A “prolific offender” from Reading was released from HMP Bristol by mistake after “human error” meant his remand warrant was not printed out and checked, an inquest jury heard.

Jamie Andrews had been sentenced to three weeks in prison for theft, but he was also remanded in custody to await trial on charges of burglary, fraud and shoplifting on the same date, an inquest heard.

But the 49-year-old was released after just 11 days because a prison administrator had failed to print out his remand warrant, a coroner was told.

Andrews was found dead on Baker Street, in Reading, three days later, and a jury has been sworn in at Reading Coroner’s Court to hear an inquest into his death.

After being sentenced at Reading Magistrates Court, the father-of-three would usually expect to be sent to that court’s dedicated prison, HMP Bullingdon in Bicester, Oxford. 

But HMP Bullingdon was “full”, according to Lee Ewing, who was acting head of offender management at HMP Bristol when Andrews was brought into custody on November 21 2022.

Ewing said Andrews was then redirected to Bristol and staff at Bullingdon sent over his warrants - including his remand warrant - in a digital folder.

He explained that the practice at the time in Bristol was for a member of staff to then print out all the digital files and place the hard copies into a paper file. A licensed release date calculator would then work out when the prisoner was due to be released.

Hannah Godfrey, the area coroner for Berkshire, asked Ewing whether those documents were all put “appropriately” into the digital file and paper file at Bristol.

“Not on this occasion”, Ewing admitted. “Files were put into an electronic file, not all of those were printed and put into the hard copies.

“The member of staff who moved them from the electronic file did not print off the remand warrant and place them in the hard copy folder. The calculation was based on what was in the hard copy folder.”

Andrews was released on December 1 2022 based on the mistaken sentence calculation. A senior prison governor had carried out an investigation into the root cause of the incident, Ewing told the inquest on Monday.

“We did not have adequate checks in place”, Ewing revealed the investigation had concluded. “We did not check electronic folders as part of the sentence calculation, we only checked hard copies.”

He said that since the incident, checks were now carried out on both the electronic files and the hard copies. 

Jack Murphy, for the Ministry of Justice, suggested to Ewing: “The best you can do is to conclude that there was a human error by an administrative officer.”

Andrews was found unresponsive, collapsed over his bicycle on December 4 2022 and was declared dead at the scene by paramedics.

Police constable Ashleigh Coker told the inquest she saw Andrews had a prison issue bag with his name on it, which also contained prison release papers and his prison identification card. Pc Coker added she recognised Andrews because he was a “prolific offender in Reading”.

Andrews had significant amounts of heroin and cocaine in his system, the jury heard. He also was found to be suffering from a heart condition.

The inquest continues.