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Armley Jail: Prisoner found hanged in cell
A prisoner charged with wounding his elderly mother who later died has been found hanged in his cell at Armley Jail.
Police were called to the prison on Tuesday afternoon after staff had struggled in vain to save his life.
Barry Keat, 59, was discovered hanging and after a police investigation it was found there were no suspicious circumstances.
It is understood that the dead man had been on remand at the jail.
An inquest into the death will be opened shortly.
A Home Office Prison Service spokeswoman said: "HMP Leeds prisoner Barry Keat, 59, was found hanging in his cell at 2.15pm on Tuesday October 27.
"Staff attempted resuscitation. Paramedics also attended, but unfortunately Mr Keat was pronounced dead at 2.37pm."
"As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will conduct an investigation."
Police had been called to a report of a serious assault at an address in Central Avenue, Keighley, at about 8.50am on July 6 this year.
There they found Mrs Minnie Keat, 86, suffering from injuries and she was taken to Airedale General Hospital. Her son Barry Keat was arrested by police and was initially charged with a wounding offence.
Mrs Keat died six days later on July 12 in Airedale General.
Earlier this year West Yorkshire Coroner David Hinchliff said he would ask the Chief Inspector of Prisons to recommend all staff at the jail – including those at governor grade – undergo retraining after an inquest into the death of remand prisoner Mohammed Mudhir who hanged himself from a bunk in his cell in 2006.
In June 2008 a report by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons severely criticised conditions for inmates at Leeds Prison, and accused managers of making up figures relating to how long inmates spent in their cells.
In reality some prisoners were out of their cells for just two and a half hours a day. The report also highlighted problems with hostile and unhelpful staff at the prison.
In 2007 the Howard League for Penal reformed reported that in 2006 more prisoners had committed suicide that year at Armley Jail than in any other prison.
Seven men had killed themselves in 2006 – a sharp rise on the previous six years which each saw two or three deaths.
Liverpool and Manchester prisons had both reported four suicides that year according the League. But its survey of 39 local prisons showed an overall drop in suicides from 2005.
Local prisons, which deal with large numbers of remand prisoners and tend to be overcrowded, reported a total of 48 suicides in 2006, down from 55 in 2005.
In July 2005 The Howard League for Penal Reform published statistics showing that Leeds Prison had the second highest suicide rate of all prisons in England and Wales - 25 inmates had committed suicide at the prison between 1995 and 2004.
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