A PRISONER died of a heart attack after life-saving defibrillators were locked in a cupboard at night, a sheriff has ruled.

Derek Adam, 44, died in September 2013 after collapsing in his cell at HMP Glenochil.

The convicted sex offender was serving a nine-year sentence after admitting abusing three young girls.

A fatal accident inquiry at Alloa Sheriff Court heard there were no automated external defibrillators (AEDs) available to prison officers on the night Adam fell ill and staff did not know how to use them in any case.

The court heard the defibrillators, which deliver a high energy shock to the heart, were locked up in the nurses’ office overnight and could not be accessed by night staff.

In a written determination, Sheriff Simon Collins QC criticised the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) for failings over the death and said the “idiot-proof” devices could have saved the inmate’s life.

Sheriff Collins said: “Had the prison officers been able to defibrillate Mr Adam at around 1.55am I am satisfied that there is a serious possibility that his death might have been avoided.

“I cannot avoid recognising the grim absurdity of locating a defibrillator in the prison, but then locking it in a cupboard at night.

“Such a practice encourages the cynic to ask, rhetorically, whether it was decided that prisoners should only have heart attacks during the day?

“If criticism is due, it is not of the prison officers but of the training – or lack of it – which SPS had given them.”

He added: “As for provision of AEDs, I am satisfied on the evidence that these are mass produced and relatively cheap items, now found in many public places and employment premises.

“I am satisfied that they could reasonably be placed in prisons at such locations and in such numbers that with reasonable haste one could be retrieved and brought to any prisoner’s cell within around five minutes of becoming aware of the need to use it.”

Prison officers performed CPR on Adam but he could not be revived. Paramedics arrived and he was pronounced dead on arrival at Forth Valley Royal Hospital.

The sheriff also criticised the SPS policy, introduced in 2011, to not have medical staff on site at prisons during the night.

The court heard that since Adam’s death, prison officers were now given training in the use of defibrillators which had been installed at jails.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Prison Service said: “The SPS conduct a review of all deaths in custody to ensure that any lessons are learned promptly and any actions that require to be taken are taken .

“We would again wish to express our condolences to the family.”