A JURY has retired to consider its verdict at an inquest into the death of a prison inmate who died in custody.

Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Binns died shortly after collapsing with stomach pains at HMP Preston in the early hours of June 3 2006.

The 31-year-old, of Cog Lane, Burnley, had suffered a perforated ulcer and peritonitis.

Summing up after seven days of evidence, Preston Coroner Dr James Adeley ordered a narrative verdict and provided the jury with a number of questions to help them reach conclusions.

Referring to evidence given over the past two weeks, Dr Adeley told the inquest Mr Binns had complained of chronic stomach pain for at least the two days leading up to his death.

He said Mr Binns had been visited by nurses and a doctor in that period. But he reminded the jury of varying accounts of the symptoms displayed by Mr Binns, the treatment he received, and communication between medical staff at the prison.

Dr Adeley told the inquest Mr Beveridge, an experienced consultant surgeon with expertise in treating perforated duodenal and gastric ulcers, said Mr Binns would have stood a 50per cent chance of survival had he been referred to hospital by Dr Jane Rees when she examined him at 5pm on June 2.

He issued each jury member with eight questions, mainly about the information passed between medical staff and how they acted on that information in the period leading up to Mr Binns’s death.

Directing the jury to start deliberations, he said: “In this type of case you have a role in identifying relevant factors that may have contributed to Nicholas Binns’s death, including, if you so find, defects in any systems or working practices.”

“The need for public scrutiny is central to the purposes of an inquest, especially those deaths that occur in custody to dispel rumour and speculation.

“I am not suggesting to you that there were any failings or that systems, individuals or groups of individuals acted inappropriately, as these matters are entirely for you to decide.”

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