Prison suicides

The death of the mass murderer Harold Shipman reminded us all that prisoners, however notorious, somehow can find the way to kill themselves.

The prison service admits it has particular difficulty with women prisoners. A series of suspected suicides at Styal prison in Cheshire has prompted an investigation by the prison ombudsman in which the regime has faced strong criticism.

The Home Office said it wouldn't be publishing the ombudsman's report because many of the inquests have not yet been held. But Newsnight's Liz MacKean has been given rare access to Styal to hear what's been going wrong.

LIZ MACKEAN:
These rows of houses were once home to orphan children. The dormitories remain, but the residents have changed. Styal is now the country's second largest women's prison. Concern centres on the new part of the prison still behind a contractor's fence. Wait Wing is described by the prison's ombudsman as "forbidding and isolated." All new prisoners come here. They're held in individual cells, some for up to 23 hours a day. The first days in prison are known to be the hardest. For many women who end up here, they're intolerable. In just 12 months, six women took their lives at Styal, five of them here on Wait Wing. It's a problem in every jail. Each week there are two suicides. But at Styal, that problem is recognised as a crisis. It's led to the first investigation by the new prison ombudsman. Four of the women were found hanging in their cells. Another took a fatal overdose after snatching drugs from a prison trolley.

A year ago, Sarah Campbell overdosed on Styal's segregation wing a day after arriving. Ever since, her mother has fought a fierce campaign to find out what went wrong. Sarah typified the problems found among many women prisoners. The 18-year-old had a history of mental illness and a drug habit which led her to offend. She was convicted of manslaughter after a man she tried to get money from collapsed and died. Her mother believes the prison should have done more to help her vulnerable daughter.

PAULINE CAMPBELL:
The prison had a legal duty of care to look after Sarah. I know she was severely distressed and very, very depressed. She was frightened of returning to Styal because she'd given evidence against her co-accused. Therefore, she was an informant or a grass. That put her at risk of attack from other prisoners. She was, in fact, terrified, and she had expected to be returned to a secure psychiatric hospital rather than a prison.

MACKEAN:
All of those who died did so within a month of arriving at Styal. These prisoners on Wait Wing understand the pressure.

MICHELLE:
I can cope with it. I have been in prison a few times. I can deal with it, but some people just can't. You know, some people have never been in prison before, and then they're taken away from everything they know in a strange environment with people they don't know, people who they don't get on with or don't wish to get on with and don't come out of the rooms.

JOHANNE:
It is a threatening environment. Even myself, I have been to prison before, but I find it intimidating. Do you know what I mean? There's girls who have been inside a lot of times. They know what they're doing, and they know how to conduct themselves. Other girls, young girls, especially, they're coming in. They're coming off drugs. They're being asked for their tobacco. To a certain extent, they find it threatening, and there's not always help when you need help. Because a lot of girls cry wolf a lot and are big shouters, the girls sometimes who really need the help aren't being heard.

MACKEAN:
The deaths have taken their toll on staff.

RACHEL KNOWLES
(SENIOR PRISON OFFICER):
It has a big affect, and I think I could see that particular woman's face for a few weeks after. Every time I went to a cell door, you know, it was - you were worrying whether you were going to find somebody again. On that particular occasion, there was one woman that was pronounced dead, and then 15 minutes later, somebody else had done it, and that was just a big shock to us all.

MACKEAN:
The ombudsman highlights failings in the way Styal dealt with its many drug-dependent prisoners. Until last September, there was no detoxification programme offering Methadone. New prisoners suffered the agonies of withdrawal with little more than painkillers to help them. The governor had applied for funding to run a detox programme three years ago, but the money wasn't available. We were told that six months ago it would have been too tense for us to have filmed in the exercise yard. But the detox programme is said to have transformed the atmosphere. The prison says other recommendations by the ombudsman were already in hand. The cells are being adapted to make suicide more difficult. The prison's acute psychiatric unit can't keep up with demand, and there are frequent incidents of self-harm, some extremely serious. The governor says there are about 30 determined suicide attempts every year.

DR MADELINE MOULDEN
(GOVERNOR, STYAL PRISON):
What the ombudsman has said and what the general public don't know is how many lives our officers save and our nurses save. We save hundreds of lives a year, and there may be 30 self-harm attempts in a month in Styal. If we have 35, 40 women on increased observation in an evening or a weekend, that's often more than the staff we have in the prison.

MACKEAN:
A recurring theme for prison inspectors and reformers is that the system can't cope, both with the numbers coming in and the problems they bring with them. Some 80% of prisoners in women's jails are reckoned to have some sort of mental health problem. Just this week, the chief prisons' inspector called for specialist units to be set up. The trouble is, in the meantime, the courts are sending more people to prison than ever. In anticipation of that, Styal has applied for planning permission to build extra accommodation. There are three times more women in prison than ten years ago, and the Prison Service has been looking into why they cope less well than men.

DR LOUISA SNOW
(SUICIDE PREVENTION ADVISER, PRISON SERVICE):
Women have far high levels of mental health issues than men. Women have higher levels of drug abuse, drug taking, than men. There's an issue about being separated from children that is especially relevant for women and perhaps less so for men. Previous negative life events, including sexual abuse and physical abuse, particularly for women.

UNNAMED MAN:
How are you feeling generally on the Wait Wing?

UNNAMED FEMALE PRISONER:
Depressed. Angry that since I'm here, I haven't got a phone call to call my family.

MACKEAN:
In common with other prisons, Styal has established a listener service. These prisoners have both been trained by the Samaritans. They're available 24 hours a day to counsel other inmates. A more informal scheme has been set up to help new arrivals. Efforts are also being made to get prisoners out of their cells more, to mix and take part in activities. Even so, those intent on suicide can be hard to spot.

MICHELLE:
There's not really much the officers can do, you know, unless - if they don't know about the problems, if they don't know somebody feels suicidal, it's not their fault. There's nothing they can do about it.

MACKEAN:
If Styal has this reputation, how does that affect the people living here?

MICHELLE:
It annoys a lot of people. I think there should be more done, but they can't do what they don't know about, can they?

MACKEAN:
All the report's recommendations have been accepted. There was no defensiveness at Styal, just the hope for better understanding of the difficulties in dealing with people vulnerable anywhere, but who in prison are driven beyond their limits.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.