A PRISONER housed at the Maximum Security Prison (MSP) in Arouca was beaten to death by an inmate suffering from mental health issues.He has been identified as 48-year-old Christopher Banfield.The attack was said to have taken place inside a cell at the Remand Facility’s G&R Division building one between Monday night and yesterday morning.Unconfirmed reports claimed the incident occurred in the presence of other inmates who were allegedly too fearful to intervene.Prison officials discovered Banfield’s body during a routine change-of-shift check on inmates early yesterday. It was said to be lying in a fetal position with visible injuries and unresponsive.As part of the investigation, inmates who were housed in the cell at the time of the incident have been separated from the general prison population and placed in another area of the facility while statements and other evidence are gathered.Police and prison authorities are continuing investigations to determine the sequence of events that led to Banfield’s death.In a release yesterday, Prisons Commissioner Carlos Corraspe said the Prison Service extends condolences to the family and friends of Banfield on his passing.Corraspe said according to an interim report, officers were conducting their rounds just after 6 a.m. yesterday, when Banfield, a remand inmate, was observed to be lying motionless in his cell.“The established protocols were immediately engaged, and officers from the Medical Services responded. First-aid was rendered, and attempts were made to get a response,” he stated in the release.According to the release, the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service was informed and parallel investigations are being conducted into the incident. It said Banfield’s next of kin has been contacted by an assigned Welfare Officer, who informed them of his death.When contacted yesterday, head of the Prison Officers Association (POA) Gerard Gordon acknowledged that the institution was unable to properly classify and separate remandees as it relate to their physical condition or psychological needs.Describing the overcrowding at the prison as a major contributing factor to the problem, Gordon explained that the MSP facility was never built to hold remanded individuals.He said the facility was also lacking maintenance and had a lot of infrastructural shortcomings. “From no lighting, no ventilation, no water, faulty gates or the gates not working at all and that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to that facility,” Gordon said, emphasising that it was always a tragedy when anyone dies behind the walls of the prison.While he could not give a definitive response as to how much inmates were present in the cell on the night of the attack, he said the cells at the building the incident happened were designed to hold about three men in total.“Are three men in a cell? I would say no,” Gordon said, stressing that in some divisions there were much more than three men occupying one cell.Asked how much officers may have been on shift on that night, Gordon said while he did not know for certain, the possibility exist that it was a lone officer on duty, especially considering that it happened during the night. He pointed out that the situation at MSP was an unsafe one for prison officers, remandees and convicted persons housed there.“As long as you are dealing with the human condition, with a man, a mind, a desire, hopes, dreams, all of these things in an environment that you wouldn’t even keep your dog in, it says something about us as a society,” Gordon said.