A horrifying insight into life inside Scotland's largest young offenders' institution

17 January 2025, 09:28 | Updated: 17 January 2025, 11:31

This makes for depressing reading.

Each of the 400 pages of this ruling provides a horrifying insight into life inside Scotland's largest young offenders' institution.

The battle Katie Allan and William Brown's loved ones have endured "taking on" the authorities has resulted in vindication that "systemic failures" contributed to their children's deaths.

The allegations of mistreatment at HM Prison and Young Offenders Institution Polmont are every parent's worst nightmare.

It is claimed Ms Allan, 21, was berated, bullied, and forced to parade naked for staff as she was a compliant inmate. A degrading experience weeks before she passed away.

This inquiry revealed a major breakdown in communications between the various prison staff which clearly resulted in fatal outcomes.

The public may conclude there was gross incompetence at the heart of the operation with one example showing a document outlining mental health concerns about Mr Brown, 16, being printed out and left in a tray but not actioned until days after he was found dead in his cell.

A form revealing Ms Allan's history of self-harm was lost and therefore did not form part of the risk assessment about her chances of suicide.

When her remains were discovered next to a note, her body was criss-crossed with self-harm scars and her hair had fallen out.

Page after page is a litany of failure which concludes the system was defective.

The Scottish government pledged to remove all 16- and 17-year-olds from Polmont in 2022 but it did not happen until 2024, by which time another teenager had taken his life.

Ministers tell me they fully accept responsibility and the "buck stops" with them. But clearly that is too late for the 10 youngsters dead at Polmont over the past decade or so.

Many have asked why Ms Allan and Mr Brown were even in Polmont in the first place.

Mr Brown was not even convicted of a crime. He was on remand and died three days after his arrival.

According to his medical notes, he had thought about or attempted to take his own life on 14 occasions. He was not on suicide watch at the time of his death.

In Ms Allan's case, her mother questioned why consideration was not given to alternatives to detention, such as a community service order.

The university student had knocked down and injured a 15-year-old boy after drinking four pints of cider on a night out.

She had had no previous contact with the police and showed immediate remorse. The boy's parents asked the sheriff to spare her jail. The criminal justice social work report also recommended that she not be sent to prison.

Despite this, the court sent her behind bars where she died three months into her 16-month sentence.

For context, sentencing guidelines in Scotland were updated in recent years for those under 25.

The Scottish Sentencing Council recommended a more "individualistic approach" to take account of the perpetrator's life experiences.

The changes were made to help reduce reoffending by focusing on rehabilitation rather than punishment.

The purpose of Scotland's fatal accident inquiry (FAI) system is not to apportion blame but to try and prevent future tragedies. The sheriff in the Polmont case makes 25 recommendations.

Families of the bereaved say there is a lack of accountability.

The prison service has immunity, protecting it from prosecution. The Allan family is demanding reform, insisting this is tantamount to the state having a "licence to kill".

Improvements, we are told, have been made at Polmont since Ms Allan and Mr Brown's avoidable deaths but campaigners say this scandal must serve as a cold, hard reality check for a wider shakeup across the criminal justice system.

(c) Sky News 2025: A horrifying insight into life inside Scotland's largest young offenders' institution