Personal injury news

Prison healthcare worker suffering breakdown after inmate suicides can proceed with claim

A prison healthcare worker, for whom the trauma of dealing with inmate suicides spelt a devastating mental breakdown, has won a vital round of his bid for compensation from the Home Office.

An Appeal Court judge said the Home Office "only has itself to blame" if it failed to implement its own policies to protect the mental health of employees like 54-year-old Scott Taylor Melville.

Mr Melville had had to deal with no less than eight suicides whilst working at Exeter Prison and his lawyers argued the prison authorities' implementation of health protection procedures was "lamentable".

The Appeal Court ruled the "stress related illness" that forced Mr Melville's medical retirement from the prison in 1999 was the "reasonably forseeable" result of the horrors he witnessed.

The court's decision means Mr Melville may now proceed with his substantial damages claim against the Home Office. Further issues in the case, along with the amount of his compensation if he wins, will be decided at a future court hearing unless final settlement terms are agreed in the meantime.

Mr Melville's case was heard by London's Appeal Court together with a number of other "work stress" cases and was considered of such importance that the nation's pre-eminent civil judge - the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips - presided.

Lord Justice Scott Baker - sitting with Lord Phillips and Lord Justice Tuckey - said that, during Mr Melville's time as a health care officer at Exeter Prison, his duties incluced recovery of the bodies of prisoners who committed suicide.

"His case was that since he started work in 1981, he had attended eight such suicides, the last of which was on May 4 1998. On this occasion he had helped to cut down the body, remove a ligature and attempt revival.

"In the days which followed, he suffered from nightmares and flashbacks and developed what was subsequently diagnosed as a stress related illness. He last worked on 25 May 1998 and retired on the grounds of ill health early the following year."

The judge said Mr Melville had given "no indication" that he was developing mental problems before he went off work and the Home Office argued it could not reasonably have been expected to foresee he might suffer a breakdown.

However, Lord Justice Baker said Home Office documents well recognised that employees like Mr Melville who were called upon to deal with traumatic incidents might suffer psychiatric injury and required support.

Although Mr Melville's lawyers agreed the Home Office had "devised adequate procedures" for dealing with such cases, they argued that "the implementation of those procedures at HMP Exeter was lamentable".

Dismissing the Home Office's appeal against an earlier ruling in Mr Melville's favour, Lord Justice Baker said: "The employer plainly did foresee that employees who were exposed to particular traumatic incidents might suffer psychiatric injury.

"Here there was something specific about the job - the occurrence of certain traumatic incidents - which did cause the employer to think harder and devise a perfectly adequate system for dealing with the risk which was foreseen.

"If the Home Office failed to implement its own system it only has itself to blame. It set its own threshold".

Lord Justice Baker concluded: "For the reasons we have given, the Home Office's appeal in this case is dismissed".