Government fined at HMP Lowdham deaths inquest in 'extraordinary step'
A coroner has fined the government for failing to disclose evidence at an inquest into the deaths of three prisoners in Nottinghamshire. Laurinda Bower has been leading an inquest into the deaths of Anthony Binfield, Rolandas Karbauskas and David Richards in 2023 at HMP Lowdham Grange.A jury concluded that the trio, who all were found dead within a month of each other, died after "repeated failures" and "multiple missed opportunities" at the prison.During the inquest at Nottingham Coroner's Court, evidence came to a "grinding halt" on 6 January due to the Ministry of Justice's failure to meet numerous deadlines, and the fine - which can now be reported following the inquest's conclusion - of £500 was issued.
Under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, a coroner can issue a schedule 5 notice to a person or body to disclose relevant information to an investigation. Coroners have the power to issue fines of up to £1,000 for failing without reasonable excuse to do anything required by such a notice. Ms Bower gave three notices to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to provide documents and information, including emails, between October and December 2024, but it failed to meet any of the deadlines.Between 3 and 4 January, Ms Bower said the MoJ submitted a large volume of information, comprising more than 1,000 pages, ahead of the next hearing due to take place on 6 January. She was also told there was more to come.
The MoJ was aware of the inquest and the scope of the investigation more than a year ago, Ms Bower said. "That was ample time to get their house in order," she added."It pains me to impose a financial penalty on a public body given the pressures on all public services at present, and it is the first time in this jurisdiction that it has been necessary for me to take this extraordinary step."She added the festive period was not a valid excuse for the delay. At the time, a legal representative for the government told the court the MoJ "apologises for the inconvenience caused".
What has happened at HMP Lowdham Grange?
The running of HMP Lowdham Grange was transferred from private provider Serco, to fellow private firm Sodexo in February 2023. It was the first prison transfer between two private providers in the UK. The inquest heard how the jail had longstanding problems with culture, safety and staffing, which continued and were exacerbated during the handover period. After the deaths of three inmates in March 2023, an unannounced inspection of Lowdham Grange found a number of failings - and the government subsequently took over the prison on an interim basis in December. This became a permanent arrangement the following May. There have been more deaths in custody at the prison since the deaths of Binfield, Karbauskas and Richards, including several during the inquest period since November, the court was told.
What happened at the inquest?
At the court, Ms Bower said she wrote to all parties in April 2023, including the MoJ, saying she was minded to link the inquests of the three inmates and that by January 2024, it would have been aware of the "need and scope of an inquest".She said she received a response from the government's legal department on 26 January to point out that the prison was run by Sodexo at the time of the deaths, and asked Ms Bower whether the MoJ should be considered an interested person (IP). "Knowing what I know about the intrinsic role senior members of the [MoJ] personnel played in the checks and balances of safety at the prison and in the transition period shortly before these deaths, it is staggering that the [MoJ] were questioning whether they required IP status - let alone the fact they were not actively seeking out IP status to assist my inquest," she said.She added the MoJ's response to the inquest had been "reactive, and slow at that and not at all proactive".
A legal representative for the MoJ said: "It is accepted there has been a failure to comply with the schedule 5 notices and the MoJ apologises to the court and to the other interested persons for the inconvenience caused by this."She added there had been an "incredible amount of work being undertaken to attempt to comply" with the notices, and added that lessons were being learned both in this case and for future cases. She added the financial penalty would serve "no useful purpose".The MoJ was given 28 days to pay the £500 penalty. Ms Bower said she could not think of proceedings that required "a greater level of candour and due diligence than these", adding the MoJ had been given "chance after chance".
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