Jersey Unreported Judgments

Death in custody

[2024]JRC217

Royal Court

(Samedi)

18 October 2024

The Attorney General

-v-

Alan John Richardson

Ms L. B. Hallam, Crown Advocate.

Advocate C. R. Baglin for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:

1.        Alan John Richardson was committed to this Court for trial charged with four offences of making indecent images of children contrary to Article 2 of the Protection of Children (Jersey) Law 1994.  He pleaded guilty to those offences on 6 September 2024 and was remanded in custody to today to be sentenced by the Inferior Number.

2.        The Defendant was born in 1945 and was thus aged 79 when he pleaded guilty to these offences.  We have heard evidence from Christopher Samuel Houghton, a healthcare manager at HMP La Moye, who knew the Defendant and was on duty on the 1 October 2024 when the Defendant was found unresponsive in his cell and was subsequently recorded as having died.  We have also seen an interim certificate of the fact of death issued by the relief coroner dated 16 October 2024 recording the fact that the Defendant died on 1 October 2024 at the prison.

3.        In the circumstances, in accordance with the practice suggested in Archbold at 3-237 and with the consent of both counsel, the Indictment has been endorsed in the following terms:-

"Christopher Samuel Houghton, Healthcare Manager at HMP La Moye, having given evidence on oath that the man declared dead at HMP La Moye on 1^st October 2024 was Alan John Richardson, who had been committed to prison by the Royal Court on 6^th September 2024, having pleaded guilty to the Indictment, it was ordered that the Indictment be endorsed as aforesaid and declared now of no legal effect, and that the file be closed unless and until the court on cause being shown, otherwise orders."

Authorities

Protection of Children (Jersey) Law 1994

Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice.