley Thomas, 27, died at HMP Dovegate, just outside Marchington, after taking synthetic drug “spice”.

His inquest has now been concluded, with a jury returning a verdict of “death by accident”.

But coroner Andrew Haigh told the hearing the Category B jail had failed to stop drugs coming in – and said improper staff training led to a delay in Thomas’ body being found.

Summing up, Mr Haigh said: “Daley Thomas was a serving prisoner at HMP Dovegate and was found dead in his cell. He had been found to be taking illicit drugs.

“He was a regular drug user. The prison service was unable to stop the drug supply at Dovegate.

“Any steps which had been in place wasn’t preventing illicit drugs from reaching Daley Thomas. Daley Thomas chose not to engage with the integrated substance misuse team.

“Improper staff training regarding wellbeing checks and roll call procedure could have contributed to the delayed discovery of Daley Thomas.”

The inquest finished last week, with Thomas – who was serving an 11-anda-half-year sentence for kidnap, blackmail, supplying cocaine and production of cannabis – having died on July 20 last year. Before its conclusion, the inquest heard Thomas, from Bath, was “known in the drug culture” at Dovegate and had told staff he had drug debts he could not pay.

He revealed he had weapons and said he would hurt someone if not moved to another wing.

He had told staff he was having “silly thoughts”, but had no intention of acting on them. An “administration error” meant he was not referred to the mental health team as planned.

Four days before he died, he spoke to a prison doctor because he wanted to hurt someone and believed this was due to the stress of lockdown.

On July 19, checks were conducted by prison staff at 4.59pm, 8.03pm and at 5.07am. There was a welfare check on his cell at 7.35am and he was seen lying face-down on the floor but the staff member believed he was breathing as she could see his chest moving.

At 9.20am his cell door was opened and he was found. CPR was carried out but this was stopped at 9.30am.

Clare Pearson, Serco prison director at HMP Dovegate, said after the hearing: “Any death in prison is a tragedy. This case is no exception and as always we will review the court’s findings to see if we can learn any lessons from it.

“We continue to work extremely hard to stop the criminals who smuggle drugs into the prison and we recently introduced a new x-ray machine to detect contraband, which is already making an impact.”