The parents of a young woman who killed herself in custody claim the number of suicides in prison amounts to “nothing short of a massacre”.
Linda and Stuart Allan’s daughter Katie died in Polmont three months into a 16-month sentence.
The parents published research yesterday which shows 82 people took their own lives in a decade in Scottish prisons. The number has risen from six in 2008 to 12 in 2017, they claimed.
Linda said: “We couldn’t understand how someone could die in prison. It’s not just in our daughter’s case, 82 people have died through suicide in the last 10 years.
“That’s corporate manslaughter as far as we’re concerned.”
Glasgow University student Katie injured teenager Michael Keenan in a hit-and-run while drunk and was jailed in March last year. Michael has since made a full recovery and his parents asked prosecutors to spare Katie from a custodial sentence.
Linda and Stuart were in the Scottish Parliament yesterday with human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar, who claimed the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) could be prosecuted.
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Anwar said: “If they are repeating the same mistakes, then the prison service must be held to account.
“Until they are prosecuted, the prison service will continue in the same way again and again.”
Anwar has written to Scotland’s top prosecutor, the Lord Advocate, asking for details of any criminal inquiry.
The Allans looked at 258 prisoner deaths over 10 years. Forty per cent were suicides.
They said the SPS had only publicly confirmed the cause of death for 191 prisoners, while their research determined the cause for 208. Linda, who worked in the NHS before Katie’s death, said the number of suicides is “nothing short of a massacre”.
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She added: “Our campaign attempts to present the stark reality of what is going on in our prisons – no gloss over, no excuses, no spin, no soundbites – and ask for honest consideration.
“What we’ve discovered is that Scotland has a death penalty. It is no longer a jostling public spectacle around the gallows.”
The Record put the research and allegations to the SPS but they did not respond.
