PRISONERS in the holding cells at Sutherland Local Court are among those in NSW court complexes and elsewhere who will reap the benefits of recommendations which followed the inquest into the death of a prisoner and former Peakhurst man.
One of the recommendations already implemented at the local court is the provision of bottled water for inmates travelling in prison vans for journeys of more than two hours.
A former roof tiler, Mark Stephen Holcroft, 59, was a low-security inmate serving a seven-month jail term for drink-driving who died from a heart attack in a prison van two years ago.
Mr Holcroft was being transported from Bathurst jail to a low-security prison farm at Tumbarumba.
Other inmates in the van had tried unsuccessfully to raise the alarm when Mr Holcroft became ill during the trip, and he was found dead on arrival.
The inquest resulted in Deputy State Coroner Paul MacMahon recommending measures which NSW Attorney-General and Justice Minister Greg Smith SC has now personally assured the Holcroft family are being implemented.
Mr Holcroft grew up in the St George area and two of the surviving family members, Christopher Holcroft and Liane Curry, still live there.
They and a third sibling, Nerida Pride, recently met Mr Smith, after which the attorney-general sent them a letter saying that his department had received a response from Corrective Services Commissioner Ron Woodham outlining the changes that were being made.
The measures mean that prisoners travelling for two or more hours now get a minimum 600 millilitre bottle of water, plus food.
Additionally, inmate transport vehicles will get intercom devices by the end of the year.
Corrective Services NSW's professional standards committee will consider disciplinary action against the officers involved in Mr Holcroft's transport.
A Corrective Services spokesman said Commissioner Woodham had confirmed that a review was being undertaken of two corrections officers.
The intercoms to be installed in all Corrective Services vans before the end of the year would cost about $600,000.
Christopher Holcroft said he hoped that the changes would now make a difference to inmates in the future, and to how society treated them.
His family was also pursuing another issue.
"[We were] not notified for five days after my brother died," he said.
"We are pursuing a separate inquiry with the ombudsman as to why it took so long."
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