AN inmate at Chelmsford Prison killed himself after staff failed to realise he was at risk of suicide and take steps to protect him reports the Local Democracy Reporter.
Last year, while awaiting a sentencing hearing, Steven Davidson died at HMP Chelmsford, the same prison that recently mistakenly released an Epping sex offender, leading to a two-day manhunt across Essex and London.
A new report on the prevention of future deaths, released this week, found Mr Davidson had self-harmed during a previous spell in prison between 2012 and 2013, including harming himself until he fell unconscious on more than one occasion.
The report from Essex coroner Stephen Simblet found this information was contained and documented within the System One Healthcare Records, which was available to the staff in Chelmsford Prison.
But people involved in healthcare at the jail – including a number of registered nurses carrying out a mental health review of Mr Davidson’s care, and the nurse conducting the initial reception health screening were not aware of his history of self-harm.
The report said: “Evidence was given that such past history is clinically significant to any assessment of the risk of self-harm. The evidence from some of these staff was that they had not been able to navigate the records very easily, and/or, despite interrogating the records, had not found this important information.
“There was evidence given from senior personnel in the company involved in supplying health care to Chelmsford and other prisons that it is possible to word-search for words such as ‘self-harm’ or ‘suicide’.
The report showed concerns that health care staff at HMP Chelmsford were not able to navigate the System One records sufficiently to find information about previous incidents of self-harm in prison, and were not aware of the importance of searching the records.
The jail is the same one that wrongly freed Ethiopian national Hadush Kebatu, a convicted Epping sex offender, earlier this month.
A prison officer has been suspended after he was mistakenly released instead of being sent to an immigration centre ahead of deportation.
The officer, whose name has not been released, has been taken off duty while an investigation is carried out.
Kebatu, 38, who had been living at the Bell Hotel in Epping, was jailed for 12 months in September. He was serving a prison sentence after sexually assaulting a woman and a teenage girl in July, sparking demonstrations in Epping and across the country.
HCRG Care Group, which is responsible for health care at the prison, has been asked for comment.
