Inquest begins into young offender found dead in Warrington Prison

Bradley Charnley was pronounced dead on August 13, 2020, after a prison officer found him unresponsive in his cell during an early morning roll call.

Members of a jury, representative for the Ministry of Justice, Mr Hilton and representative of the NHS Foundation Trust, Miss Taylor appeared in court on Wednesday, May 17, to see the opening of the inquest at Warrington Coroners’ Court lead by Assistant Coroner of Cheshire, Alex Frodsham.

Mr Frodsham said: “Bradley Charnley, an inmate was checked in his cell A1-32 at 9:00pm, there was no concerns of his wellbeing. He was checked again at at 05:08am the next day and was found dead in his cell.”

Opening the inquest, Mr Frodsham read out a statement provided by Bradley’s father, Marc Charnley who appeared at the hearing with his partner.

In the statement, Mr Charnley gave background on Bradley’s upbringing, highlighting how after a split with Bradley’s mother, she began a new relationship, things began to take a turn.

Bradley lived with his mother, who had a bad break up and began drinking as he was entering high school and Mr Charnley said he then began ‘misbehaving’ which he thought was ‘due to his mother’s mental heath deteriorating’.

The court heard he was placed on a tag during his late teens and was in and out of trouble with the police, with his unstable home life adding friction to the situation. Bradley would often breach the tag restrictions and conditions of community orders he was put on.

“It was almost as if he was using the punishment as a form of self harm. He was a good lad, he was just troubled,” Mr Charnley said.

During his stints in prison, Bradley began drug taking and would come to his dad to ask for help paying debts of £300 to £400. Despite this, Mr Charnley still regularly visited his son and said leading up to his death he seemed ‘positive about getting out’ and had stopped taking drugs.

In March 2020, the prisoners went into lockdown following the outbreak of the pandemic and many inmates were confined to their cells for 23 hours a day, with no visitors allowed in to the prison.

Mr Charnley said the lockdown effected Bradley and his mental health.

“The last time I spoke to Bradley he was asking about his mother. On this phone call he did not sound right. This conversation was different from others and was very short,” he added.

A second witness was called to the stand, prison officer, Richard Grimshaw, who was Bradley’s key worker during his time at HMP Risley while he was stationed on the Delta wing.

“I got to know him very well. Slowly we built up a relationship. He was involved in quite a few fights on the wing.”

Mr Grimshaw spoke of how the drug spice has become a ‘major problem’ in prisons and that Bradley was a spice user in the time he knew him, and would often end up in debt with the ‘barrons’ – prisoners who sourced drugs to other inmates.

In a report he submitted back in July of 2020, the prison officer declared that the offender had been ‘used as a hitman’ to ensure he could pay off his own drug debts and that he ‘will never learn’.

The officer said that throughout his time as a key worker to Bradley he had no concerns about him harming himself and said the sad news was ‘totally out of the blue’.

Bradley Charnley was found dead in custody at HMP Risley (Image: HMP Risley)

Jenny Galbraith, a mental health nurse at the prison at the time, was heard next and gave her account of a mental health assessment she did of Bradley, which she determined him to not be ‘at risk of life’.

On June 5, 2020, Bradley was referred to Ms Galbraith to be assessed as he had voiced previously he was ‘struggling’ and during the meeting he had told her he was experiencing ‘extreme racing thoughts’.

She noted that he had been self-medicating with illicit substances to try and ‘block’ the intrusive thoughts.

“He came across as really bright, a good rapour. A lot of his issues seemed to lie with substance abuse,” she said.

A follow up appointment was noted to be scheduled in the near future but Ms Galbraith explained there was no official booking system at the time and this appointment never arised.

The inmate had also been offered help from drug abuse service, CGL, which he had declined.

Retired prison officer, Shaun Maddox, spoke in court via video link, about the night of Bradley’s death when he discovered Bradley’s body.

At this point Bradley had been moved to Alpha wing due to conflict with inmates on his former wing and Mr Maddox was carrying out his second roll check of his night shift at 5:05am.

“I approached his cell, switched on the light and looked inside and Bradley was hanging.”

He told the court how he banged on the cell door and shouted before radioing a ‘code blue’ which was the code word for when an inmate was of restricted breathing or unconcious.

“When I looked at Bradley, to me he was dead.”

The medical nurse, Stacy Horne and night orderly officer, Paul Hancox, arrived moments later and opened the cell to tend to Bradley’s body and an ambulance was called four minutes later. Ms Horne confirmed she did not attempt resusitation as he appeared to have been dead for several hours.

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