Drug addict died in cell while guard surfed net

A TEENAGE drug addict died after snorting heroin in a police cellwhile a custody care assistant ignored his calls for help as hesurfed the internet in a nearby room, a fatal accident inquiry hasruled.

Kristoffer Batt, 17, had smuggled the Class A drug into his cellin the headquarters of Tayside Police in Dundee after he handedhimself in following an arrest warrant.

In a scathing fatal accident inquiry determination yesterday,Sheriff Elizabeth Munro listed a catalogue of individual andsystemic failures that contributed to the death of Mr Batt, who wasfrom Forfar.

A buzzer system, designed to allow prisoners to summon help, hadbeen switched off for years. A red light system, which could also beused to summon assistance, stayed illuminated outside the teenager'scell until only minutes before he was found dead.

Sheriff Munro ruled that Mr Batt should have been strip-searchedand classed as "highly vulnerable" given his history of drug abuse.The sheriff singled out for criticism Stuart Lewis, the "incompetentand negligent" custody care assistant who had been responsible forthe teenager's care on the day he died, 28 November, 2007.

An investigation found that the former Sea Cadet took diazepambefore surrendering to an arrest warrant at 4am on 28 November. Oncein his cell at the West Bell Street station he snorted heroin he hadsmuggled in between his buttocks.

Sheriff Munro said Mr Lewis, who is still a civilian employeewith Tayside Police, had falsified records of his visits to thepolice cells on the night of Mr Batt's death. He should have checkedon the teenager at least once every hour. Checks on a computer inthe force's fingerprint room showed that Mr Lewis had accessed theinternet at least 59 times to visit social networking and sportssites.

Mr Batt was only found dead in his cell after day shift careassistants arrived for work. He would have survived for at least 20minutes and "probably more than an hour" after snorting the herointhat killed him.

Sheriff Munro said: "Without the buzzer system, there was nothingKristoffer Batt could do to attract attention."

She added: "Nevertheless, there was an assistance light systemoperational on the night of 27-28 November 2007 and it was thefailure of Stuart Lewis, Custody Care Assistant, to fulfil hisduties in connection with that system, which resulted inKristoffer's requests for assistance being ignored for long periods.

"Stuart Lewis deliberately chose to position himself in theFingerprint Office, for lengthy periods, where he could not see anyassistance lights at all. He even failed to operate the systemproperly, when he finally did attend Kristoffer's cell at 0601hours, in that he failed to deactivate the assistance light."

She said it "beggars belief" that all of the buzzers wereswitched off years ago.

Last night, Mr Batt's parents condemned the Tayside force'sdecision not to sack the custody care assistant following theinvestigation. They said: "We find it unbelievable that a man whofalsified documentation and was using unauthorised internet accesshas not lost his job."

A spokeswoman for Tayside Police said: "The force will take timeto consider the Sheriff's findings in full."