A man who was locked up for repeatedly raping a child was found dead in his cell in a Durham prison. 

In 2015, Scott McLellan, originally from the Blackpool area, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for sexual assault. He was moved to HMP Frankland in spring of 2016. 

He took his own life in February 2022 after a period of "seeming low", and being affected when a prison officer who was linked to McLellan's care was moving to a different wing in the prison. 

A report from the Prison and Probation Ombudsman outlined that although he had trained as a 'listener' - a prisoner trained by the Samaritans to help provide peer support to other prisoners in crisis, McLellan struggled with his mental health and had repeatedly been put on

In the months preceding his death, staff had placed McLellan on suicide and self-harm prevention measures, known as ACCT monitoring, which included round-the-clock observation, and an increase in antidepressant medication. 

But, by the time of his death, the 40-year-old had been taken off observations, as he said he had "no plans, thoughts or intentions of suicide or self-harm."

A friend, who spoke to McLellan in the medication queue on the morning of February 24, found his suicide surprising as they had "a laugh and a joke", and made plans to have a chat later. 

Later in the morning,  McLellan asked an officer involved in his car, known in the report as Officer A if it was true that she was leaving.

She said she was not leaving the prison but was moving to another wing. She assured Mr McLellan that he would continue to receive support from A Wing staff, and told PPO investigators that the prisoner seemed happy with this answer. 

But later, as she passed Mr McLellan’s cell, she saw an envelope poked through a gap in the door addressed to her, which had not been there earlier. 

When she opened his cell door observation panel, Officer A saw McLellan hanging. 

She immediately shouted for staff assistance and another officer rang the wing’s alarm bell. She could not radio a medical emergency code blue as she was unable to join the radio net due to heavy traffic of staff logging in after lunch. A code blue was called by another member of staff. 

Resuscitation was started by two officers, who were joined by two nurses, but he was declared dead less than half an hour later. 

Officer A did not read the note that McLellan had left her and was unaware of its contents until after his death.

It said he wanted everyone to think he was in a good place, that it was not her fault, but her leaving had messed up his head, and that it would have happened sooner or later. He concluded the note with goodbye in Polish. 

Though McLellan's care was "mostly well managed" in the days preceding his death, there has been confusion about whether mental health staff could attend McLellan's wing as it was in lockdown after a Covid outbreak. 

This meant that prison wardens did not invite them, nor did they speak to them over the phone. 

HMP Frankland, in Durham, is a high-security prison, with a capacity for 852 men.

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There is 24-hour inpatient care. Spectrum CIC Healthcare provides primary care, GP, substance misuse and pharmacy services and Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Mental Health Foundation Trust provides mental health services.

McLellan was the eighteenth prisoner to die at Frankland since February 2020. All the previous deaths were from natural causes.

In their report, the PPO recommended that multidisciplinary ACCT reviews should ensure to include healthcare staff where possible and that there should be a process in place to enable healthcare professionals to access prisoners if a wing becomes isolated due to COVID-19 or other infections.