Prison in 'disarray' when three inmates died

HMP Lowdham transferred from private providers Serco to Sodexo in February 2023

A prison was in "disarray" when three inmates died within the space of a month, an inquest has heard.

Matt Brady, who worked at HMP Lowdham Grange from 1997 to 2023, said staffing levels were low when Anthony Binfield, Rolandas Karbauskas and David Richards died in their cells in March 2023.

He told an inquest at Nottingham Coroner's Court on Friday that concerns were raised with Serco and Sodexo before the first transfer of a jail between different private providers.

The joint inquest into the deaths of the three men is expected to hear evidence until January.

'Spiralling' problems

The inquest heard that at the time of the deaths, Mr Brady was working as a middle manager in the prison's safety custody team, which was involved with new prisoners arriving or transferring into the Category B site.

He said he and other staff had raised concerns about what would happen when Serco handed over to Sodexo in 2022, months before the prison was taken over on 16 February the following year.

When the deaths occurred, he said there had been problems with recruiting and retaining staff, with a number of experienced figures leaving to join other prisons, the police, or to other jobs, which led to "spiralling" problems.

"I thought [staffing levels] were becoming unsafe," he said.

"Things were being missed, things weren't getting done."

Mr Brady said on the day Sodexo took over the prison, his team had lost half of its computers in its office as they had been taken away, while connecting to the internet on other devices in the prison was "hit and miss".

"It was left in a state of what I would class as disarray," he said.

David Richards died in HMP Lowdham Grange on 13 March 2023

After the deaths, he said one staff member was left in "floods of tears" after being criticised by a senior manager, and pointed to "unrealistic" expectations on his team, who were frequently seconded on to prison wings to cover for shortages.

"I was pretty disgusted with that, because I knew how diligent and hard-working [the staff member] was," he said.

Mr Brady told the inquest he left Lowdham Grange last year and now works in a similar role in HMP Fosse Way, a new prison which opened in Leicestershire in June last year and is operated by Serco, the company that previously ran Lowdham Grange.

He said the conditions in the prison around the takeover had affected his decision.

"I just didn't see [things] ending well for me there," he said.

"I could see the red flags."

The inquest continues.