Suicide teenager William Brown 'not taken care of' at Polmont

William Brown was found dead in his cell in October 2018

A former prison officer has said his failure to intervene when a teenager was taken off suicide watch was the worst decision of his career.

Rab Baird told an inquiry that William Brown, also known as William Lindsay, "was not taken care of" properly at Polmont young offenders institution.

The 16-year-old was admitted to Polmont on Thursday 4 October 2018 and found dead in his cell on Sunday 7 October.

The teenager had been removed from an observation programme two days before.

Mr Baird told a fatal accident inquiry (FAI) he had opposed removing William from the programme, which saw him checked on every 30 minutes.

The former officer, who had worked at Polmont, near Falkirk, for 31 years, added that he was "negligent" for not doing more to stop William being removed from the Talk to Me suicide prevention strategy.

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Mr Baird said he carried out 30-minute observations on William the morning after he arrived at Polmont and told colleagues "there was no way" William was coming off suicide observations.

He told the FAI it was common sense to keep William on observations as he was 16, it was his first time in custody and weekends were considered the worst time to be a young offender there, as they would only have a few hours out of their cells.

He said he told a colleague: "This will be an easy case conference to do because this laddie is not coming off observations."

Mr Baird said he had to attend to another prisoner so his colleague attended the case conference instead, a meeting which the FAI previously heard had only lasted five minutes.

He told the inquiry that when he learned of the decision to remove William from observations he swore and asked if his colleague was joking, but did not put William back on observations, something he called "the worst decision I have ever made in my career".

Instead he thought he would "make it better" and took William snacks. He also told him he would put the teenager in touch with another prisoner who William had known outside Polmont.

'Guilty and grief'

Advocate depute Leanne Cross said: "You decided to deal with it yourself and that involved giving him Mars bars and hooking him up with someone in the prison?"

Mr Baird said he felt that trivialised what happened but said: "I'll take it."

When asked if he accepted it was a mistake not to put William back on observations given the information he had, Mr Baird replied that it was "negligent" and that he felt "guilty and grief" over his decision.

He added: "I know I'm negligent."

Mr Baird left his job three months after William's death.

The inquiry continues.