An inquest jury has recorded a damning verdict on the death of a prisoner at HMP Wandsworth. The jury, at Westminster Coroner’s Court found negligence by staff and poor practice contributed to the man’s death. This is the third inquest in a month into the death of a prisoner at Wandsworth.
37-year-old James Best died after collapsing at the south London prison in August 2011. He had been convicted of theft at Croydon Magistrates’ Court and remanded in custody awaiting sentence. During the riots that swept the country, he had stolen a gingerbread man from an already looted bakery in Croydon. It was his first time in prison.
At the time, magistrates were ordered to disregard normal sentencing guidelines and crack down on those involved. In July that year, James had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, after self-harming on a London street.
The inquest heard medical assessments on prisoners’ fitness to attend the prison gym were carried out by inmate gym orderlies instead of staff. James had ticked three boxes relating to his medical condition which should have barred him from working out in the gym.
On the afternoon of 8 August, James went to the prison gym, where he was described as ‘training really hard, really going for it’. After the workout he returned to his cell and collapsed. An ambulance was called but by 5.10pm he had been pronounced dead, having suffered a heart attack.
James had been in care since he was a year old. He was adopted, but that broke down when he was 15. He was then fostered by Dolly Daniel and stayed with her family until he was 18. Dolly Daniel questions why he was sent to prison and asks why the court failed to address his mental and physical health problems.
Eric Allison
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 232 April/May 2013
