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

Chapter 11: FRIDAY 28 AUGUST: THE DAY OF SONNY LODGE’S DEATH
Summary
11.1 Sonny Lodge was held in the segregation unit overnight. A chaplain visited him
and passed on Sonny’s concerns to a colleague. The medical officer assessed him as fit
for adjudication and cellular confinement. Sonny was found guilty of attempting to
assault Officer Bowcock and returned to the cell in the segregation unit for cellular
confinement. Another chaplain spoke with Sonny’s girlfriend and visited him twice. That
evening Sonny killed himself.
Father McCann’s evidence
11.2 On Friday morning, Father McCann met Mr Lodge when doing the chaplaincy’s
daily round of the segregation unit. This was before the adjudication. Father McCann
had no prior knowledge of Mr Lodge, who seemed slightly distressed and wanted to talk.
Father McCann was not aware of Ms A’s telephone calls or his colleagues’ visits to Mr
Lodge.
11.3 Father McCann told the Prison Service investigators and the inquest that Mr
Lodge said he had expected a ”nicking“ (disciplinary charge) that day because he was
due for release and might get bail and he thought someone would try to prevent him
being released. Father McCann said Sonny Lodge told him he expected something to be
planted in the cell during the search and afterwards a confrontation occurred, triggered
by his nervous laugh when he was upset by the state of his property in the cell after the
search. He said that an officer had hit him in reprisal for an alleged assault on a Risley
officer.
11.4 Father McCann said that when he left the unit he told the officer in charge, SO
Knight, that the only person he was concerned about was Mr Lodge who seemed “low
and fed-up”. Father McCann said he was not unduly concerned. He did not think that Mr
Lodge was going to harm himself but only that he was in a “down state of mind”.
11.5 In his statement to the inquest, Father McCann said he spent 10 or 15 minutes
with Mr Lodge, who did not express any intention of suicide. As a chaplain he could raise
an F2052SH. He said the chaplains were aware of the danger of suicide and always
kept it in mind. In his evidence, Father McCann said he was uncertain whether he had
known when he spoke to Mr Lodge that he had in the past been on suicide watch or
whether he knew this only after Mr Lodge’s death.
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