A cancer-stricken prisoner jailed as part of a major gang bust was denied compassionate leave days before his death on the hospital wing of HMP Liverpool.
Kevin Morgan, 61, died on January 31 this year after battling oesophageal cancer for around two years. He had been serving a 15-and-a-half year sentence for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs, conspiracy to transfer handguns and conspiracy to transfer ammunition, handed down after a trial in October, 2019.
Morgan had been arrested and remanded into custody in 2018 as part of Operation Bombay, a major Merseyside Police covert investigation into two sprawling organised crime groups, one headed by Wirral "bomb-maker" and "gangland armourer" Christopher Wallace and the other by Speke based brothers Callum and Jake Burrows.
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Morgan, a private hire cab driver, and his then partner Joanne Ritchie, both of Wavertree, were identified as making multiple trips to deliver drugs for Wallace, using the taxi as cover. Ritchie, then 47, was jailed for nine years.
In 2020, two years since he was first remanded into custody, Morgan's health began to deteriorate.
According to a Fatal Incident Report, conducted by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) after the deaths of prisoners, Morgan had seen a GP on May 29, 2020, complaining of difficulty swallowing. By the end of that year, doctors had confirmed that he had oesophageal cancer, and that the outcome looked bleak.
In March, 2021, he was told his cancer was terminal and he was given a prognosis of between six months and a year, although he was offered further rounds of chemotherapy. He made an application for compassionate leave to the Secretary of State for Justice on two occasions, in July 2022, and January this year.
He was transferred to open prison HMP Thorn Cross in Warrington in February 2022, so he could more easily attend appointments, but his cancer had spread and he was treated on a palliative care pathway.
PPO investigator Adrian Usher wrote: "On 20 January, the consultant medical oncologist telephoned the healthcare team at Thorn Cross and told them that the cancer was progressing and that treatment options were running out. He said that Mr Morgan’s prognosis could be very short, probably weeks to months.
"In January 2023, the Secretary of State rejected another application for Mr Morgan to be released on compassionate grounds."
On January 25, staff at Thorn Cross concluded they did not have sufficient healthcare cover to safely treat Morgan and had hoped to move him to a hospice in Warrington, only to find a bed was not available.
Instead, Morgan was moved back to HMP Liverpool's 24-hour healthcare wing, and a palliative care plan was drawn up. He died in his cell in the early hours of January 31.
Mr Usher wrote: "The clinical reviewer concluded that the clinical care that Mr Morgan received a Thorn Cross and Liverpool was predominantly equivalent to that which he could have expected to receive in the community."