One day
My 16th February 2024 started out as a pretty standard Friday, doing my job as a doctor within the UK’s prison system. Sadly, it ended in tragedy with the unexpected death of one of my detained patients. After leaving the prison, I sat in my car for a while, thinking and praying for my late patient’s family. And as I drove out of the prison car park, I noticed two parked up police vehicles…
Investigation
Of course, the police were there because - whether expected or unexpected, self-inflicted, accidental or murderous - all UK deaths in custody are subject to extensive investigation by multiple agencies:-
the police
the coronial system
the health service
and the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.
In addition to all these measures, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), which is responsible for monitoring member states’ compliance with Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, also takes a keen interest in deaths behind bars.
Two deaths
In the busyness of managing the immediate aftermath of my own detained patient’s death, I missed the breaking news about another custodial tragedy - that same day but thousands of miles away, in the frozen Artic Circle…
Prisoner Alexei Navalny, the fiercest and most enduring critic of President Putin, is dead.
Investigation?
He died just one day after being well enough to laugh and joke with his judge.
There is the usual confusion about the cause of his death and the location of his body,
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, whose agency executive is (according to Wikipedia) a certain President Putin, is on the case.
And so it remains to be seen whether the United Nations has engaged in a spot of wishful thinking, in calling for his death to be rigorously investigated.
One judge
UK detainees are relatively blessed compared with those held in many other parts of the world. UK conditions of detention are regulated, monitored and - when found to fall short - investigated. Yes, I know full well that there are many problems behind my nation’s bars - and the CPT highlights these failings on a frequent basis. But compared with many places in the world, UK places of detention sit within a veritable Garden of Eden where the Rule of Law presides.
Yet viewed through the long lens of eternity, whether a free President in the Russian Federation or a detained person in the UK, one day every one of us will die and face judgement by the same Judge.
From His courtroom, He examines all the goings on in our world, with notable concern for detainees:-
The Lord looked down from His sanctuary on high, from heaven He viewed the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death.
(Psalm 102:19-20)
And to those who ignore the visible suffering of others, yet alone those who cause it, He will say…
Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire… For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat… I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me…
Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.
(Matthew 25:41-45)
The author is one of our spokespeople
Their views do not necessarily represent those of Integritas Healthcare