THE FAMILY of a Hampshire inmate found hanging in his cell has criticised the prison for not learning lessons after an inquest heard several failings had contributed to his death.

Father-of-two Sean Plumstead was in custody at HMP Winchester and was due to be released less than a month later when he was discovered by his cellmate.

The 27-year-old was rushed to Royal Hampshire County Hospital but died three days later on September 18 last year.

Winchester Coroner's Court heard that Mr Plumstead had not been identified as at risk of suicide, but two days before he had asked staff members about suicide methods.

A jury found that a failure to instigate self-harm support measures contributed to his death, and that a lack of training of agency staff was "particularly concerning."

They said a failure to attend within five minutes of an alarm bell being pressed possibly contributed to the death, and that the bell was "not fit for purpose".

Central Hampshire coroner Grahame Short said he would issue a prevention of future deaths report to The Ministry of Justice and Carillion, who also provide staffing.

The inquest heard that two staff members failed to record or report when Mr Plumstead, from Hayling Island, asked them about the best way to commit suicide.

Neither staff member had received ACCT training - which identifies the triggers for self-harm - and the inquest heard only 47% of all staff at HMP Winchester were ACCT trained as of September.

Mr Plumstead's mother Lisa Dance said: “Our family is devastated by the death of Sean. The inquest process has been shocking and distressing.

“I find it hard to believe that those responsible for Sean in the place of work had no proper training and that even today, one of them still hasn’t been trained.

“I know that I will forever wonder about what might have happened had staff got to Sean within the time they were supposed to.

“My hope now is that another family will not have to go through what we have, although the evidence indicates that HMP Winchester does not learn lessons.”

Solicitor Clair Hilder of Hodge Jones & Allen said: “This is the third inquest in the last 12 months where I have represented the family of someone who has taken their own life at HMP Winchester.

“One wonders how many more men have to die before the proper procedures and training are put in place?

“This case highlights the need for a national oversight body to ensure lessons are learnt from deaths in custody and action is followed through.”

A prison service spokesperson said: “This is a tragic case and our thoughts are with Sean Plumstead’s family and friends.

“We take the welfare of prisoners extremely seriously and HMP Winchester is introducing a number of steps to improve the standard of care, including extra training for staff so they can better support vulnerable offenders.

“Across the estate we're also putting more funding into prison safety including the recruitment of 2,500 extra frontline officers, and have launched a suicide and self-harm project to address the number in self-inflicted deaths in our prisons.

“We will now consider carefully the findings of the inquest to identify lessons learnt. As with all deaths, there will also be an independent investigation by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.”