An inquest into the death of Saria Hart at HMP Foston Hall found that ‘serious failings by the prison staff’ contributed to her death, the charity INQUEST reports.
Saria was arrested on 14 August 2019 and taken to HMP Foston Hall two days later; she died in hospital on 13 October nine days after attempting to take her own life. The inquest found that an incomplete and inadequate ACCT safety plan, combined with staff inaction, contributed to Saria’s death.
The prison was informed upon Saria’s arrival in October 2019 that she was a self-harm risk, and yet no ACCT was installed despite her history of self-harm. She was later segregated – an approach for which ‘there was absolutely no need’, staff accepted at the inquest. While an ACCT was later implemented, Despite multiple indications of a desire to self-harm, ‘no steps were taken to remove high risk items from Saria’s room’. She was later found ligatured in her cell and taken to hospital where she later died.
The family’s representative Erica San of Bhatt Murphy Solicitors stated of the inquest findings: ‘A number of preventative and risk reducing measures were available to the prison staff to manage Saria’s risk: a safer cell with fewer ligature points, constant observations, removal of certain dangerous items from her cell. Instead, prison staff ignored and dismissed Saria’s cries for help. The most recent HMIP inspection found that the response to women in crisis was “too reactive, uncaring and often punitive”. This was all too clear from the evidence heard at Saria’s inquest, and there is no evidence that the attitudes of the prison officers who remain at HMP Foston Hall have changed.’
Self-inflicted deaths and self-harm in prisons have reached record highs. These deaths have been repeatedly preventable with proper intervention by staff, with Robert Fenlon’s 2016 death at HMP Woodhill even amounting to an ‘unlawful killing’ due to prison neglect.