PRISON officers urged a police informer who was threatening to jump from a gantry to throw himself to his death, an inquest was told yesterday.

Although Paul Day was eventually persuaded to climb down, the vulnerable inmate was later found hanged in his cell at Durham's Frankland prison.

Yesterday, an inquest into his death heard from a prison officer how staff had urged him to jump during his protest, which was carried out at Wandsworth Prison, in London.

Principal Prison Officer Andy Toppin told the hearing, at Chester-le-Street Magistrates' Court, in County Durham, that it was his job to talk down Day.

But he said: "It didn't help that other staff who were there were behaving in an unprofessional manner, giving him abuse and shouting at him to jump."

Mr Toppin said that instead of isolating the area, staff had let other prisoners in from the exercise yard. As Day balanced above them, fellow inmates joined in a chorus of: "Let him fall."

Mr Toppin agreed with Leslie Thomas, the lawyer representing Day's parents, that this was "outrageous conduct".

Day claimed a senior officer at the prison had betrayed him by telling other prisoners he was an informer.

He told a prison chaplain that he was afraid of reprisals because he had been passing information to prison authorities. He also claimed to have worked with corrupt policemen when he was out of jail.

Day claimed they gave him information to carry out robberies in return for a cut of the proceeds.

Mark Poulton, Wandsworth's principal officer in charge of security, denied Day's claim that he had deliberately or inadvertently revealed his identity as an informer.

Day, 31, of Basildon, Essex, had been serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for robberies.

He was sentenced to a further six months for a serious assault on a fellow prisoner convicted of a sex offence.

Durham coroner Andrew Tweddle was told Day had served his time in Wandsworth on separate occasions, as well as having spells at Parkhurst, Pentonville, Cardiff, Highdown and finally Frankland.

The Reverend Deacon Peter Heneghan, Wandsworth prison chaplain, said: "When I saw him, he threw himself at me crying like a baby."

It also emerged that Day had been transferred to Frankland Prison against the wishes of his family, who feared he would not get the support he needed. But they had been assured by then governor Philip Reilly that he would be kept in a safe environment.

The hearing continues.