A PRISONER who died of meningitis at Elmley Prison at Eastchurch may have failed to seek medical help for his headache because he thought it was a symptom of withdrawal from heroin. Drug user Wayne Colvill, 23, was on remand awaiting sentence when he died on May 17.

He had suffered an ear infection which spread to the brain, causing meningitis. This rarely happens, an inquest into his death was told. Colvill had been given strong antibiotics to treat infection in the outer ear. He complained of a headache to other inmates two or three days before he died. The coroner, Roger Sykes, said Colvill may not have reported this to medical staff as he may have thought it was a symptom of withdrawal from heroin, for which he was also being treated.

A jury returned a verdict of death by natural causes. Colvill was found in his cell "in a bad way" by another prisoner, Stephen Potter. By the time medical staff arrived, the meningitis would have been too far advanced for Colvill to recover. He was pronounced dead at Medway Maritime Hospital.

Colvill's mother, Vivian Cook, who lives in Chatham, said: "I hadn't heard from him for ages. He had been living rough. I didn't even know he was in prison."