Deaths at young offenders institution in Scotland ‘could have been avoided’

The deaths of two young people in custody could have been avoided, according to the long-awaited report of a joint inquiry into their suicides within months of one another.

The 419-page document, which identified “a catalogue of failures” in the system that was charged with their care, prompted their families’ lawyer to call on the UK government to end prisons’ immunity from prosecution.

Katie Allan, 20, and William Lindsay, 16, were able to kill themselves at Polmont young offenders institution near Falkirk in 2018 despite staff having been alerted to their specific vulnerabilities.

At an emotionally charged press conference, both their families welcomed the damning report by Sheriff Simon Collins KC and demanded a complete overhaul of Scotland’s fatal accident inquiry (FAI) system to make its recommendations legally binding.

John Reilly, William’s brother, described how his “baby brother, a terrified little boy” was left alone in a cell for 10 hours at a time. William died three days after he was sent to Polmont because there was no space in a children’s secure unit, having walked into a police station with a knife.

Reilly said his mother and two sisters had all died since 2018, none of them able to come to terms with his death and the unanswered questions around it.

The FAI, which was held last January, had heard how William was removed from observations on the morning before he died, despite his lengthy history of self-harming behaviour, and Collins noted that “almost all of those who interacted with him were at fault”.

Allan’s mother, Linda, said her daughter “was brutalised in Polmont, so much so that she lost all hope and saw only one solution, her death”.

The University of Glasgow student killed herself while serving a 16-month sentence for dangerous and drink driving. The inquiry heard how she was subject to regular, humiliating strip searches and relentless bullying, and the report identified multiple failures by prison and healthcare staff to record and share information relevant to her self-harm risk.

Collins found that if Allan’s cell had been made safe – which could have been done at minimal cost – she would not have died.

Her mother dismissed as a “farce” the Scottish Prison Service’s undertaking of a ligature audit, which was promised in 2019 but has still not been done across the SPS estate. “The hardest thing for us to accept is that a screwdriver could have saved Katie’s life. A bunk bed being replaced by a single bed could have saved William’s life,” she said.

While FAI determinations cannot apportion blame, the strongly worded report, far longer than average, makes 25 recommendations, including that the SPS take practical steps to make cells safer. The report criticised the service’s failure to do so in the years since the two deaths in 2018.

Deborah Coles, the executive director of the charity Inquest, who has been supporting the families, said the “highly unusual and far-reaching” report was the exception to the usual “institutional culture of secrecy, defensiveness, complacency and neglect over an individual and corporate level”.

She said systemic change should involve a radical change in the investigation of deaths in custody, with more timely inquiries and access to legal aid for grieving families. Coles also called for a national oversight mechanism to monitor and track how recommendations were acted upon, and joined the call for an end to crown immunity across the UK.

The families’ lawyer Aamer Anwar said the Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service told him before the FAI commenced there was more than sufficient evidence to prosecute the SPS for the deaths under health and safety laws but because they of crown immunity nothing could be done.

“It is time this archaic law, this licence to kill was changed by the UK government for all prisons throughout the UK,” he said.

A SPS spokesperson said it would carefully consider the recommendations. “Our thoughts remain with the families of Katie Allan and William Lindsay and we would like to take this opportunity to offer our sincere condolences and apologies for the failures identified in this report,” they added.

• In the UK and Ireland,

  Samaritans

  can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email

  jo@samaritans.org

  or

  jo@samaritans.ie

  . In the US, you can call or text the

  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

  on 988, chat on

  988lifeline.org

  , or

  text HOME

  to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service

  Lifeline

  is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at

  befrienders.org