Report 'Prison staff missed the warning signs inmate was suicidal'

A prisoner who was being held on an indefinite jail term at HMP Bristol took his own life.

- Angus MCINTYRE

A report into the death of Keith Gadd by the prisons watchdog found that although his tariff, or minimum time to be served in prison, expired more than 13 years before he died, he had never been released on licence.

Mr Gadd is one of 94 prisoners under Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) who have taken their own lives. IPPs were abolished in 2012, but it was not retrospective, meaning that today thousands of people remain in prison yet to be released.

Mr Gadd’s death, on March 9, 2023, has been attributed to his losing hope of being freed from the open-ended jail term. Following his death, the prison was unable to identify a next of kin.

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Adrian Usher said in his report that, in September 2022, the Justice Select Committee found that IPP sentences “cause acute harm to those subject to them”.

He said: “.. The prospect of serving a sentence without an end date [causes] higher levels of self-harm as well as a lack of trust in the system that is meant to rehabilitate them”.