Woman could not stop husband’s suicide in London prison due to broken intercom

Wormwood Scrubs, where Isaiah Adekunle Olugosi’s wife banged on the gate, called out and pressed a buzzer that was meant to connect her to an intercom. Photograph: Andy Hall/Observer

A woman who drove 60 miles to Wormwood Scrubs to prevent her husband from taking his own life in prison was unable to alert staff in time because the telephone line and the intercom were both broken, a coroner has ruled.

Isaiah Adekunle Olugosi killed himself in his cell at HMP Wormwood Scrubs in March 2022. A jury found that his death was suicide.

Olugosi’s wife spoke to her husband at about 9pm on 27 March and believed he was suicidal, according to a prevention of future deaths report by Richard Furniss, an assistant coroner for west London.

Olugosi’s wife, Cambridgeshire police and the Metropolitan police were all unable to contact the men’s prison in west London by telephone to warn them because “calls were being diverted to an unmanned or obsolete number”.