Inquest into man’s death in prison after being arrested for child murder

A coroner's inquest into the death of a man in prison has been held more than eight years after his death. Photo / Brett Phibbs

A man who died of a suspected suicide while in prison for allegedly murdering a child said prison officers were telling him to kill himself.

Wide-ranging suppression orders exist more than eight years after the man’s death in November 2015, while he was remanded in prison charged with murdering the child of his then-partner.

At a coronial inquest in Wellington today, the man’s father told the court that during a phone call with his son, he spoke about killing himself, but didn’t say how he intended to do it. The man asked his father how long he’d take to die if he stopped drinking water. His father said he didn’t know.

He said his son also talked about some of the prison officers giving him a hard time.

“He talked about some of the screws telling him to kill himself and that pretty much started from day one.”

Coroner Marcus Elliott said the police had investigated the man’s claims and interviewed the prison officers named by the man, but they denied that.

The Coroner said there was no record on the file of the man complaining to anyone else about the prison officers’ behaviour.

The father wanted to know why phone calls from prisoners weren’t monitored by prison staff.

Senior corrections officer Martin Potter told the inquest with only two staff assigned to monitor calls at that time, they generally only listed to calls where they had a reason to do so.

Much of the inquest was spent on discussing the man’s mental health and how staff had dealt with it.

The inquest heard the man had no history of mental illness, just a recent ADHD diagnosis.

But the family say his criminal history should have been a red flag and prison staff should have done more to assess his mental health.

The inquest heard the man was initially kept in the at-risk unit when he arrived at the prison because of the charges he faced. He was discharged from that unit four days later, with staff giving evidence he showed no signs of mental illness or mood disorder.

But the man was returned to the at-risk unit five days later after staff raised concerns about his mental health. After a meeting between the man and three senior staff several days later it was decided he was no longer at risk and he left the unit.

About three weeks later the man died.

Under cross-examination by counsel for the coroner, Mark Zarifeh, a prison psychiatric nurse - whose name is suppressed - told the inquest after all this time he had no memory of his conversations with the man. But he agreed his assessments could include not only mental illness and any warning signs of it but also a prisoner’s medical history and life events.

Coroner Elliot reserved his findings, which will consider the cause and circumstances of the man’s death, whether it was self-inflicted and if the department should have been more aware of the man’s mental health issues.

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media advisor at the Ministry of Justice.