Lee Gorst, 35, was found dead in his cell at HMP Manchester on April 25, 2023
Lee Gorst(Image: UGC)
A Strangeways inmate took his own life after informing his family he was only allowed out of his cell for 90 minutes each day, according to a recently released report. Lee Gorst, 35, was found dead in his cell at HMP Manchester on April 23, 2023.
The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) report into his death reveals he referred to Strangeways as “a dump” and claimed that knives “were coming in by drones every night”. Gorst also alleged prison officers frequently forgot to let him out of his cell for meals and was reportedly “shocked” by the level of violence within the prison. A verdict of suicide was recorded by a coroner following an inquest.
The PPO report stated that due to staffing issues, the prison was operating under a “restricted regime” at the time, resulting in Gorst spending “extended periods of time in his cell on his own”. In a letter found posthumously, he wrote that he was “locked in his cell alone for twenty two-and-a-half hours a day, with every minute of his life controlled”.
PPO investigators were informed that prisoners were allowed out of their cells for approximately two hours each day during this period, reports the Manchester Evening News.
In October 2024, following an inspection, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, issued an urgent notification to the Secretary of State for Justice regarding a “concerning decline” at the prison.
The prison was labelled as “squalid” and “the most violent in the UK”. Inspectors stated that organised crime gangs and the influx of drugs into the dilapidated Victorian jail were “clearly undermining every aspect of prison life”.
Lee Gorst(Image: UGC)
Strangeways, according to Mr Taylor, was “fundamentally not safe” for both prisoners and staff. The prison was subsequently issued with an “Urgent Notification”.
“A number of the concerns HM Inspectorate of Prisons identified are relevant to the matters Mr Gorst raised during his telephone conversations,” stated the PPO report into his death, which was published last week.
In December 2013, Gorst was sentenced to 13 years and four months for attempted murder and false imprisonment. He was released on licence in January 2020, but was recalled to prison in June 2021 after being charged with robbery, unlawful wounding and making threats to kill.
In September 2021, he received a custodial sentence of four-and-a-half years and then in February 2023, he was given a life sentence, with a minimum term of five years, for a knifepoint raid on a shop in Clayton, north Manchester. He was transferred to HMP Manchester in March of that year and denied having ‘thoughts of suicide or self-harm’ upon arrival, according to the report.
It added: “During his telephone conversations with his partner, Mr Gorst revealed that he was struggling to come to terms with the length of his sentence and he was unhappy with the regime and environment at Manchester.”
Strangeways prison(Image: MEN Media)
The ombudsman, Adrian Usher, expressed his “concern” that upon Gorst’s arrival at Strangeways, he wasn’t given a proper induction and didn’t receive any key work. As a result, Gorst spent “extended periods of time in his cell on his own”, according to the report.
Mr Usher said: “It is clear that this had a negative impact on him.” His body was discovered when an officer came to his cell for “afternoon association”.
The report said: “The prison was operating a limited regime, which meant that prisoners were spending significant amounts of time in their cells, and there were very few opportunities for prisoners to engage in purposeful activities.
“There was a delay in paramedics attending the emergency. It took prison staff 14 minutes to conduct security checks and to escort the paramedics through the prison.”
Gorst was the 16th prisoner to die at HMP Manchester since April 2020. The report discloses that days before his death, he phoned his partner and voiced his worries.
The report added: “He told her that he was very depressed, he did not want to be in prison, Manchester was a dump and he hated it.” He also said to her that officers had forgotten to let him out of his cell for food, which he claimed happened regularly.
Five days prior to his death, he rang his partner again, informing her that “there were lots of knives in the prison which were coming in by drones every night”.
The report added: “Mr Gorst said that he hated the prison, and everything was getting on top of him.
“He said he had watched a television programme called ‘Parole’ (a BBC documentary series focusing on the work of the Parole Board), and he thought it was going to be very hard for him to get released at the first opportunity. He said that he was only getting an hour and half out of the cell each day and he spent the rest of the time lying on his bed.”
It has emerged that Gorst had marked “my last day” on his calendar for April 22 – three days before his death – and had also penned a letter to his family on that day, which he referred to as his suicide letter.
The report said: “Mr Gorst wrote about how the reality of his life sentence had sunk in and how it would take him years after he served the minimum five years before he would be released.
“He said that it was a lonely, hard existence, he was locked in his cell alone for twenty two-and-a-half hours a day, with every minute of his life controlled and he did not have a release date to look forward to. Mr Gorst wrote that he knew he could not do the sentence.”
He was also reported to have been “shocked” by an incident involving a knife between prisoners on the wing the day before his death.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: “Since Mr Gorst’s death the amount of time prisoners have out of their cells at HMP Manchester has improved due to an increase in staff being deployed to the prison.”
