Isaiah Adekunle Olugosi took his own life in March 2022 while awaiting sentencing for trafficking after his wife unable to warn prison staff she believed he was suicidal
A wife who drove 60 miles to Wormwood Scrubs to stop her husband from taking his own life in the prison was unable to warn staff due to a defunct phone line and broken intercom, a coroner ruled.
Isaiah Adekunle Olugosi hung himself in his cell of the London jail between March 27 and 28, 2022, a death that was later ruled as suicide. He was awaiting sentence for leading a trafficking gang.
After speaking with him on the phone at around 9pm on March 27, the woman believed that he was suicidal but couldn’t get through to the prison to express her fears despite trying to call several times. Instead, a prevention of future deaths report noted that she drove two hours from her home in Cambridge to the prison.
Olugosi’s wife, Cambridgeshire Police and the Metropolitan Police were all unable to contact the prison by telephone to warn them as “calls were being diverted to an unmanned or obsolete number”. The hearing heard how once at Wormwood Scrubs, she banged on the gate for some time as well as calling out and pressing a buzzer which promised to connect her to an intercom so she could speak to prison staff.
Assistant coroner for west London, Richard Furniss, said in his report that the intercom was out of action and had been “for several years”. The result was that Olugosi’s wife and police could not contact the prison all night and “the deceased took his life”.
Furniss ruled that, “there is a risk that future deaths will occur” unless the Wormwood Scrubs governor, Amy Frost, takes action. He added: “The buzzer intercom system must have been provided because it was thought important to provide that additional means of communication between the prison and the outside world. In this case, a working system would have enabled the deceased’s wife to warn the prison of his impending suicide. It is difficult to understand why the intercom system has not worked for several years.”
“There was evidence that it is irreparable,” he said. “But the proposed solution appeared to be either to leave it as it is or to remove it altogether. It is a matter of concern that the prison and the Ministry of Justice still considers that it is unnecessary.”
Frost has been asked to respond to Furniss’s report by April 21 with details of measures taken or proposed action to be taken. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We will carefully consider the coroner’s findings and will respond to the report in due course.”
In 2014, prison inspectors said spending cuts had reduced Wormwood Scrubs to a filthy, overcrowded and dilapidated state. Inspectors warned at the time that suicide risks were ignored, with five prisoners having killed themselves the previous year.
Nick Hardwick, the chief inspector of prisons at the time, said it was clear Wormwood Scrubs has gone downhill: “At our last inspection (in 2011) we found a prison that had many of the basics right and was improving At this inspection we found a prison that had declined significantly in almost every aspect.”
