Daily Mail
October 21, 2014
A prison has been criticised for taking 50 minutes to call in medics after two inmates strangled a child killer with a pair of jogging bottoms in his cell.
An official report into the murder of Subhan Anwar at Worcestershire’s Long Lartin Prison found the authorities took 50 minutes to call in paramedics who then took a further 30 minutes to reach the prison’s rural location.
The report also revealed the two killers, Gary Smith, 49, and Lee Newell, 45, had both taken hostages during earlier, but separate, prison sieges in 2007 and 2011.
Smith and Newell, who were already serving life sentences for murders committed in the 1980s and 1990s, blamed each other for the death of Anwar.
The pair had only moved on to the vulnerable prisoner wing because they owed prison drug debts.
The convicted murderers tied up and strangled Anwar with a pair of jogging bottoms in his cell in a vulnerable prisoner wing on Valentine’s Day last year.
After Anwar was strangled, Smith calmly made Newell a cup of hot chocolate – even sweetening it with icing sugar – during a stand-off with prison staff.
Prison staff were initially told Anwar had been taken hostage because the two inmates were ‘bored’ – with Newell telling a warder: ‘He’s gone, he’s with Allah.’
Both defendants opted not to give evidence at the trial, but CCTV and DNA evidence proved they were involved in the killing.
A post mortem examination found Anwar’s neck had been broken.
They were found guilty of murdering the 24-year-old last September following a two-week trial at Warwick Crown Court.
Newell also confessed to stealing a watch, prayer beads and a metal earring belonging to Anwar, while Smith admitted the theft of property from the child-killer’s cell.