Steven Freeman death in custody: Inmate choked after taking methadone at Canberra's jail
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An inquest into the death in custody of Indigenous Canberra man Steven Freeman has heard he took a toxic level of methadone, which was given to him inside prison despite a lack of evidence he was addicted to opioids.
Freeman was found dead inside the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) in May of last year, by a cellmate who was unable to wake him.
He had choked to death as a result of methadone toxicity, two days after commencing methadone treatment.
The ACT Coroner's Court was told today Freeman had been a known user of cannabis and methamphetamine, but did not have a history of opioid use.
The court heard despite this, Freeman was allowed access to the AMC's methadone treatment program, having told a doctor he was an opioid user.
Giving evidence to the coronial inquiry today, Freeman's cellmate said he had warned him against using methadone, but he had persisted.
The man said Freeman was "smashed" after taking the drug, and had indicated he was using it to "do his time easy," as it acted like a sedative.
"When you are on the methadone, you are sedated, you escape reality," the cellmate said.
Counsel assisting James Lawton said it was "troubling" that despite having no evidence of a history of opioid use, Freeman had managed to gain access to the program.
Freeman previously bashed in jail
The court was also told the prison had strict guidelines around how methadone could be administered to prisoners.
However, a police investigator said CCTV footage did not show Freeman being inspected after receiving his doses to ensure he had swallowed them, as the guidelines required.
Freeman had been at the centre of inquiries into the prison while he was alive, having been bashed so severely he was put into an induced coma a year before his death.
Following his hospitalisation, members of Canberra's Indigenous community had called for him not to be returned to prison.
A government inquiry into the death, which concluded late last year, called for improved security in the AMC, and a review into how methadone use was prescribed and monitored within the prison.
The inquest is yet to hear from doctors and prison staff.
Topics: black-deaths-in-custody, prisons-and-punishment, law-crime-and-justice, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, canberra-2600, act, australia
