The death of prisoner Baranovsky

originally published:
11th October 2009

When Aleksey Baranovsky came to England he had dreams of living well. In less than a decade those dreams turned to ash: his life became a nightmare and he bled to death, neglected and alone in a prison cell.

He arrived in 1998 from Odessa in Ukraine, on a student work-exchange programme. He had been studying to become a civil engineer and put the course on hold to learn English.

Like thousands of other young, ambitious people from the former Soviet Union, he wanted to prosper from the opportunities opening up to his generation. His death was not just a tragedy for Baranovsky who, with care, might still be alive. It is also a bitter example of flaws in Britain’s penal system generally and failings specific to the unit where he died.

The exchange programme was a sham, a front for bringing in cheap agricultural labour. It brought long hours and low pay. It also introduced the Russian mafia into his life. It was a dangerous new element which would haunt him until his death in 2006.

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Posted by Alison Leslie on 14/10/2009. Filed under Custody Deaths. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry