A prisoner who apparently hanged himself in his cell was found and cut down by fellow inmates after staff who unlocked his cell failed to notice the deceased man, the Guardian has learned.
James Sullivan, 27, was found dead in his cell at Lowdham Grange prison in Nottinghamshire on 24 March . He was serving a life sentence for the murder of his partner.
Prisoners at the jail have told the Guardian they were worried about Sullivan’s mental state and checked up on him when their cells were unlocked shortly after 8am.
Two prisoners entered his cell minutes after others on the landing had been unlocked. They found him hanging, cut him down and alerted staff. He was in a single cell at the category B prison, which is privately run by Serco.
Sullivan, from Nottingham, had pleaded guilty to murder in January 2011. The court heard he had become increasingly angry about the lack of contact with his young son and stabbed Sara West, 21, in the neck and left her house with the two-month-old child. Police arrested him on a bus and found the murder weapon in the child’s pushchair.
The judge ordered Sullivan to serve a minimum of 20 years. Prisoners who knew him told the Guardian he had been acting strangely in the weeks before his death and had talked of ending his life. A Serco spokesman said Sullivan was not on an “at risk” register.
A Prison Service spokesman said that Sullivan was found unresponsive in his cell , staff attempted CPR and an ambulance was called, but he was pronounced dead at 8.34am.
“As with all deaths in custody, there will an investigation by the independent prisons and probation ombudsman,” he said.
Trish Mitchell, Serco’s contract director at Lowdham Grange, said any death in custody was regrettable. “There will be a coroner’s inquest in due course that will examine all the circumstances of James Sullivan’s death,” she said.
In January, figures released by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) showed a sharp increase in the number of self-harm incidents and deaths in male prisons in England and Wales.
In 2015, there were 257 deaths in prisons in England and Wales, compared with 153 in 2006. Eighty-nine of the deaths in 2015 were apparently self-inflicted. In January, the MoJ said the overall increase in the prison population accounted for much of the increase, but the fatality rate per 1,000 prisoners has risen disproportionately in the last 10 years.
• In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.
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