Melrose Prison: Was inmate Andy Selmour left for dead in the infirmary?

Melrose Prison: Was inmate Andy Selmour left for dead in the infirmary?
Defi Quotidien
Monday 15/12/2025 - 12:02

Medical care at the center of the investigation
Following the death of Andy Selmour in prison, investigators are questioning the possible failure of emergency care at the Melrose prison infirmary. Surveillance footage, interviews with medical staff, and a Board of Inquiry will need to shed light on the hours leading up to his death.
Could Andy Selmour have been saved if the medical services at the Melrose prison Medical Ward had provided emergency medical care? In addition to the violent assault he suffered, investigators from the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) of Flacq, along with a Board of Inquiry led by former judge Paul Lam Shang Leen, will need to clarify several uncertainties surrounding the prisoner's fate before his death.
The police, conducting this investigation about which Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam has expressed outrage, have already requisitioned the surveillance footage covering the last hours of Andy Selmour. These images are currently being analyzed by experts from the Information Technology (IT) Unit of the Central Criminal Investigation Department.
While some of Andy Selmour's fellow inmates, suspected of participating in the fatal assault, have already been transferred to the Beau-Bassin and Grande Rivière Nord-Ouest prisons, staff assigned to the Medical Ward of the prison will also need to be questioned regarding the care provided—or not provided—to Andy Selmour.
On Tuesday, December 9, at 4:20 PM, Andy Selmour is brought back to the Medical Ward by fellow inmates after his health deteriorated following an assault. Suffering, convulsing, and agitated, he is placed in a cell within the infirmary and laid on a mattress. A nurse on duty informs the prison doctor, who is not present. The doctor orders that the prisoner be taken to the hospital. However, the prison administration decides that the inmate should receive treatment within the prison itself.
Medical care under scrutiny
At this point, Andy Selmour is in a concerning health condition. Surveillance footage will need to be analyzed to determine what care was provided by the nurse on duty in the Medical Ward, or if the prisoner remained unattended. According to data requisitioned by the police, shortly after 5 PM, this nurse was seen leaving Melrose prison at the end of his shift.
The CID of Flacq will seek to verify his service hours at the prison, especially since his replacement started duty at 5:50 PM that day. Meanwhile, Andy Selmour remains in a cell in the Medical Ward until he is examined by the night nurse, who finds the prisoner in a comatose state, unresponsive, and not moving. The investigation will also need to determine what care the night nurse provided to the victim after taking over the shift.
Shortly thereafter, Andy Selmour's death is confirmed, and an alert is issued for the ambulance to intervene on site. Around 8 PM, an alert is raised regarding this death occurring in custody, and the central barracks are informed. At 8:25 PM, an ambulance doctor officially confirms Andy Selmour's death. Police from Montagne-Blanche, as well as those from the CID of Flacq, are dispatched to the Eastern High Security Prison at Melrose.
Andy Selmour's body is transferred to the morgue where, on Friday, an autopsy attributes his death to a "skull fracture with intracranial hemorrhage." The police favor the theory of an assault after surveillance footage showed an inmate striking the victim, particularly to the head with a piece of wood.
Dev Jokhoo: "There are nurses and doctors in prison at all times"
Dev Jokhoo, the prison commissioner, stated that that evening, around 8 PM, he informed the police commissioner about this case of death in custody.
"At 8 PM, I spoke with the police commissioner. I told him to send the police immediately for the investigation." Rejecting any claims of denial of access to care, he maintains that the prison has health services available at all times. "There are nurses and doctors in the prison at all times. They came to the Medical Unit. They said he fell. He received assistance, he received treatment. There is a police investigation ongoing. The prison is cooperating. We've shown the video footages," insisted the prison's strongman, Dev Jokhoo.