A prison where an inmate was found dead on the day he was due to be released should offer seven-day-a-week mental health services, a coroner has said.
Nigel John Keenan, 62, was discovered in his cell at HMP Haverigg in Millom, Cumbria, during a routine check by staff in the early hours of 13 March last year, with an inquest concluding he died by suicide.
As part of the evidence given during the hearing, jury members were told the jail did not operate dedicated mental health services at weekends, prompting coroner Robert Cohen to call for changes.
In a letter to the coroner NHS England, which commissions mental health services in prisons, said any learning would form part of a current review.
In their ruling, jurors said Keenan had experienced “heightened stress and worry” ahead of his release, caused by difficulties in finding suitable housing because he was a sex offender.
That “probably” contributed to his death, they found.
The hearing, at Workington in May this year, was told Keenan had been sentenced to five and a half years in prison in June 2022 for offences including engaging in sexual activity with a child.