Psychiatric harm

Home Office v Butchart CA LSG 30 March

The Home Office appealed against the decision refusing to strike out the claimant’s claim in respect of psychiatric harm allegedly suffered by him while he was on remand in prison. The claimant had a history of treatment for depression and when he arrived in prison on remand spent the first six weeks in custody in the health centre where he was prescribed antidepressants and tranquillisers and assessed as at risk of self-harm. He was then transferred to share a cell with another prisoner who was at risk of suicide and who within three weeks had killed himself. The claimant claimed that he had suffered psychiatric harm because of the stress created by being placed in the same cell as a prisoner at risk of suicide, the suicide itself, the fact that he had been blamed for his cellmate’s death and the fact that he had then been placed in a cell with yet another suicidal prisoner.