PRESS
RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
20th July 2017.
Justice
for Sarah Reed begins with health and prison services being held accountable
for deaths in custody.
#SarahRead #SayHerName #BlackLivesMatter.
Background
Sarah Reed, a young black woman with a history of mental illness,
detained on remand in a single occupancy cell in the healthcare unit of
Holloway Women's Prison, was found dead on 11th January 2016. The
prison has since been closed. Sarah’s illness was precipitated by the premature
death of her six-month-old daughter in 2003, when she and her partner were
dispatched from a children's hospice with their deceased baby wrapped in a
quilt to find an undertaker. Sarah's mental health deteriorated as a
consequence of this trauma. She was also the victim of a vicious assault by a
Metropolitan Police Officer, PC James Kiddie in 2012. He was subsequently
charged, convicted and dismissed from the police force. This incident further
exacerbated Sarah's condition, as did her arrest for an alleged assault whilst
defending herself against a sexual attacker in a secure mental health unit.
The inquest into Sarah
Reed’s sudden death was
held at City of London Coroners Court. It started on Tuesday, 4th
July and concluded on Thursday, 20th July 2017. The jury's verdict
found that The Inner London Crown Court’s processes of obtaining psychiatric
medical reports were not sufficiently timely. The jury found the delay
“particularly difficult to understand”. If a timely Fitness to Plead Assessment
had been performed as requested by the court, then Sarah Reed would not have
suffered a mental health crisis in HMP Holloway and would have received
appropriate treatment within a mental health hospital. The jury concluded this
delay significantly contributed to her subsequent death. The jury also found
that the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) review delays and
failures were contributory factors to Sarah’s death, in particular the
reduction of observations despite her worsening psychotic condition. They found
the reduction of Sarah’s anti-psychotic medication to have been appropriate
initially, but strongly criticised the subsequent failure to consider safer
alternatives. The jury also found that HMP Holloway staff failed to respond to
a request from Dr Timms to review Sarah’s anti-psychotic medication in a timely
manner. These failures left Sarah in a distressed state without appropriate
treatment. Finally, the jury considered HMP Holloway’s inexplicable decision to
cancel Sarah’s visits with family and friends especially detrimental.
Sarah’s legal team was exceptional, however the search for the
truth is often frustrated by a lack of resources for families in terms of legal
and evidential expertise. We believe the inquest evidence presented, outlining the
ways in which Sarah’s behaviour was assessed and managed, the withdrawing of her
medication, and the punishments and segregation to which she was subjected are
highly disturbing. It paints a distressing picture of the inhumane way a Black
woman with mental illness was treated in prison. Sarah’s case, like the cases
of Dean Saunders and David 'Rocky' Bennett before her, have highlighted
systemic failings of care for people with mental illness and institutional
racism within prisons.
The Sarah Reed Campaign for Justice has been supported by a number
of individuals, groups and organisations, in particular the social movement
Blaksox, Women In Prison, Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK, and
Gender, Education and Enterprise Development for Africa (GEEDA).
As far as the
Campaign and Sarah’s family are concerned, the specific facts relating to Sarah’s death still remain largely unexplained.
We make the following
urgent demands:
1. The Government should commit to ensuring nobody
with severe mental illness should be placed in a police or prison cells.
2. Urgent modernisation and reform of the Coroners’
inquest courts processes to give greater equity and justice to victims’
relatives.
3. That Coroners’ inquests recommendations need to
be mandatory and enforced by law.
4. In the event a prisoner is identified as having
a mental health crisis requiring transfer to hospital, that this takes place
within two (2) hours and treated as an emergency, as is the case with a
physical medical crisis.
5. That no prisoner identified as mentally ill and/or
on suicide watch is screened off as punishment, isolating them from human
contact and cutting off visibility when they most need it.
This inquest has left
serious questions unanswered:
1. How did Sarah, a woman in poor physical health
commit suicide by strangling herself and maintain the pressure past the point
of unconsciousness whilst lying face up on a bed, within a ten-minute window?
2. Why were key reports such as Fitness to Plead
and important psychiatric assessment reports delayed, causing significant harm
to Sarah?
3. Why did Holloway Prison psychiatrist, Dr Darren
Bull determine that Sarah was not psychotic, despite overwhelming evidence to
the contrary?
4. Why was there a substantive and critical delay
in transferring Sarah from Holloway to hospital once a decision was made that
she was in need of urgent medical treatment?
Donna McKoy, Chair of
the Sarah Reed Campaign for Justice said, “Sarah would be alive today had the Coroners' inquest
recommendations been considered mandatory and been backed by the force of law.”
Kate Paradine, CEO of
Women in Prison asked, “’What
was she even doing in prison in the first place?’ This is the question we at
the charity Women in Prison hear most often whenever a woman dies in prison. In
2016, 22 women died in prison with 12 of these taking their own lives.
Tragically, their stories are remarkably similar - histories of trauma, abuse,
mental ill health and self-harm; often in prison on remand or sentenced for
non-violent crimes (84% of all prison sentences for women) – mostly for theft
like shoplifting. …The inquest into [Sarah’s] death tells the story of a
completely broken system.”
Patricia Lamour MBE of
GEEDA pointed out that “Sarah
Reed was remanded in custody for the sole purpose of a psychiatric report to
assess her fitness to plea. The inordinate delay in processing these reports
was a material factor in the circumstances surrounding Sarah's death. No woman,
no mother, in fact nobody suffering from mental illness should be detained in
either a prison or a police cell.”
Sarah Reed Campaign
member Claudia Manchanda
said, "I sat through the inquest and heard several examples of what
appeared to be evidence of perjury and poor practice by a range of statutory
agencies. I think that the evidence given to this inquest should be the basis
of charges of perjury, internal disciplinary measures and dismissals, where
appropriate."
Zita Holbourne, Sarah
Reed Campaign Trade Union liaison officer and Chair of BARAC UK, said that "the gross injustices Sarah experienced,
leading to her unexpected death have been of great concern to the trade union
movement and, in recognition of the fact that Sarah died because she was black,
a woman and disabled due to her mental ill-health, four emergency motions have
been carried at the TUC Black Workers, Women & Disabled Workers
conferences. The evidence heard at the inquest leaves more questions
unanswered. Sarah's family deserves to know the truth."
Deborah Coles, Director
of INQUEST stated: “Sarah Reed was
an extremely vulnerable black woman with a long history of mental ill health. ….
The state’s responsibility for deaths goes beyond the prison walls and extends
to failures in mental health and substance abuse provision, sentencing policies
and the failure to implement the Corston report and invest in alternatives to
custody.”
Viv Ahmun of Blaksox called on the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, to
publish the long overdue report into Black deaths in custody saying, "It's
high time the Home Secretary addressed the deepening anxieties of victims and
the wider public about the growing number of controversial black deaths in
custody. Sarah Reed is just one of many and it is vital that lessons are
learned and urgent reform implemented as a matter of priority."
Lee Jasper said, “The horrific treatment of Sarah Reed
whilst on remand in HMP Holloway constitutes cruel and unusual punishment of a
young black woman suffering mental ill health. The jury’s findings identified critical
failures by prison and mental health staff that substantively contributed
towards the death of Sarah Reed.
Those agencies and individuals that so drastically, failed Sarah should now be subject to profession disciplinary charges and investigations. Those who failed Sarah most notably HMP Holloway Psychiatrists, Dr Van Horn, Dr Van Bull and Prison Governor Emily Thomas should be suspended immediately, pending investigation.
Sarah tried to tell them she needed help. They refused to listed, Her mother was refused visas, even though Sarah was only on remand simply awaiting her fitness to plead report. Both Sarah and her mother begged and pleaded for that help. Sarah was black, she was a women. She was mentally ill. She was vulnerable. Denied medication. She was in jail. She stood no chance ”
Contact Details:
Lee Jasper 07984 181 797
Zita Holbourne 07711 861 660
Patricia Lamour 07508 950 589
Claudia Manchanda 07947 306609
Links to articles:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/23/sarah-reed-death-custody-paradigm-shift-black-women-blaksox-campaign
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-0bf3-Sarah-Reed-was-a-woman,-a-mother-and-a-daughter#.WW90aoHTXqA http://thejusticegap.com/2016/02/sarah-reed-she-needed-care-not-punishment/
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/17/sarah-reeds-mother-deaths-in-custody-holloway-prison-mental-health
