Fentanyl often smuggled into treatment centre in mail, inquest hears

Dealing with contraband at the local jail is a "cat and mouse game," jurors at the coroner's inquest into the death of an inmate at the Algoma Treatment and Remand Centre were told Tuesday.

Officials at the facility were on the witness stand to answer questions surrounding the death of Trevor Seaton, who was found unresponsive in his cell in the early morning hours of May 22, 2014.

The 28-year-old man was discovered by his cell mate and younger brother Caleb Seaton, who awoke after the pair had been doing drugs, to find his sibling supine on a mattress on the floor and not breathing.

On Monday, the jury of four men and one woman heard packages of drugs had been located secreted in Trevor Seaton's body during an autopsy at the Sault Area Hospital.

Caleb Seaton told police investigators the two men had used oxies and fentanyl earlier that night.

Kyle Notte, security manager at ATRC, testified Tuesday that cells in the remand portion of the facility, where the Seatons were housed, are inspected daily and inmates routinely strip searched every two weeks.

He admitted to Mary Pascuzzi, co-counsel to coroner Dr. David Cameron, that corrections officers rarely find anything, because inmates conceal contraband in their bodies, remove it and smoke it.

The officers aren't permitted to do cavity searches and can only do visual searches.

Weeks go by where nothing is located, and then they go through spurts, he said.

Calling it a "cat and mouse game," he said "our best defence is to search cells and offenders.

Deputy superintendent of operations, Darlene Leblanc echoed his description of the contraband situation at Great Northern Road facility.

"If we stay consistent with searches it is ultimately a cat and mouse game," she said. "Our job is to stop things coming in," she said, adding there are things, such as cavity searches, which they can't do.

"If people want to bring something in, they will learn a way to do it."

Leblanc was one of the corrections officers, who responded to a medical alert in the upper tier of the west wing of the remand centre at 2:10 a.m. on the night Seaton died.

She said that when she got to the cell there was another officer already there. Caleb was standing at the window and his brother, clad only in a pair of shorts, wasn't breathing.

His face was a bluish purple colour, the rest of his body was pale and there was vomit near his left side.

Leblanc said Seaton had no pulse or vital signs, and she and another officer, Jason Bruzas, alternated doing chest compressions until an automatic defib machine was brought in at 2:11 a.m. and 911 was called.

They were still doing compressions when the paramedics arrived and took over, Leblanc said.

Trevor Seaton is pictured in this family photo.

She told coroner co-counsel Daniel Mitchell she felt staff, who responded to the incident, had done "everything in our power" to assist Seaton.

Asked if she had any suggestions or recommendations, she said "unfortunately we have no control over contraband" because "people make a conscious choice about bringing" it in.

ATRC superintendent Annetta Golder told jurors Trevor Seaton had been in custody in the remand centre since February when he was charged with attempted murder.

The charge was later upgraded to second-degree murder, and he faced a lengthy time in custody as he awaited a preliminary hearing and subsequent trial before a judge and jury.

Contraband, such as drugs, is in greater demand in the remand section of the facility and these areas undergo intermittent and random searches, she said.

Golder, who has been working in corrections since 1990, said fentanyl, which is clear, often is smuggled into the institution through the mail, hidden in cards and letters.

Envelopes are checked and stamps are removed because something that could be licked may be on them, she said.

Letters could be saturated with something so staff "have to be cautious when opening mail."

Golder said the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services has been placing full body scanners in its institutions and ATRC is expected to get one during the 2017-18 fiscal year.

The scanners, which can tell if items have been secreted on the body, won't address 100 per cent of contraband, because there will always be individuals with ingenuity who will try to bring things in, she said.

Jurors heard new admissions to the jail undergo a comprehensive health assessment by nursing staff and if they indicate they are addicted to opiates they are monitored for withdrawal.

Seaton, who was a re-admission because he had been there within six months, identified that he used cocaine, but denied using opiates, health care manager Leslie Wight said.

An antidote for an opiate overdose is available in emergency kits at the centre, but it must be administered by a needle, and can only be done by nurses.

There is no nursing staff working at the facility between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Wight agreed with Dr. Cameron that the antidote reverses the effect of the opiate, but isn't a treatment and the person still needs access to emergency care.

The inquest continues at the Delta Hotel.