Luke Ashcroft should have been checked on five times an hour at HMP Lincoln, a recently published report has said
HMP Lincoln on Greetwell Road(Image: Jack Flintham/Lincolnshire Echo)
A critical report has been released into the death of a prisoner suffering from a severe mental health episode. Luke Ashcroft, who was jailed in 2018 following a spate of burglaries in Hull, had schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
He told healthcare staff at HMP Lincoln there “were spiders in his body, and he was ready to kill himself” and was put on suicide and self-harm procedures. His cell should have been checked five times an hour, but a prison officer on duty overnight lied about how often he made checks.
Mr Ashcroft was found unresponsive in his cell on the morning of June 24, 2020, and died in hospital seven days later. A jury inquest held from March 2 to 17, 2026, found Mr Ashcroft did not intend to take his life and died by misadventure.
A recently published report by the Prison and Probation Ombudsman said it was “very concerned” that Mr Ashcroft “was not observed at all for the 18 minutes before he was found unresponsive”.
The day before, June 23, Mr Ashcroft had spat out water from a cup he was drinking from because he “thought spiders’ webs had fallen into the cup”. He was visited by a nurse and consultant psychiatrist at midday, the report said.
It said: “Mr Ashcroft offered to show the doctor and nurse the spiders but when the consultant psychiatrist said he could not see anything, Mr Ashcroft became very agitated and started to shout loudly. He became more hostile, and the interview was suspended and continued through the observation panel with the cell door closed.
“The consultant psychiatrist assessed that Mr Ashcroft knew he was in prison, but he appeared to be paranoid and revealed persecutory delusions and delusional misinterpretation.
“He recorded that Mr Ashcroft was ‘vividly hallucinating’, his concentration was poor and his insight very poor. He concluded that Mr Ashcroft was experiencing an acute psychotic episode with a diagnosis of delusional parasitosis (a rare mental health condition in which a person has an unshakable, false belief that they are infested with insects) which required further assessment and treatment in a secure psychiatric hospital.”
The prison officer who failed to check up on Mr Ashcroft on June 24 made false log entries to cover it up. A second prison officer who checked the cell at 6.54am described it as “trashed” and found Mr Ashcroft on the floor, which confused him as, according to the falsified records, he “had been fine only minutes earlier”.
CCTV showed the first prison officer had not made the majority of the checks he had logged in the record. He was subsequently convicted of misconduct in a public office.
The Ombudsman questioned whether it was appropriate for Mr Ashcroft to have been in the segregation unit when a nurse had circled both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ to the segregation screening question, ‘Does the prisoner show signs of being acutely unwell?’
However, the clinical reviewer found the standard of healthcare Mr Ashcroft received was equal to what he could have expected to receive in the community. The Ombudsman made recommendations to the Governor and Head of Healthcare to query the Initial Segregation Health Screen “if it appears incorrect or incomplete”.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: “Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of Luke Ashcroft and HMP Lincoln has accepted the Prison and Probation Ombudsman’s recommendations.
“We have already made changes to better support prisoners at risk of self-harm or suicide, including improving training for all staff and introducing additional assurance checks to ensure vulnerable prisoners are supported.”
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