A Sad Story !

A prison is not supposed to be a happy place, but there is the expectation that inmates will serve their sentence and be released back into the community alive.   When a prisoner dies in the hands of correctional staff the inquest will delve deeply into how that death occurred.  Just such as inquest is revealing how a prisoner with psychotic tendencies was handled when staff needed to move him - against his will - to a cell where installed video cameras could monitor his health.

That man was a twenty-six year old Aboriginal who was housed in the prison hospital at Sydney's Long Bay prison on December 29, 2015.   He was serving a six and a half year sentence for robbery in company with wounding, aggravated sexual intercourse and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.   He suffered from Diabetes and was on anti psychotic medicine and was uncooperative with staff.

The prison authorities decided that the move was necessary and a team of six officers from the immediate action team rushed into cell Cell 71 just after 2-42 pm.   They pinned the prisoner down on his bed and later - on the floor and he was heard to complain that " he could not breathe ".  He was carried down the corridor and placed in Cell 77, which had video surveillance.

This move was recorded on a hand held video camera and audio captured repeated complaint that " he could not breathe " and one of the guards remarked " if you can talk, you can breathe ".  Moments later he was unresponsive.

An emergency physician expert was highly critical of the CPR given before paramedics arrived at the prison and in particular Justice Health staff failed to provide consistent cardiac massage and ventilation.  As a result, efforts to revive the prisoner were " effectively without value :" and  " incompatible with survival ".

The inquest heard that the an autopsy report listed the prisoner's death as " unascertained "  and later Corrective Services made a number of changes to inform staff about the risk of positional asphyxia when restraining inmates.

Like so many inquests into " death in custody " this one is unlikely to deliver a clear finding.  It seems that the prisoner suffered cardiac arrest as a result of being restrained in the prone position by the IAT members.  By their very nature, prisons are places where uncooperative people are housed and force is often required to achieve compliance with the rules that apply.

This death might have been prevented had CPR been given more affectively but that would be impossible to determine without doubt.   The officers were simply performing their duties and that had an unfortunate outcome.  The relatives of the deceased are unlikely to be satisfied with such a finding.

Fortunately, the vast majority of people sentenced to prison serve their sentences without incident and return to society unscathed.  We can only hope that every inquest into a prison death results in rule changes that improve the chances of prison survival.  Realists will accept that they can never be completely eliminated.