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Stocken Prison staff could not have anticipated inmate who took his own life days before release ‘was at immediate risk of suicide’ says report




A prisoner was just days away from release when he took his own life.

Paul Bryant - who had previously ‘accepted he was becoming paranoid’ - was serving time at Rutland’s Stocken Prison when he cut his own throat in his cell on April 19, 2023, a Prison Ombudsman’s report found.

Stocken Prison
Stocken Prison

He was due to be released on May 14 - the following month.

The report stated Mr Bryant - who was arrested for a burglary offence in 2021 - had declined offers of counselling and said he had ‘no thoughts of suicide or self harm’, despite concerns raised by his family.

However, he had undergone suicide and self-harm monitoring procedures the previous year.

The report found it did not consider that staff could ‘reasonably have anticipated that he was at immediate risk of suicide’.

Mr Bryant’s partner had ‘told the prison that she was concerned about his welfare’ days before his death.

“Staff spoke to him, and he told a nurse that he was upset with one of his sisters,” the report said.

“He said he believed his partner was having an affair.

“He told the nurse that he had no thoughts of suicide or self-harm, and he declined an offer of counselling.”

In their final telephone conversations, Mr Bryant’s partner said he ‘made a number of comments to suggest that he intended to harm himself’.

“She also said that she reported her concerns a number of times to his community offender manager,” the report noted.

Mr Bryant’s sister had also highlighted concerns she had raised regarding his mental health at the time of his mother’s death in January 2022.

The report noted a period in the year before he died, where Mr Bryant was undergoing suicide and self-harm monitoring procedures following razor blade cuts to his neck on April 3, 2022.

“Mr Bryant said that he had not been getting much sleep recently due to the noise from a neighbouring cell and he also believed people were pumping gas into his cell,” the report noted.

“He said that he thought he could hear his brother’s voice outside his cell window, although he knew his brother was not there and he accepted he was becoming paranoid.

“Mr Bryant said that when he cut himself, he had done it before he realised what he was doing.

“He said that he had not harmed himself in the past and had no intention of doing so in the future. He said that he had good support from his family and had made some friends in prison.”

The nurse who attended this review noted that while Mr Bryant said that he had no past mental health issues, it was possible that he had a potentially undiagnosed mental health condition.

He referred Mr Bryant to the prison psychiatrist, but he did not attend the meeting.

Mr Bryant was recalled to custody in July 2021 after he was arrested for burglary, and later sentenced to 12 months behind bars.

He was also subject to a life sentence recall so received an additional 18-month sentence to run concurrently with his new sentence.

He moved to Stocken Prison in January 2022.

“In early January 2023, Mr Bryant damaged his cell furniture to engineer a move to the segregation unit,” the report stated.

“He said that he had problems in his personal life and needed some time alone. He would not tell staff about his problems but said that he had no thoughts of suicide or self-harm.”

A fellow inmate rang his cell bell at 2.35am on April 19, after hearing a strange noise from Mr Bryant’s cell.

The night officer found Mr Bryant lying on the cell floor, partly obscured by his bed, with a throat wound.

Ambulance paramedics arrived at 3.10am but attempts to revive him failed and he was confirmed dead at 3.23am.

Following Mr Bryant’s death, a broken prison issue disposable razor was found in his cell. Two blades were found, which were not blood stained. The third blade from the razor was not found.

The report concluded: “While it is clear that there were issues causing Mr Bryant concern at the time of his death, he did not speak to staff about them, and we do not consider that they could reasonably have anticipated that he was at immediate risk of suicide or of significant self-harm.

“Nor do we consider that there was any reason for staff to have recommenced suicide and self-harm monitoring procedures.

“The clinical reviewer concluded that Mr Bryant’s care at Stocken was good and was of a standard equivalent to that which he could have expected to receive in the community.

“He found that the mental health team responded promptly to referrals made by prison staff and was given good support.

“An inquest into Mr Bryant’s death held from May 15-22, 2025 concluded that his cause of death was catastrophic haemorrhage following self-inflicted laceration to the neck.”

* Samaritans offer FREE round the clock, confidential support to anyone that wants to talk through their problems. Call Samaritans on 116 123, calls are free from any phone, or visit www.samaritans.org to find out about the wide-ranging support on offer from Samaritans and other organisations.



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