A sex offender with cancer died before he could be released to spend his final days at home.
Barrie Jones was serving his prison sentence at HMP Northumberland when he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2018.
However after chemotherapy failed and he was told it was terminal, the 52-year-old was transferred to HMP Holme House, in County Durham, for palliative care.
“Staff at Holme House began the process to apply for early release on compassionate grounds on Mr Jones’ behalf,” states a Prisons and Probation Ombudsman report.
“However, because he had limited contact with family members and did not have a suitable release address, the application process was stopped.”
Instead Jones told staff he wanted to die in a hospice.
He was transferred to Teesside Hospice on 20 November last year where he died four days later.
A post-mortem found that his lung cancer had spread throughout his body.
The ombudsman’s investigation, launched following his death, found no fault with how staff at the Category C County Durham prison handled his death.
In terms of his care, it ruled Jones had enjoyed the “standard equivalent to that which he could have expected to receive in the community”.
