PRESS RELEASE- 26th OCTOBER 2022 – 4 YEARS SINCE THE SUICIDES OF 16 YR OLD WILLIAM LINDSAY & KATIE ALLAN
4 YEARS SINCE THE SUICIDES OF 16 YR OLD WILLIAM LINDSAY & KATIE ALLAN
AT POLMONT YOI- THEIR FAMILIES WILL MEET WITH CROWN OFFICE ON THURSDAY 27TH OCTOBER IN EDINBURGH
Statement on behalf of the families by their solicitor Aamer Anwar: –
The families of both William and Katie will arrive at 11.20am at Crown Office, 25 Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1LA to meet with Principal Crown Counsel.
Linda, Stuart and Scott Allan are the mother, father and younger brother of Katie; John Reilly is the older brother of William- both families will attend with their lawyers Aamer Anwar & April Meechan.
The Meeting is expected to last until around 1.00pm following which the families will issue a statement outside Crown Office.
4 years ago on the 7th October, the body of a 16-year-old child was found hanging in his cell at Polmont, some 72 hours after he arrived there on remand. His name was William Lindsay. William was sent there by our courts because our criminal justice system could not find a children’s secure unit place and the desperate concerns of his social workers went ignored.
William was in and out of care since the age of three, self-harming since the age of 8, considered a high risk of suicide from the age of 13 and had on several occasions attempted to take his own life.
Four years ago, everyone from the First Minister to politicians offered ‘sincere condolences and the cliche ‘lessons would be learned’. On the 4th anniversary of a terrified child taking his own life, he is forgotten by all those who promised to never forget William.
Katie Allan was 21 when she took her own life at HMYOI Polmont. 21, was the number of days that she had left to serve before being eligible for home detention curfew. As Katie’s mother said her daughter “didn’t get HDC either, she couldn’t face 21 seconds more, let alone days in the care of the Scottish Prison Service. Bullied, violated, crushed…she could take no more.”
As a nation we have one of the highest imprisonment rates, highest rates of remand prisoners and the highest number of suicides in custody in Western Europe.
A democracy is judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable citizens, that usually includes children and prisoners, but William and Katie along with so many others were failed miserably by Scotland.
Both families are tired of the cynical excuses of Crown Office “There will be a mandatory fatal accident inquiry, but whilst the process is on-going, it is not appropriate to comment.” Promises were made and apologies offered by the Solicitor General when she first met with both families last year, yet 4 years on there is no end in sight.
The families believe the Crown Office and Scottish Government have repeatedly failed to take any real action against the Scottish Prison Service and will demand the lifting of crown immunity for the Scottish Prison Service which effectively gives the state a ‘license to kill’, with no effective remedy to seek justice.
