Families of young people who died in YOI criticise prison system
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The mother of a student who took her own life in a Young Offenders Institution has said she was “brutalised” in custody, while the brother of a 16-year-old boy who died there accused the prison service of acting like a god. Katie Allan, 21, and William Brown, 16, also known as William Lindsay, died within months of each other in Polmont YOI in 2018.
Ms Allan, a student at Glasgow University, was found dead in her cell on June 4 while serving a 16-month sentence for drink-driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving. Mr Brown was found dead in his cell on October 7, three days after being remanded due to a lack of space in a children’s secure unit.
A Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) at Falkirk Sheriff Court was led by Sheriff Simon Collins KC, who issued 25 recommendations in a report. In his determination, published on Friday, the sheriff found there were reasonable precautions by which both deaths might realistically have been avoided, and that systemic failures contributed to them.
Katie’s mother, Linda Allan, told a press conference that simple changes “could have saved” both lives. She said that in 2021, a young person died by suicide using a method identified as a risk in 2019 – and two other people had taken their own lives there since 2018.
Mrs Allan described her daughter as “my double” and said: “She had a strong heart for social injustice.”. However, she said her daughter was “bullied”, “petrified” and “taunted” in custody. She said: “Katie was brutalised in Polmont, so much so that she lost all hope and saw only one solution – her death.”.
