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

Wing officer
8.8 Officer Sanderson in the G wing office also received word of Ms A’s telephone
call, from a Principal Officer. At 6.45 pm he made a note in the wing observation book to
alert staff that a message from a relative said that Mr Lodge was not going to be
released on Friday as he expected and might commit self-harm “as he has a history of
self-harm”.
8.9 Officer Sanderson spoke to Mr Lodge when he came to the wing office to book in
and collect his canteen. Officer Sanderson told the Prison Service investigators that Mr
Lodge knew he would not be released on the Friday and seemed “happy with the
situation”. He said he was OK and seemed not to want to prolong the conversation.
Officer Sanderson told Mr Lodge that a relative had been in touch with the prison and
would like him to get in touch. The conversation was “on a light note”. In a letter of 8
August 2009, Mr Sanderson told the inquiry there were no other staff in the wing office at
the time. From Mr Lodge’s demeanour, Officer Sanderson gained no sense that there
was any reason to take him elsewhere to talk more privately. Officer Sanderson said he
had no prior knowledge of Mr Lodge’s history of self-harm. According to the Coroner’s
note of oral evidence at the inquest, Officer Sanderson said he had asked Mr Lodge
about scars on his arms, which Mr Lodge said were caused by a motorbike accident.
8.10 After the conversation at the wing office, Officer Sanderson made a note in the
wing observation book that he had spoken to Mr Lodge who stated that he knew he
would not be released on Friday, everything was all right, he felt OK and said he was
happy with the situation. Officer Sanderson did not refer to Mr Lodge’s history sheets or
make any note in them.
Mr Lodge’s letter on Tuesday evening
8.11 Sonny Lodge’s letter that evening after lock-up shows that he was taken aback to
have been charged with grievous bodily harm rather than a less serious offence. The
letter starts positively: it only means another six to eight weeks and his “head is right” as
long as his girlfriend is still there for him. But he then says that it might be six to eight
months, and that he cannot ask his girlfriend to wait unless she wants to. His mood
darkens, saying that without her, “the … shadowlands will be calling and I will be at
peace with my maker”, like his mum and dad, who went “to the shadowlands before I
even knew what a mum and dad was”. He is very upset about what Officer Brownley has
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