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Accused embarrassed by newspaper article

Remand unit needs more staff, better suicide screening, inquest finds

KIRSTEN MURPHY

Samaul Aitaok, 37, hanged himself in a prison shower stall, distraught over a newspaper article about his arrest, prison psychologist Dr. Wayne Podmoroff said during a coroner's inquest in Iqaluit this week.

Aitaok faced numerous sex-related charges for offences alleged to have occurred in Cambridge Bay, when he hanged himself with a bed sheet between 2:15 p.m. and 2:50 p.m. on Sept. 12, 2002, at the Baffin Correctional Centre.

"The most vivid concern was that on Tuesday [Aitaok] received Monday's paper that had an article about him," Podmoroff said at the inquest, held May 13 and 14.

Aitaok was embarrassed by the story, which ran News North on Sept. 9, 2002, a BCC staff member said.

However, the six-person jury said the department of justice, not journalists, are responsible for an inmates' well-being.

"We recognize the right of the media to report upcoming court activities. It has been implied, however, that this coverage may have contributed to Mr. Aitaok's decision to commit suicide and we note that it does not appear that this stressor was noted by BCC staff. We recommend that BCC and the department of justice … institute a procedure to cope with media coverage and its possible stressful effects on inmates," the jury's recommendations say.

The jury suggested BCC add additional staff and surveillance cameras to the 18-bed remand unit, review existing suicide screening assessments, expand counselling services with elders and make shower heads suicide-proof.

To protect an inmate's privacy, there are no surveillance cameras in bathrooms and showers - which is why his suicide was not caught on camera or caught sooner.

He was left alone while his cellmates were out on a smoke break.

The last person to see Aitaok alive was guard Gina Dorey who saw him lying on a bottom bunk bed at 2:15 p.m.

A cellmate found Aitaok collapsed in the stall just before 3 p.m.

He was pronounced dead at Baffin Regional Hospital an hour later. The official cause of death was asphyxiation.

The conditions at BCC often lead inmates to feel stressed and anxious, Podmoroff told jurors.

"[The remand unit] is a constricted, confined space without privacy.... They're told when the can eat and sleep, they may be forced to be with people they don't like, they may be victimized by other inmates and they don't have access to a whole range of programs."

The inquest ended the day the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention conference got under way.

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