‘Brian shouldn’t have died in prison’

Today, we are sharing Brian’s story – as told by his sister Susan. Brian was 47 when he died of SUDEP in Barlinnie Prison. He had struggled with alcohol and drug addiction from the age of 14, and died on remand, alone in his cell.

Brian’s epilepsy stemmed from a significant brain injury sustained after a fall. The brain injury compounded a lot of the difficulties Brian encountered in his life.

He was in a brain injury unit for around a year but when he left there found himself homeless. Susan believes he was ‘failed on the outside and failed in prison’. 

Following his death, Susan was shocked to discover from the post-mortem report that her brother had suffered three seizures in one day whilst in prison and not been taken to hospital, despite presenting as ‘very confused’.

She pushed for him to have some kind of technology in his cell – and was told he had emergency button call for help, even though it would be impossible for him to use that if he was having a seizure.

She visited him the day before he died – and left him well, and in good spirits. Next morning she was visited by police who initially told her Brian had taken his own life.

Susan said: “I was completely flabbergasted. Brian liked life, he enjoyed life, if you had met him, you would have liked him, he was one of your loveable rogues, even the police liked him.”
The police officer then looked back through her notes on her phone and corrected herself, to say he’d been found on his back.

The post-mortem report subsequently showed methadone intoxication. Susan queried how much more methadone was in his system than had been prescribed – to which the response was, ‘I didn’t know he was prescribed methadone.’

When records were checked, the methadone in his system was within prescribed limits. No other possible cause of death could be found so SUDEP was recorded as the cause of death.

Susan said: “People with epilepsy in prison are four times more likely to have seizure activity than the public so there’s an absolute need to change the way they deal with epilepsy in prison and for greater awareness that people can die of seizure activity.  Brian was so vulnerable and needed an awful lot of support, which he didn’t get. We’re still working through it. We’re hoping that Brian’s fatal accident inquiry will change the way that the Scottish Prison Service deals with and supports people who have epilepsy and other co-morbidities that require either overnight support, robust care planning or risk assessments. People are dying in prisons when they don’t need to so that’s the hope that I would have from this, from Brian’s fatal accident inquiry – that his legacy will be that nobody else needs to die having a nocturnal seizure because they’ll have the right equipment in place.”

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SUDEP Action is calling for urgent reforms to ensure consistent and lawful standards of healthcare for people with epilepsy in prisons.

A review commissioned and published by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) revealed  a shocking pattern of preventable deaths linked to failures in managing epilepsy within the prison system.  
The report reviewed 125 deaths in UK prisons over a ten-year period. Epilepsy was the primary cause in 25 of the deaths. The report found that:

* Prisoners were four times more likely to die from Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) than people living in the community.

* One in four had care that fell below the minimum legal standard.

* Only 38% had a care plan in place.  

* Prisoners with known seizure disorders were left unmonitored in single cells or denied essential safety measures.

Susan’s story