Family's 40-Year Fight for Justice Over Teenager's Death
The death of an 18-year-old at the notorious Medomsley Detention Centre should be treated as a murder investigation, his family has declared. David Victor Caldwell was serving a three-month sentence for minor theft offences when he died less than four weeks after arriving at the facility in late 1981.
A Rapid and Suspicious Decline
David Caldwell arrived at Medomsley on December 15, 1981, where an initial medical examination noted 'no signs of any infection or injury'. The following day, a doctor recorded his asthma but deemed him fit for physical education. By Boxing Day, he was unwell and requested a new asthma inhaler, which was provided.
The situation dramatically deteriorated. Three days later, during a visit from his sister Carole Kyle, she observed bruising to his face and a swollen hand. David confided that bruising on his legs was caused by 'the screws' – prison officers – who he said hit him for not addressing them as 'Sir'.
He begged his sister not to report the abuse, revealing the officers had threatened to 'kill him' if she did.
Freezing Conditions and Fatal Collapse
David's siblings are convinced he was systematically beaten in the days preceding his death and deliberately forced to work in freezing outdoor conditions, despite staff being fully aware of his severe asthma.
He suffered an acute asthma attack and was seen gasping for breath in the centre's hospital wing. Rushed to Shotley Bridge Hospital, he was declared dead on January 11, 1982 – less than a month after his detention began.
An inquest concluded he died from natural causes due to respiratory failure from an asthma attack. However, Peter Toole, another survivor of physical abuse at Medomsley, confirms there were witnesses who saw Caldwell being beaten shortly before his death.
'His body was covered in bruises and his sister saw that. He had been battered', Mr Toole stated, adding that relevant witness records were later lost or destroyed.
Official Report Highlights Systemic Failures
A recent official report by Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Adrian Usher, published last week, identified a 'lack of response by the Prison Service and Home Office' into the deaths of both David Caldwell and Ian Angus Shackelton, another 18-year-old who died at Medomsley just four days after his arrival in September 1981 from untreated diabetes.
The report concluded that both young men had 'treatable conditions' and that 'their deaths were avoidable', citing 'inadequate medical provision' at the centre. It stated they should have been admitted to hospital much sooner.
The same report detailed the horrific abuse scandal at Medomsley, naming cook Neville Husband as 'possibly the most prolific sex offender in British history', though there is no suggestion David was one of his victims. Mr Usher found successive wardens were either 'complicit or incompetent' in allowing the abuse of vulnerable detainees.
David's sister Sylvia, 58, from Leeds, West Yorkshire, insists their mother Sylvia fought for justice until her death in 2020. 'We believe 100 percent that David was murdered in Medomsley', she stated, vowing to fulfil her mother's dying wish for a proper gravestone and long-overdue justice for David.
