A pedophile suspect who sexually abused a 9-year-old girl was found dead in his cell.
Paul Cavner, 56, took his own life at HMP Northumberland and hanged himself in prison, having been tormented by voices in his head, just days after his suicide watch was stopped. Paramedics administered CPR but could not save him and he was declared dead.
A report by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman PPO found that monitoring meant to prevent suicide was ended “prematurely”, six days before Cavner died. Bosses at the privately-run prison have been ordered to make sure suicide and self-harm monitoring is carried out properly in the future.
Cavner was among four child abusers sentenced for crimes against a vulnerable young girl who was “prostituted out” from the age of nine. The girl’s childhood was stolen by a campaign of horrific abuse which lasted until she was 14 after someone offered her to a series of men in return for money, alcohol, and cigarettes.
Cavner’s sexual abuse was more isolated than those of the other accused in the case, but he was behind one vile incident which prompted the girl to finally seek refuge. He was sent to the prison in the northeast and was placed in a block for older prisoners.
According to the PPO report, Cavner took an overdose of a number of medications saying it was because people were shouting at him at night and watching him through the air vents. He was taken to the hospital and discharged the following day.
He then started his suicide and self-harm prevention procedures, known as ACCT. At the ACCT meeting, Cavner told the staff he heard “unpleasant and abusive” voices which sometimes told him to take medication.
Although by the third meeting he claimed he was “coming to terms” with them. Ten days after it began, the monitoring was stopped and six days after that, he takes his own life and was found hanging in his own prison cell.
Sue McAllister, an Ombudsman, said: “I am concerned that staff stopped ACCT monitoring prematurely. Not only had a mental health assessment not been carried out when the decision to stop monitoring was made, but no one from the mental health team had input to the decision.”
“There was also a lack of continuity in staff attendance at the ACCT case reviews and ACCT documentation was inaccurate as it showed that staff had made contributions when they had not done so,” McAllister added.
McAllister was also concerned that at the start of the monitoring process, a mental health nurse had arranged a urine test to check whether the confusion was caused by a urinary tract infection UTI, with the next steps to be decided once the results came back.
However, even though the negative test results were uploaded to the electronic medical record, the mental health team was not notified. McAllister said: “It is likely that Mr. Cavner would have had a mental health assessment had the mental health team been aware of the urine test result.”
It was also told to review the process for requesting physical health investigations to ensure all relevant staff were included in the reporting process and to make sure the report’s findings were discussed with the two staff members who had carried out the suicide monitoring.
A spokesperson for HMP Northumberland said: “Our thoughts are very much with the family of Mr. Cavner, who sadly passed away. We cooperated fully with the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman’s investigation, accepted the recommendations made, and are implementing an action plan based on these recommendations.”
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