Immigration staff decided suicidal man just 'distressed by toothache' days before he killed himself

Damning report reveals officials opted to stop monitoring man as they believed he was ‘no longer at risk’

The man became ‘increasingly distressed’ after being held at an immigration removal centre for more than six months (PA)

Immigration removal centre staff decided a man who told them he wanted to die was merely “distressed by toothache” days before he killed himself, a report has revealed.

He was among prisoners whose deaths were found to be preventable by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO), which warned of spiralling violence and self-harm amid staff cuts and a flood of former “legal highs”.

The 28-year-old man known as Mr P was held in the centre for more than six months to be deported after being charged with assault.

“He told staff he was frustrated at being in detention and that he wanted to die,” the report said.

“The following day a review was held that lasted three minutes and monitoring was stopped after staff decided that Mr P’s distress was due to toothache and that he was no longer at risk as a dental appointment had been requested.”

The next day he became “highly distressed” and a nurse referred him to a mental health team but the man was not put on suicide watch.

He was found hanging in his room the following day and later died in hospital without regaining consciousness.

The PPO found that staff did not properly assess his risk of suicide, “stopped monitoring him prematurely” and did not consider the effect his prolonged detention was having.

The UK is the only country in Europe without a time limit on immigration detention in dedicated centres, which hold a mix of foreign offenders and failed asylum seekers.

Mr P’s death was one of three suicides in immigration removal centres in 2017-18, where there were also two deaths from other causes.

The PPO’s report noted that detainees “often face uncertainty about how long they will be detained and whether or not they will ultimately be removed from the UK, which can add to their anxiety and distress”.

Four people who were being kept under immigration detention in regular prisons also took their own lives in the year.

They included a man who jumped from a balcony on the day he had been due for release after being told his detention was being extended.

The 2017-18 financial year also saw the first suicide in secure children’s home for more than two decades.

Overall, suicides in prisons, probation hostels and other accommodation investigated by the PPO fell by 37 per cent to 74 in the last financial year.

But PPO Elizabeth Moody warned that in the first six months of 2018-19 – which is not covered by the report, the figure started to rise again.

There were 45 suicides in the period, compared to 28 in the same timeframe the year before.

“There isn’t any room for complacency because rates of violence and self-harm have continued to rise,” Ms Moody said.

“Common sense suggests the cuts in prison staff numbers had something to do with the rise in the number of deaths but when we looked in detail it wasn’t as simple as that.

“There was a rise in self-inflicted deaths across the board, including in high-security prisons protected from the cuts.”

She warned that there had also been a “marked increase” in inmates cutting and scratching themselves, as well as attempted hangings, overdoses and self-strangulation.

The report found that murders had almost doubled from four to seven in the year, and that “extreme violence” was spreading from high-security prisons to low-security establishments that only hold inmates deemed no longer to be violent.

In one category C resettlement prison, a 25-year-old man jailed for drug dealing was stabbed to death over a mobile phone on his way to Friday prayers.

The report said levels of violence were at an all-time high in an “increasingly volatile and violent environment” worsened by falling prison staff numbers and the rise of psychoactive substances.

Ms Moody said the watchdog was also seeing the “completely unexplained deaths of young men who seem to be well and then die unexpectedly”, sometimes without a cause ever being established.

“Anecdotal evidence suggests that they are using psychoactive substances,” she added.

“Often prison officers tell us they had no idea they were using but prisoners say they were using every day and regularly seen under the influence.”

Ms Moody said former legal highs like spice are now “completely out of control” in Britain’s prisons and remain readily available despite government attempts at a crackdown.

Psychoactive substances like spice remain ‘readily available’, the report found (Getty)

“Individual prisons are really struggling to do what they can,” the ombudsman added. “There needs to be a national drugs strategy which deals with supply and demand and provides advice on what works to prisons.”

She said individual institutions were implementing their own testing and procedures, although some do not have money to buy expensive equipment.

Some prisoners died of natural causes and the ombudsman warned that not all were being afforded dignity, with some being kept in handcuffs or chained to prison staff until shortly before their deaths.

The report found that both health and mental care was lacking in some institutions and Ms Moody said the death that shocked her the most was that of a teenager suffering from undiagnosed meningitis.

The 19-year-old, known as Mr K, was referred to the mental health team but underwent no physical checks, and his erratic actions were treated as “poor behaviour” rather than a sign of illness.

“Over the course of the next three weeks Mr K stopped eating, drinking and communicating,” the report said. “His condition deteriorated severely to the extent that he repeatedly soiled himself and ate his own faeces … staff did not refer him to the prison GP for two weeks, and when they did Mr K refused to attend the appointments.”

A week before his death, Mr K collapsed in the shower and was taken to hospital in restraints.

He was placed in an induced coma and died six days later of meningitis, bacterial endocarditis (an infection of the heart) and pneumonia.

In 2017-18 the PPO investigated 180 deaths from natural causes, 74 suicides, seven murders, 23 “non-natural deaths” and 71 allegations of staff using unnecessary force.

Mark Day, of the Prison Reform Trust, said: “This disturbing report paints a bleak picture of a prison system where people are dying needlessly, and where lessons clearly set out by the ombudsman are not being learned.”

A prison service spokesperson said: “The best way to keep staff and inmates safe is to keep drugs out of prisons. That is why we are spending an extra £40 million on safety and security measures including x-ray scanners, drug-detection dogs, better perimeter searches and phone-blocking technology.

“In addition, we’re tackling the criminal gangs that smuggle drugs into prisons by investing an additional £14m each year to cut off their ability to do business.”