Inmates heard shouts of “help me, help me” hours before a transsexual prisoner was found dead in his cell, an inquest was told.
Senthooran Kanagasingham, also known as Nina, was found dead, with a plastic bag around his head and his hands tied to the bedstead in his Belmarsh Prison cell, at 9am on April 8, 2013.
He was serving time for killing distinguished transgender lawyer Sonia Burgess, also known as David.
A Southwark coroner’s court inquest was told prisoners in nearby cells heard pleas for help the night before Kanagasingham, 37, was found. Danny Doyle, who was serving time in a cell across from him, claims he heard shouting around 10:30pm on April 7, 2013.
In an interview with a Prisons and Probation Ombudsman investigator, days after Kanagasingham’s death, Doyle said: “I could hear someone shouting... saying ‘help me, help me’.” In the interview, read in court, Doyle added: “If you asked the officers about it their response was ‘I don’t hear it’.”
But the prison officer on duty that night told the hearing nobody shouted or alerted him. Jid Odubanjo said: “Nobody called me at all.”
During sentencing in 2011, Kanagasingham, who was undergoing gender reassignment treatment, was described as a paranoid schizophrenic.
Beverley Clarke, a prison governor, told the hearing that after an investigation, Belmarsh was “satisfied” Kanagasingham carried out the act himself. The inquest continues.
