{"id":54101,"date":"2025-09-10T00:41:33","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T00:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/54101\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T00:41:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T00:41:33","slug":"young-man-who-died-in-prison-was-under-pressure-to-conceal-drugs-inquest-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/54101\/","title":{"rendered":"Young man who died in prison was \u2018under pressure\u2019 to conceal drugs, inquest hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A young man who died in Cloverhill Prison<\/a> after concealing tablets inside his body came \u201cunder pressure\u201d from other prisoners to hide contraband, an inquest heard on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Stephen Watson (20), who was on remand for allegedly stealing a phone, was found dead in a cell on April 27th, 2021.<\/p>\n

He had been placed in a close supervision cell, amid concerns for his safety, the night before.<\/p>\n

Officers checked him every 15 minutes throughout the night. They believed he was sleeping and didn\u2019t notice anything unusual, the inquest heard.<\/p>\n

However, shortly after 8.30am the next day, he was found unresponsive and pronounced dead.<\/p>\n

Pathologist Heidi Okkers<\/a> told the inquest traces of heroin were found in Mr Watson\u2019s system. Ms Okkers said she believed his death was linked to heroin toxicity, but he was \u201cnot known\u201d to use the drug.<\/p>\n

During the postmortem a bag of tablets was found in Mr Watson\u2019s rectum, Ms Okkers said.<\/p>\n

Sergeant Bernard Eustace said these tablets were sent to be analysed but he had not yet received the results. Plastic wrappers were also found in Mr Watson\u2019s cell but these were not tested, the inquest heard.<\/p>\n

Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane<\/a> told the jury heroin may have entered Mr Watson\u2019s system via the tablets or via the wrappers if he had ingested their contents. However, without the test results, this could not be confirmed.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Prison service embarks on \u20ac400m building project to ease overcrowdingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The jury delivered a verdict of death by misadventure.<\/p>\n

Mr Watson was sent to Cloverhill on April 7th, 2021, and was facing a charge of stealing a phone. He was due to be released the following month.<\/p>\n

Laura Watson said her son\u2019s death was \u201cdevastating\u201d and she hopes no other family will ever \u201cgo through the same grief\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"StephenStephen Watson, who died in Cloverhill Prison, with his mother Laura shortly before his death. Photograph: Colin Keegan\/Collins, Dublin <\/p>\n

Ms Watson said it was unfortunate the results of the analysis of the tablets were not available as that would have \u201canswered a lot of questions\u201d.<\/p>\n

The inquest heard that, in the days leading up to his death, Mr Watson was observed on a number of occasions trying to retrieve contraband from the netting that covers the prison\u2019s exercise yard.<\/p>\n

Prison officer Derek Donnelly said, on April 26th, Mr Watson admitted he had concealed drugs and a phone. Mr Watson handed over a bag of cannabis. He was then searched by officers and set off a metal detector.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dublin man died from face, neck and head injuries after prison assault, inquest toldOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Watson went into a toilet with the intention of removing the mobile phone from his body. Officer Donnelly said he heard what sounded like something metal being flushed down the toilet.<\/p>\n

Mr Watson seemed \u201cfine\u201d and was \u201cco-operative\u201d, Mr Donnelly said. Officers took him \u201cat his word\u201d that all the contraband was gone. <\/p>\n

Mr Watson was then placed in the close supervision cell so he could be monitored.<\/p>\n

Assistant chief officer Shaun Gallery told the inquest \u201csomeone was making\u201d Mr Watson get the contraband and, if he went back to the general prison population without it, it could be \u201cvery dangerous\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Gallery said Mr Watson became \u201cemotional\u201d when he told him he was \u201cunder pressure\u201d to get the contraband.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted to tell me more, but he couldn\u2019t,\u201d Mr Gallery said. \u201cHe said: \u2018This is not going to happen again.\u2019 He said, \u2018I\u2019ll talk to you tomorrow about it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A report published by the Office of the Inspector of Prisons in 2024 into Mr Watson\u2019s death found he may have been intimidated by two \u201chigh-profile\u201d prisoners<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"StephenStephen Ryan Watson, from Blanchardstown, who was found dead in his cell in Cloverhill Prison. Photograph: Facebook <\/p>\n

Governor of Cloverhill, Kevin O\u2019Connell, said a number of changes had been introduced at the prison since Mr Watson\u2019s death. <\/p>\n

More robust netting is being installed in the exercise yard to prevent contraband from being thrown in. The prison also plans to install technology in the close supervision cells so prisoners can be better monitored. <\/p>\n

Since January 2025, Governor O\u2019Connell said, it has been national policy that a healthcare assessment is conducted on any prisoner suspected of ingesting drugs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young man who died in Cloverhill Prison after concealing tablets inside his body came \u201cunder pressure\u201d from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,52,18,13,14,6,19,17,39379,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-54101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-dublin","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-irish-prison-service","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}