Alpha Kalay died in January 2021, after contracting Covid-19, while serving a sentence at HMP Hull in East Yorkshire for an altercation with a teenager
The daughter of a former firefighter and Royal Navy officer has received a five-figure settlement after a High Court legal claim over her father’s death in prison.
Melanie Kalay sued the the Ministry of Justice and the City Health Care Partnership, which provides health and care services, over the death of her father, Alpha Kalay.
Kalay died in January 2021, aged 74, after contracting Covid-19 while serving a sentence at HMP Hull in East Yorkshire.
Law firm Hodge Jones and Allen, which represented Kalay’s daughter, said prison staff were aware that he was at higher risk from the virus.
He contracted the virus on January 8, but when prison officers found his cell, bedding and clothes soiled, he was assumed to be staging a “dirty protest”.
Kalay faced disciplinary proceedings for the assumed protest, which placed him in a segregation unit. As a result, several opportunities to care for him missed.
He was put in a wellbeing unit before being taken to Hull Royal Infirmary, where he was diagnosed with type one respiratory failure and a stage three acute kidney injury. He died five days later.
The law firm said a coroner found staff had repeatedly failed to correctly assess Kalay, who was discovered “dehydrated, cold, confused, and unable to communicate while dressed in soiled clothes”.
Speaking after settling the legal claim, Kalay’s daughter said her father had “suffered an inhumane, degrading and undignified death after staff failed to help him.”
“It breaks my heart that his final days were spent like this, alone and subjected to multiple humiliations,” she said.
Kalay was jailed for four-and-a-half years following an altercation with a teenager, the law firm said. His sentence was nearly completed at the time of his death.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: “Our thoughts remain with Mr Kalay’s family and we are sorry that he did not receive adequate support in his final days. As the public will appreciate, the pandemic was an unprecedented challenge for prison staff trying to keep prisoners and their colleagues safe.”
A spokesperson for CHCP said they were deeply saddened to hear of the death of Kalay.