Report of the Inquiry into the circumstances of the Death of Bernard ...

Chapter 18: WAS SONNY LODGE VICTIMISED?
Introduction
18.1 The inquiry examined:
whether there were grounds for Sonny Lodge’s belief that he was being
victimised as a result of the incident at Whiston Hospital or for other reasons;
and what role, if any, this played in the circumstances of his death.
18.2 This chapter includes consideration of the evidence about Sonny Lodge’s claims
that he was victimised and about his character and credibility.
Consideration
Sonny Lodge’s claims he was victimised
18.3 Sonny Lodge told several people that he was victimised by prison staff at
Manchester. He believed he was singled out because he was said to have assaulted a
prison officer.
18.4 In a letter to his girlfriend from the hospital wing at Garth, Sonny Lodge said that
until the allegation of assault at Whiston hospital he had never been ‘nicked’ for
misbehaviour in prison. The Manchester chaplain, Mr Johnson, said Mr Lodge told him
he always pleaded guilty when he had committed an offence. The inquiry has not been
able to verify these two claims but has no information to the contrary.
18.5 With the exception of the incident at Whiston Hospital, there is no record of any
complaint about Sonny Lodge’s behaviour at Risley, Garth or Manchester until after his
induction at Manchester. Nor does Mr Lodge make any adverse reference to prison
officers, except for his account of the incident at Whiston, in the letters the inquiry has
seen from the period before he went to E wing. At Garth, he is apprehensive about
returning to Risley after the alleged assault, but his letters from this period speak mainly
of his disappointment in himself, particularly about letting down his children, and his
determination to turn his life around. He wants the family to arrange for him to go straight
from prison to his sister in Ireland to escape the associations of his life of drugs and
crime. However, from later correspondence, once he hears from his girlfriend and knows
she has stuck by him, he pins his hopes of a better future on making a home with her.
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