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A former prison warder broke down as he told how he failed to stop a colleague who boasted of wanting to “terrorise” a teen inmate who went on to commit suicide.

The body of Raygen Merchant, 17, was found at Polmont Young Offenders’ Institution three to four days after the incident, a fatal accident inquiry heard yesterday.

William Main spoke of his “shame” at failing to stop what he called a “highly unprofessional in-cell interview”.

He told the inquiry he had nightmares and had ­difficulty sleeping because of his feelings of guilt.

Main said he told a colleague that he had filed an internal intelligence report warning that inmates were aware that Merchant, from Aberdeen, was facing court claims of sexual misconduct – which were denied and later dropped.

(Image: Daily Record)

He told the inquiry that the other officer, Patrice Napoli, “stated his dislike” for Merchant and said he was going to ­interview the teenager.

Main added: “He indicated he was going to go into his cell with officer Gregor Young to ‘terrorise’ him.”

Main said he was on a landing in the institution’s Blair Hall for a “considerable time” while the officers were in the cell.

He claimed that when they returned, they said they had seen “a significant level of distress where he’d had tears in his eyes”.

He added that they said they had “almost goaded him into a reaction whereby they could justify some restraint and removal to cellular confinement”.

The men, he claimed, “wanted to get a reaction from him to justify moving him to segregation cells in another unit which are used for violent prisoners or prisoners who had threatened prison officers”.

Main said he regarded the officers’ intervention as an “unprofessional ­interaction” and later claimed they had “chosen to subject the young man to a highly unprofessional in-cell interview”.

He said the incident occurred on October 13 or 14, 2014. Merchant had pled guilty a few days earlier to bursting into the home of Auriela Blacklaw, 32, in ­Aberdeen armed with a knife.

When Main began work on October 17, he was told Merchant had taken his life.

(Image: Daily Record)

Asked how he felt about it, he said: “A great deal of shame that I hadn’t stood up and said, ‘No, you’re not doing it.’ A sense of shame that I wasn’t strong enough to intervene and stop the interview.”

The inquiry heard he reported the officers’ actions some time later to his line manager, then submitted a report to the Prison Officers’ Association, and then named them in a statement to police.

Main, 47, a prison officer for 20 years before he was sacked by the prison service, said he was upset that “so little was done to preserve the dignity of the deceased”, and “horrific and callous descriptions” of what the teenager looked like after death were “bandied about”.

Weeping, he said he had suffered vivid dreams and had difficulty sleeping.

He told his lawyer, Urfan Dar, that his inability to act had left him with “feelings of guilt and shame”.

Earlier, Merchant’s allocated officer, Frank Kennedy, 63, said Merchant told him “very sternly” that he did not want to go into protection.

He said the teenager had not given any signs that he might be at risk of suicide.

After his death, a letter was found in his cell that said: “You’re a dirty predator and a junkie-looking chavvy b*****d, preys on helpless women and their weans. You’re a dirty wrong yin. You're getting done.”

CCTV showed a prisoner sliding a piece of paper beneath his cell door.

The inquiry, before Sheriff John Mundy, continues at Falkirk Sheriff Court.