JUSTICE Secretary Humza Yousaf has been urged to take “personal charge” of a prison service shake-up after a death in custody.
Allan Marshall, 30, died from a cardiac arrest after being dragged feet-first across the floor and restrained at Edinburgh jail four years ago.
Last week a sheriff ruled Mr Marshall’s death was avoidable. Yesterday, the Daily Record published a video of the remand prisoner being restrained, giving the general public the first look at the incident.
Scottish Labour’s Justice spokeswoman, Pauline McNeill MSP, found the images, which showed a group of men holding Mr Marshall down, to be shocking.
She said: “There is no place for this in Scotland’s prison system, this incident has scarred our repetition.
“We cannot hold ourselves up to be a modern democratic and fair society if this atrocious incident is not the catalyst for change and accountability. The fact this death was avoidable mean something is very wrong in our system.”
She added: “The Cabinet Secretary for Justice must give full disclosure on the action he is taking now to root out this behaviour in our prison system and that includes the attempts by management to cover up the incident.
“I call on Humza Yousaf to take personal charge of the action plan on this to satisfy everyone involved lessons have learned and the Prison service can recover from this.”
The “cover-up” to which Ms McNeill referred was an attempt by the Scottish Prison Service to prevent publication of the video. Prison chiefs feared that the images, although pixelated, could lead to the identification of officers, The Herald understands.
The Scottish Prison Service earlier said it was considering the sheriff’s report and would respond in due course. It is understood some of the staff members involved are no longer with the service.
Mr Marshall was awaiting trial over a breach of the peace outside a nightclub in Hamilton when he suffered an episode of what is believed to have been Excited Delirium Syndrome.
He and prison officers were injured in a struggle. His restraint was caught by CCTV in a corridor of the jail, outside a shower. Five prison officers holding him down. One officer was seen to stamp on Mr Marshall.
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