£4.7m – PRICE OF JUSTICE FOR RYAN ST GEORGE

Published: 15 April 2010
by RICHARD OSLEY

THE 12-year fight for justice for Ryan St George – the prisoner left brain-damaged after a fall in his prison cell – finally came to an end yesterday (Wednesday) when the Home Office was ordered to pay him a record £4.7 million in damages.

The former William Ellis school pupil, who had been sent to jail for the minor offence of stealing batteries from a shop, split his head open in a fall from a top bunk bed during an epileptic fit.

But the “incompetence and negligence” of prison staff saw him starved of oxygen on the cell floor. He suffered one of the worst cases of brain damage ever seen in this country with expert witnesses telling how they had never seen such harm sustained by a survivor.

In a catalogue of errors, ambulance teams were delayed at the gates of Brixton Prison in November 1997 and wardens were described as having an “arrogant and unacceptable attitude” as they failed to clear Ryan’s airways.

Inmates, a High Court judge said, were more helpful than prison staff. 

His journey to hospital was delayed by more than half an hour.

Ryan, then 29, was given the last rites when he finally reached hospital and relatives had been warned that it was likely he would die.

Now 41, he survived but only after sustaining critical brain damage and he now requires 24-hour care and is unable to walk, talk, eat or communicate. 

His aunt Margaret, 77, took it on herself to give up her whole life to caring for him in a flat in Kentish Town while his father David St George, the respected Old Bailey journalist, took up legal proceedings. There is no prospect of his condition improving.

His father, who brought a case against the Home Office in the High Court, said yesterday: “This case has taken a very long time. Its not about the money but the duty prison staff have to all inmates especially the vulnerable. Staff failed to acknowledged they were at fault and a lesson needs to be learned. Nobody has ever actually apologised.”

The New Journal has visited Ryan in recent years and seen how his life has been ruined. 

On one visit, he spent much of the time rolling a deflated basketball backwards and forward on a tray. 

On another, his eyes seemed to connect with the people around him in the room but his relatives are acutely aware that the once talented artist and footballer cannot understand what is going on around him.

To add insult to injury for Ryan’s family, the Home Office tried to resist the case against it and lawyers were repeatedly instructed to argue against Mr St George’s claim in the High Court. 

During the several hearings, one paramedic broke down in tears when asked to describe finding Ryan in the prison.

“He was in as bad state as a person can be without being dead,” said another witness.

At the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday, Mr Justice Mackay rubber-stamped a compensation package for accommodation and 24-hour care for life.

There will be a lump sum and then a sequence of payments that will pay for a new flat for Ryan and ease the burden for Margaret St George. 

She was praised for her “selfless devotion”. 

Before his arrest, Ryan, a big fan of Wimbledon football club, had fallen into a life of drinking and drug taking.

David St George said last night (Wednesday): “Medical experts have given evidence that they have never encountered such severe brain devastation in a survivor. A series of cock-ups and covers up left Ryan without vital oxygen. He was effectively killed by staff incompetence and a couldn’t-care-less attitude.”

Mr Justice McKay said in his ruling: “The ambulance was kept waiting at a time when speed was of the essence, by what the prison gov­ernor called the arrogant and unaccep­table attitude of a particular prison officer who refused to accompany the ambulance.”