Mother demands closure of Pentonville after son dies in custody

Gareth Chumber-Kelly died four days after entering HMP Pentonville, and a jury found that staff failed to recognise the suicide risk that had already been identified outside prison. His mother, Saroj Chumber, is now demanding the jail be closed.

Chumber-Kelly was taken into custody on Thursday 13 July 2023 and pronounced dead at University College Hospital on 17 July 2023. His family said he had come for dinner on Wednesday, was arrested on Thursday, taken to Pentonville on Friday and died on Monday. Saroj Chumber said he was her only son and the father of three children.

A 10-day inquest that concluded on 30 January 2026 found that the risk to his life was not properly engaged with inside the prison. The jury found his medical history and immediate circumstances posed a clear risk, that the danger had been clearly identified outside prison, and that appropriate steps were not taken to prevent his death. The failures identified included an inadequate review of medical records, poor transfer of information during handover, no meaningful mental health support, no timely welfare call, insufficient ligature checks in his cell, low staffing, lockdown during crucial hours, weak staff training and inadequate cover during breaks.

A Prevention of Future Deaths report dated 9 February 2026, sent to the governor of HMP Pentonville, Serco, the Ministry of Justice, HMPPS and the minister responsible for prisons, identified the prison’s failure to recognise the danger to Gareth and the lack of timely mental health care or basic frontline checks.

The prison first received prisoners in 1842 and was designed for 520 single-cell prisoners, yet it held more than 1,100 remand and convicted men in 2023. HM Inspectorate of Prisons counted seven self-inflicted deaths there since 2019. In July 2025, the watchdog issued an Urgent Notification after finding that three suicides had already occurred that year, 44% of prisoners surveyed felt unsafe, and people were often locked in their cells for more than 22 hours a day. The 2025 inspection recorded 1,189 men at the prison and found overcrowded cells, crumbling infrastructure and a fast-changing population.

INQUEST counted 10 people who had died at Pentonville since Chumber-Kelly’s death, at least five of them self-inflicted; its later counts put the total at 12 deaths, with at least five self-inflicted. Chumber said the prison handed her son a death sentence without a conviction.