Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/580873
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 4 OCTOBER 2015 Opinion 25 reporting whether this 'hour' was counted from his admission to hospital, or from his discovery in the cell. In either case, however, it is clear that he was discovered at a point when it was already too late for resuscitation. This suggests that his brain had stopped receiving oxygen for some time before he was cut down. What time did he actually hang himself? How long had he been suspended by that sheet before the 3:50am routine cell inspection? We'll have to wait for the post-mortem to know for sure, but the other question that arises is more straightforward. What time was the preceding inspection? I half expected Cassar to volunteer that detail on his own initiative. But he didn't, and nobody thought to ask… Another point the Police Commissioner should have clarified is… what was an arrested detainee even doing, in a cell with a sheet on the bed and bars in the window? It's not like we haven't been through this before: one prison inmate (Barry Charles Lee) hanged himself from an air vent using a belt in 2012. Yet in 2015, current police custodial procedures still involve leaving a man unsupervised in a cell, with all the ingredients necessary to commit a successful suicide, for long enough to tie his sheet in a noose and suffocate himself beyond any hope of recovery. Honestly: why not just go the whole hog, and also place an 'Idiot's Guide To Hanging Yourself ' manual on the bedside table? Again, I was expecting someone in the room to at least ask: okay, so what were these 'precautions' the police claim to have taken? In what way did the force 'try and improve things'? From the inexcusably scanty information supplied to date, it looks as though there has been no improvement at all. Meanwhile – you know, just to rub our collective noses in the sheer dilettantism with which we approach law enforcement and justice issues – the same questions are easy enough to answer in other countries. The British police, for instance, are governed by 'Guidelines on the Safer Detention and Handling of Persons in Police Custody (Second edition, 2012)'. It makes particularly interesting reading, in light of the above. Among other things, British police conduct a 'risk assessment' of each person they hold in custody, to determine "the risk and potential risk that each detainee presents to themselves, staff, other detainees, and to others coming into the custody suite". Such assessment is an ongoing process, because: "The risk that a detainee may pose to themselves and others may alter when a detainee is charged, refused bail or released on bail and, therefore, the custody officer must review the risk assessment at these stages and prior to release or transfer. A record must be kept in the custody record of each time that a risk assessments is carried out." Are any such precautions taken by the police in Malta? Are similar 'custody records' kept for each detainee? If so, can we see the record of this nameless 'detained person'? Interestingly, the UK's police custody guidelines also observe that: "In custodial settings, hanging or self-strangulation is the most common method of attempted suicide." Precautions are duly taken to minimise this widely-known risk: among other things, no shoelaces, no belts, no ties, no suspenders, no tights, no stockings… and obviously, no sheets either. Nor should there be any appendages – nails, hooks, window-bars, etc – to which a sheet or shoelace could be tied. Separately, the World Health Organisation has guidelines specifically to 'Prevent Suicide in Jails and Prisons'. It has this to say: "Most inmates commit suicide by hanging using bedding, shoelaces or clothing. A suicide-safe environment would be a cell or dormitory that has eliminated or minimised hanging points and unsupervised access to lethal materials... "Actively suicidal inmates may require protective clothing or restraints. Because of the controversial nature of restraints, clear policies and procedures must be in place if they are to be used. These must outline the situations in which restraints are appropriate and inappropriate, methods for ensuring that the least restrictive alternatives are used first, safety issues, time limits for use of restraints, the need for monitoring and supervision while in restraints, and access to mental health staff…" Is there any equivalent set of guidelines governing the local police custody scenario? We are, after all, talking about one of the highest risk-of-suicide situations known to man here. I find it hard to believe that the Maltese State would accept the responsibility of detaining people as part of it law-enforcement efforts – and no argument with that policy, as far as I can see – and yet fail to establish clear parameters and guidelines for all the complications that would invariably arise. The abdication of responsibility would be too enormous to even contemplate. It's like… oh, I don't know: it's like deciding to bring children into the world, only to leave them run amok unsupervised, exposed to every danger under the sun, without a care in the world… Even now, when it is painfully obvious that no such guidelines exist… the least the State could do is clarify all the unanswered questions concerning this case. The Police Commissioner's press statement was almost spectacular in its failure to provide information. It was as Spartan, terse and perfectly unhelpful as the most monosyllabic of police press office communications (eg. "A person was today arrested on suspicion of committing a crime… full-stop'"). Coming back to the charges this man was facing, and the fact that he would otherwise have been charged in court this morning… and even more so, that Cassar himself did not rule out 'foul play', when answering the only pertinent question he was asked… it must be pointed out that the entire incident evokes uncomfortable historic memories, too. It calls to mind thigs like a police press statement to announce an 'escape' from the depot in the early 1980s… only for the 'fugitive' to be later discovered dead under a bridge. I'd rather hoped things would have improved a little since then: that the necessary 'precautions' would have been taken, and the 'improvements' made. Sadly, it seems we shall have to wait a little while longer. 'custody' has a meaning For some bizarre reason, the victim has not even been named yet; even though his family has already been informed of his death Police Commissioner Michael Cassar