‘The system could have helped him’

Carbonear woman pushing for changes to province’s correctional system following her brother’s death in custody

If you were to ask Courtney Pike about her brother Gregory, she’d say they had similar personalities.

She might smile and say he was funny and liked to spend time in the woods or fishing.

“(Gregory) was a good person,” Courtney said from her home in Carbonear Wednesday. Her memories have given her strength in the week since news of her Gregory’s death sent her family’s world into a tailspin.

A phone call from Her Majesty’s Penitentiary on Sept. 16 informed them Gregory had attempted suicide and had been found unresponsive in his cell sometime in the early morning hours. He was rushed to the Health Sciences Centre where, after spending the next three days in a coma, he died Sunday.

Courtney spent those three days at her brother’s bedside; she watched doctors finally remove his breathing tube.

Days prior to his death, Gregory had been in a Harbour Grace courtroom for a bail hearing. He had pleaded for bail in hopes of getting some help for long-term mental health and addictions issues, Courtney says, but his bail was denied.

“I will never get over this and I will never understand,” said Courtney of her brother’s death.

Courtney hopes to turn her family’s tragedy into something at least a little positive.

She wants to shed light on what she says are massive gaps in a justice system that fails to help inmates struggling with addictions and mental health issues.

“I hope it saves someone else,” she explained.

Gregory’s criminal history is well-documented, starting in his early 20s and continuing until his death. Courtney says her brother’s mental health issues were also longstanding, and he often had thoughts of harming himself. Sometimes he’d ask for help in jail and would be moved into segregation.

Other times he was taken off his medication, which Courtney says made things worse and saw Gregory frequently calling family members from prison for help.

During the periods when he was not in custody, Gregory attempted to seek counseling but never got anywhere, Courtney said, describing how she had driven him to the Waterford Hospital in St. John’s only for him to be turned away. Gregory had recently been accepted into a rehab facility and had been hoping it would be his chance to turn his life around, she said.

He was also in the process of removing his notorious facial tattoos, acquired almost a decade ago and long regretted.

Feeling neglected in prison when it came to his worsening mental health, Gregory wrote letters describing his struggles and calling for change. Courtney said his plan was to send them to local media outlets.

Given his issues were ones inmates at HMP have been publicly expressing for years, she feels Gregory’s death was preventable.

“The system could have helped him. That could have saved my brother,” Courtney said.

Gregory is at least the seventh person to die in custody in this province since 2017. The deaths of Skye Martin and Samantha Piercey at the women’s correctional facility in Clarenville and the deaths of Douglas Neary and Christopher Sutton at HMP led to the provincial government commissioning an independent review of inmate deaths in local prisons. Conducted and written by retired Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Supt. Marlene Jesso, “Newfoundland and Labrador Corrections and Community Services: Deaths in Custody Review” was released in February 2019, highlighting new — and repeating some longstanding — issues within the province’s prison facilities.

Jesso made 17 recommendations to improve the services for adults in custody, including the inclusion of a mental health unit with specially trained staff, hourly population checks, and the development of alternative options to incarceration, like electronic monitoring and community-based supervised housing. She also endorsed the long-awaited replacement of HMP.

Jesso said the current system was unable to address mental health and addictions issues and described it as being at “a breaking point.”

Since the report was released, Gregory and two others have died suddenly in custody in St. John’s. A 48-year-old man was found dead at the city lockup last February, while 33-year-old Jonathan Henoche died at HMP in Nov. 2019. Nine correctional officers are charged in relation with Henoche’s death.

A spokeswoman for the province’s Department of Justice and Public Safety responded to a request for comment on Pike’s death from Saltwire Network Monday with a written statement; it was identical to a statement issued after the death at the lockup earlier this year.

“A thorough review will examine all the circumstances surrounding the death, including staff response and the appropriateness of related policies and procedures,” the spokeswoman wrote. She declined to respond to reports of Pike having been on suicide watch at the time he was found unresponsive.

She said the department is in the process of implementing Jesso’s recommendations.

“Over half the recommendations from (Jesso’s report) are either complete or in progress,” the spokeswoman wrote, but did not give specifics. “We have and will continue to review policies and procedures in adult corrections to ensure we meet best practices from across the country. Ensuring we have a safe and healthy living and work environment in our correctional facilities is a top priority.”

Opposition leader David Brazil wants more information when it comes to Pike’s death and says the people of the province deserve it.

“Clearly there has been a failure in our prison system and the public deserves to understand what happened to ensure it cannot happen again,” he wrote to Saltwire Network in an email. “The (Justice and Public Safety) minister needs to implement the recommendations of the report with speed — the difficulties in our prison system are well-known and need action now, not another report.”

In one of his final letters, Gregory wrote that he hoped others wouldn’t fall through the same cracks he did. He hoped for more help for inmates struggling with mental health and addictions and now, four days after his death, his sister has picked up that fight, wanting to instill change in a system she believes failed him.

“I know Gregory would be proud of me,” Courtney said.