A diabetic prison inmate who died after being left on the floor of her cell for 21 hours was denied medication and called “pathetic” by a nurse, an inquest has heard.
Annabella Landsberg, 45, who was also HIV positive, was restrained by four officers at HMP Peterborough and was left on a concrete floor for almost a day without medicine or food before the ambulance was called.
Landsberg was restrained on 2 September 2017, after allegedly grabbing the legs of a prison officer during an attempt to administer medication. The mother of three was found unresponsive and soaked in her own urine the following day.
Prison officer Amy Moore, who found the inmate, told the jury in Huntingdon how duty nurse Leslie Watts threw water on Landsberg, saying, “You haven’t wet yourself, you’ve done that.”
Officers had been called to Landsberg’s cell the day earlier when she did not stand up to receive medication through an inundation point. Landsberg claimed she was having difficulty standing, but Moore believed she was being obstructive.
“She said her legs wouldn’t work, so she couldn’t stand up, and she was reaching at the sink. She was kicking her legs about, backwards and forwards. I thought she was trying to be difficult for staff,” said Moore.
When officers came into the cell, Landsberg is said to have grabbed Moore’s legs. She is said to have been kicking and wriggling towards the door.
For at least 13 hours, staff compiled hour-by-hour logs and separate checks from outside the cell, in which it is claimed that Landsberg was moaning and mumbling incoherently. However, nobody entered the cell or asked how she was until the afternoon of 3 September. She was taken to hospital, where she died on 6 September.
Landsberg had fled to the UK following a gang rape in Zimbabwe, and was arrested on antisocial behaviour charges in 2014.
In a witness statement, her sister, Sandra, said her mental capacity and health deteriorated after she was diagnosed with HIV in 2007. She added that she had nightmares since her sister’s death and wanted to ensure that no other prisoners died in similar circumstances.
