'At least I will be with Nana and Grandad' - Telegraph
I urge you to read the whole article. - Here is an extract:
"'I need to be at home in my own bed or I will crack up," he wrote to his mother. "I will try to kill myself and I will probably succeed this time. If I could have the chance to be at home with my family I will never get into trouble again in my life."
It was the last, desperate letter that 14-year-old Adam Rickwood ever wrote to his mother, and its publication last month during the inquest into his death shocked and moved those who read it.
Two weeks after it was sent, on August 9 2004, Adam took his own life in Hassockfield secure training centre, County Durham, the youngest person to commit suicide in custody for 25 years."
Showing posts with label suicide while in custody. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suicide while in custody. Show all posts
Monday, 4 June 2007
Friday, 1 June 2007
Coroner urges rethink on the use of restraint on young offenders.
Rethink use of restraint on young offenders, urges coroner - Guardian
Extracts:
"A coroner called yesterday for an urgent review of the use of restraint on young offenders after a jury returned a suicide verdict on a vulnerable 14-year-old who hanged himself with his shoelaces at a privately-run secure unit.
Adam Rickwood was the youngest person to die in custody in Britain for more than 50 years when he took his life after begging his mother to get him moved from the centre at Consett, Co Durham, where he had been for less than a month.
A four-week inquest heard that the boy had been forcibly restrained by four staff shortly before his death three years ago, and a controversial technique designed to cause brief but sharp pain by twisting and squeezing the nose had been used to force him to go to his room.
A few hours later, a care officer found the body of the boy, who had threatened to kill himself in letters home and was known to have mental health problems with suicidal tendencies.
The jury of nine women and one man at Chester-le-Street coroner's court exonerated care staff at Hassockfield secure training centre, run by the prison specialist company Serco. They reached a nine-one majority verdict after four days' deliberation."
"The findings were criticised by Adam's mother, Carol Pounder. She said after the hearing: "I am disgusted at not having a full inquiry into the death of a very vulnerable child, my only son. The jury was not given the whole of the evidence relating to his death.
"What gives anyone the right to allow four men, weighing 58 stone between them, to restrain a 14-year-old boy, cause him pain and injure his nose for refusing to go to his room? If that had happened at home, I would have been charged."
The coroner took a stronger line than the jury's findings, expressing concern about the brief violence used to force Adam to comply."
Extracts:
"A coroner called yesterday for an urgent review of the use of restraint on young offenders after a jury returned a suicide verdict on a vulnerable 14-year-old who hanged himself with his shoelaces at a privately-run secure unit.
Adam Rickwood was the youngest person to die in custody in Britain for more than 50 years when he took his life after begging his mother to get him moved from the centre at Consett, Co Durham, where he had been for less than a month.
A four-week inquest heard that the boy had been forcibly restrained by four staff shortly before his death three years ago, and a controversial technique designed to cause brief but sharp pain by twisting and squeezing the nose had been used to force him to go to his room.
A few hours later, a care officer found the body of the boy, who had threatened to kill himself in letters home and was known to have mental health problems with suicidal tendencies.
The jury of nine women and one man at Chester-le-Street coroner's court exonerated care staff at Hassockfield secure training centre, run by the prison specialist company Serco. They reached a nine-one majority verdict after four days' deliberation."
"The findings were criticised by Adam's mother, Carol Pounder. She said after the hearing: "I am disgusted at not having a full inquiry into the death of a very vulnerable child, my only son. The jury was not given the whole of the evidence relating to his death.
"What gives anyone the right to allow four men, weighing 58 stone between them, to restrain a 14-year-old boy, cause him pain and injure his nose for refusing to go to his room? If that had happened at home, I would have been charged."
The coroner took a stronger line than the jury's findings, expressing concern about the brief violence used to force Adam to comply."
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
Inquest into the death of 14 year old Adam Rickwood in custody: a pre-sentencing report had said that he constituted "no risk of self-harm".
'No risk of self-harm': the official verdict on the youngest child to die in penal custody - The Independent
Extract:
"The youngest child to die in custody in Britain was not recognised as a suicide risk in reports by social workers, despite having been admitted to hospital nine times after harming himself.
An inquest into the death of Adam Rickwood was told yesterday that magistrates who sent the 14-year-old into custody were told in a pre-sentencing report that he constituted "no risk of self-harm".
The decision to send him to Hassockfield secure training centre near Consett, Co Durham, also drew on the results of a form completed by Lancashire County Council's youth offending team which indicated that Adam had had no contact with mental services, had received no kind of mental diagnosis and had never harmed himself.
In fact, the boy had been in hospital seven times after repeatedly overdosing on alcohol/drug mixes and cutting his wrists twice. Lancashire County Council's director of children's integrated services, Gill Rigg, said Adam's mental health record was the "key, relevant factor" in determining whether he should have been in custody at all. "I accept that was a very critical and essential piece of information that should have been on [the] form," she told the inquest at Chester-le-Street magistrates' court, Co Durham.
Adam's despair at being sent to a secure unit 150 miles from home was evident in his last letter to his mother and stepfather, Carol and John Pounder, which was read to the jury. "I need to be at home," he wrote. "If I could have the chance to be at home and with my family I will never get in trouble again in my life. I will do anything to be with you's [sic] but if people try to stop that I will flip."
The inquest heard that Adam, from Burnley, Lancashire, was a profoundly vulnerable child who had been known to social services from the age of three and had been referred to Lancashire's child and adolescent mental health unit.
He seemed to respond to those who found time for him, particularly his paternal grandfather, who was wheelchair-bound. "He used to lie in bed with granddad, watching TV [and] eating sweets [with him]. They shared everything," Mrs Pounder told the jury.
It was after his grandfather's death that Adam, then 11, entered a spiral of decline. He fell in with a group of older boys, took cannabis, was convicted of burglary and had been excluded from school."
You wonder how this unhappy young boy could possibly have been judged to be at "no risk of self-harm"...)o:
Extract:
"The youngest child to die in custody in Britain was not recognised as a suicide risk in reports by social workers, despite having been admitted to hospital nine times after harming himself.
An inquest into the death of Adam Rickwood was told yesterday that magistrates who sent the 14-year-old into custody were told in a pre-sentencing report that he constituted "no risk of self-harm".
The decision to send him to Hassockfield secure training centre near Consett, Co Durham, also drew on the results of a form completed by Lancashire County Council's youth offending team which indicated that Adam had had no contact with mental services, had received no kind of mental diagnosis and had never harmed himself.
In fact, the boy had been in hospital seven times after repeatedly overdosing on alcohol/drug mixes and cutting his wrists twice. Lancashire County Council's director of children's integrated services, Gill Rigg, said Adam's mental health record was the "key, relevant factor" in determining whether he should have been in custody at all. "I accept that was a very critical and essential piece of information that should have been on [the] form," she told the inquest at Chester-le-Street magistrates' court, Co Durham.
Adam's despair at being sent to a secure unit 150 miles from home was evident in his last letter to his mother and stepfather, Carol and John Pounder, which was read to the jury. "I need to be at home," he wrote. "If I could have the chance to be at home and with my family I will never get in trouble again in my life. I will do anything to be with you's [sic] but if people try to stop that I will flip."
The inquest heard that Adam, from Burnley, Lancashire, was a profoundly vulnerable child who had been known to social services from the age of three and had been referred to Lancashire's child and adolescent mental health unit.
He seemed to respond to those who found time for him, particularly his paternal grandfather, who was wheelchair-bound. "He used to lie in bed with granddad, watching TV [and] eating sweets [with him]. They shared everything," Mrs Pounder told the jury.
It was after his grandfather's death that Adam, then 11, entered a spiral of decline. He fell in with a group of older boys, took cannabis, was convicted of burglary and had been excluded from school."
You wonder how this unhappy young boy could possibly have been judged to be at "no risk of self-harm"...)o:
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