Drug failure after the death of the Bridgend inmate unveiled

A report on the death of a man at HMP Parc has serious concerns about how easily caught drugs could get.

After Lewis Petryszyn, 25 in his cell was found dead in his system in April 2022 with illegal drugs and not described in his system.

The staff had suspected that he sold drugs, and shortly before he was found dead, the paperwork was torn under his door with disciplinary listings.

The report of the ombudsman of the prison states that if the documents had been delivered personally, there might have given the opportunity to give Mr Petryszyn medical help.

The prison's drug plan must be updated, which has been checked for Parc since then.

The report takes place after an unannounced inspection of HMP Parc in Bridgend in January showed that it was a alarming drug problem that was associated with an increase in deaths after 17 inmates died in 2024.

Of the deaths that prison operates, eight inmates had died out of natural causes and five were associated with drugs.

Despite the claims of the prison to make “significant improvements”, 900 times were found this year.

While the formal cause of the death of Mr. Petryszyn was not confirmed, tests showed that he had “spice” in his system – a laboratory medication that is imitating the effects of cannabis and illegal.

The prison staff had collected intelligence, which indicated that he sold psychoactive drugs to other inmates, and a “debt list”, from which they were found in his cell.

Mr. Petryszyn was moved to another unit a week later because he threatened concerns for others, and confirmed a drug test the day before his death that he had psychoactive substances in his system.

The Ombudsman's report showed that disciplinary hearing work under Mr. Petryszyn's cell door was opened about 45 minutes before his dead.

This, said the Ombudsman, “meant that the employees missed a possible opportunity to offer Mr. Petryszyn a medical emergency supply in the past”.

Kimberley Bingham, the reigning prisons and the ombudsman of probation, said that there was intelligence that Mr. Petryszyn delivered psychoactive substances in prison, but there was “little evidence” to point out that he was using them himself.

She added: “Although we are convinced that the prison staff submitted adequate intelligence reports and caused it as a drug test by carrying out cell searches and the registration of Mr. Petryszyn, we are concerned about the availability of PS (psychoactive substances) at Parc.”

However, Mr. Petryszyn tested positively for a blank medication, Olanzapin, which he must have “received illegally”.

Ms. Bingham added that the report spoke in terms of drug access in the Parc prison and called for an updated strategy to address both illegal and abusive prescribed drugs.

She also said that the prison should have created a formal plan to fix all of the inmates, and added that the employees might have had the chance to save his life if the appropriate procedures had been followed in the provision of his discipline documents.

“The official who set the paperwork of the disciplinary hearing under Mr. Petryszyn's cell door would have handed it over personally.

“If he had done that, he might have noticed that Mr. Petryszyn needed medical help,” added Ms. Bingham.

In a campaign plan published together with the report, the Parc Prison said that it has since checked its drug strategy to try to reduce drug availability in prison.

It also said that the employees made more training to monitor the use of medication.