Sue McAllister, Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, mentioned she was “very involved on the lack of co-ordination and urgency within the response” following the “extraordinarily brutal assault” on Taras Nykolyn at HMP Woodhill, in Milton Keynes, on June 5, 2018.
Convicted York killer James Brabbs and two different males – ringleader Stephen Boorman and Jibreel Raheem – attacked Nykolyn, 49, within the train yard of the Class B males’s excessive safety jail.
As The Press reported, Brabbs pleaded responsible to murdering Nykolyn, a convicted killer, on the third day of his trial in 2019.
The then 33-year-old, on the time of HMP Belmarsh, and beforehand of Carnot Avenue, off Leeman Highway, York, was given a life sentence with a minimal time period of 10 years on the Outdated Bailey.
Six years earlier, he was jailed for all times at Teesside Crown Courtroom for killing van driver Mohammed Saleem Khan in Easingwold.
The 2019 sentence meant Brabbs must serve 39 years and eight months earlier than he might apply for parole.
In 2019, Boorman, then 34, denied homicide however was convicted by the jury and jailed for all times with a minimal of 35 years.
Raheem, then 27, admitted homicide and was jailed for all times with a minimal of 20 years and 9 months.
Mrs Justice Whipple described the assault as a “deliberate execution by the defendants in chilly blood”.
The courtroom heard that the lads used home-made “shanks” to slash Nykolyn’s physique, and repeatedly kicked and stamped on him earlier than tying a ligature spherical his neck and making an attempt to behead him.
Ms McAllister, in her report, mentioned the assault appeared to have been pre-planned.
She mentioned she was glad that there was no info to workers to counsel that Nykolyn was in danger, however added: “Nevertheless, I’m involved that whereas the combination of prisoners on the unit was clearly a harmful one, all 4 prisoners exercised collectively, in contrast to the observe at different particular models.
“As well as, there have been weaknesses in another facets of safety and threat evaluation within the unit.”
Prisoners threatened to assault any officers who entered yard, says report
Based on the report, the 4 prisoners entered the train yard at 3pm on June 5, 2018.
The gate was locked and two officers supervised.
Ten minutes later, one prisoner punched Nykolyn to the ground.
Then, the report says, “all three prisoners continued the assault by kicking him, punching him, chopping him with improvised weapons and tying a ligature spherical his neck.
“The prisoners threatened to assault any officers who got here into the yard.
“The assault continued for simply over half-hour till officers entered the yard, wearing protecting clothes, and the prisoners surrendered.”
Regardless of efforts by well being care workers and paramedics, Nykolyn was pronounced useless at 4.23pm whereas being taken to hospital in an air ambulance, the report states.
The report discovered that workers couldn’t “moderately have anticipated that the opposite prisoners would assault and homicide Mr Nykolyn”.
However, the Ombudsman states, “we’re involved that administration of the prisoners within the unit was insufficiently proactive and strong, with inadequate recognition of potential threat.”
The report provides {that a} week earlier than Nykolyn’s demise “prisoners on the unit apparently acquired full packs of six razors, a few of which have been allegedly used to fabricate the weapons used within the assault”.
It additionally notes that the 4 prisoners being locked into the train yard collectively was “not in keeping with a neighborhood threat evaluation”.
The managing difficult behaviour technique unit the place Nykolyn was handled earlier than his demise has since closed, so the Ombudsman made a number of suggestions to the Governors of prisons as an alternative.
