BOLTON'S coroner is to write to prison bosses to ensure that recommendations in a report into the death of an inmate will be put into practice.

Jennifer Leeming will keep up the pressure on Forest Bank jail chiefs, after a jury recorded a verdict of suicide yesterday at an inquest into the death of Gary Taylor.

Mr Taylor, aged 27, of Horsa Street, Tonge Moor, died in the Salford prison in November 2001 after he wedged a chair onto the top bunk in his cell, fastened a shoelace to its leg and the other around his neck, and hanged himself.

Bosses at the jail had said that the cells were designed to make it "virtually impossible to commit suicide" and Mr Taylor was the first inmate to die in the three-year history of the privately-owned prison.

The coroner spoke out at the end of the three-day inquest in Bolton.

She was concerned that the suicide was possible in the safety-conscious prison and hoped recommendations in a Prison Service report, including improved bed designs and random checks of prisoners, would be taken on board.

She said: "I will be taking this case up with Forest Bank to see whether the recommendations raised in the report have been followed, and to what degree."

Mr Taylor was found dead by a prison officer. The father-of-one was said to have been desperate to free himself of drug addiction and deliberately breached his parole conditions so that he could get detox help in jail.

Earlier, the inquest had heard how Mr Taylor had found it difficult to stay off drugs while at home and thought a spell in prison would help him. His partner, Vicky Whittaker, said in a statement after the verdict: "Although Gary died in prison, he will always be remembered as a proud and loving father."