Rebel Justice - changing the way you see justice
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We never think about it until it impacts our lives, or that of someone close.
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Rebel Justice - changing the way you see justice
E. 78: The Cost of Cruelty: How Sodexo ltd and CNWL NHS FT Killed Khadija Sennai
In this heartbreaking episode of Rebel Justice, we tell the story of Khadija Sennai—a mother, a fighter, and a woman betrayed by every institution meant to protect her. Diagnosed with Stage 4 stomach cancer, Khadija endured months of neglect, indifference, and cruelty while imprisoned at HMP Bronzefield. Her repeated cries for help went unanswered—from hospitals that dismissed her symptoms, to a prison system that denied her proper nutrition, dignity, and essential care.
Her death in March 2025 was not inevitable—it was preventable. And she is not alone.
This episode exposes the systemic rot within prison healthcare and the complicity of corporate and institutional actors who failed her. Through testimony from fellow prisoners, investigative findings, and damning official responses, we lay bare the truth behind Khadija’s suffering—and demand justice in her name.
Her life mattered. Her story matters. This is a call for accountability, for reform, and for action.
We're calling out Tanvir Hynes and Christine Morrison, Sodexo prison managers and Harriet Tizard and Dave Wilkinson from CNWL NHS FT. They're directly responsible for her death. We've requested an inquest by the Chief Coroner, and an investigation by the PPO.
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Welcome to Rebel Justice. Today's episode weighs heavy on our hearts. It's the story of Khadijah Sennai, a woman who endured unimaginable suffering while trapped in a system meant to protect and care for her. Instead, she faced neglect, cruelty and indifference, all of which contributed to her untimely death in March 2025. Behind every heartbreaking detail of Khadija's suffering stands a family shattered by her loss Her two children, both in their early twenties. They watched helplessly from the outside as their mother's health deteriorated, powerless to intervene or protect her from the neglect she faced behind prison walls. But this is more than just one person's tragedy. It's a stark reminder of the deep-rooted failures in our prison healthcare system, failures that strip vulnerable people of their dignity, their health and, too often, their lives. Khadija's story demands our attention, not only because of what happened to her, but because it is a symptom of a broken system that continues to fail many others.
Speaker 1:Khadija was a fighter. Diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer, she was battling not only a deadly illness, but also a system that repeatedly turned its back on her. It began months earlier, when she first sought help at St Peter's and Ashford hospitals. Despite showing clear symptoms, she was met with refusal and dismissal. No thorough investigations, no urgency, just delays that allowed her cancer to advance unchecked, stealing precious time from her and her loved ones. Imagine the anguish of feeling something wrong inside your body, begging for answers, only to be ignored by those sworn to heal. By the time she finally received an MRI and further tests, the tumour had grown too large. Received an MRI and further tests, the tumour had grown too large. Her options of treatment severely limited a devastating diagnosis that, if caught earlier, might have been treated differently.
Speaker 1:But Khadija's ordeal only deepened inside the walls of HMP Bronzefield. Here, instead of receiving care and compassion, she encountered neglect and cruelty. Prison staff, including those responsible for her meals, deliberately denied her adequate nutrition. Despite severe difficulty swallowing and a clear medical need for a special diet, she was given liquefied food, described by her fellow inmates as foul and insufficient. Her body wasted away. She went from a healthy 86 kilograms to a frail 49 in just a few weeks. Fellow prisoners watched helplessly as she shrank before their eyes. Her cries of pain, dismissed, were barely treated with ineffective ulcer medication. There was no one to advocate for her, no one to listen when she fainted and could no longer leave her bed. Only then was she taken to hospital, still handcuffed and shackled, a humiliating and degrading sight for someone so sick and vulnerable. This treatment flies in the face of medical guidelines, which stress that seriously ill patients should only be restrained if there is a clear and immediate security risk.
Speaker 1:Even as chemotherapy ravaged her body, with nausea, vomiting and dizziness, support was minimal. Her condition worsened, complicated by a dangerous blood infection that went untreated. Khadija was left in unsanitary conditions, unable to care for herself, relying on the kindness of other prisoners to feed and wash her. Through all of this, the social care she so desperately needed was denied. Despite contracts in place between prisons and local authorities to provide adult social care, khadijah was never referred for any support. She was left to face unimaginable suffering, even when her health was clearly failing. She was repeatedly denied bail. During extradition proceedings to Italy, her lawyers, including prominent law firms, appeared ineffective in advocating for her. Crucially, her diagnosis was never shared with Italian authorities until it was too late when the extradition request was finally dropped. Khadija had already endured nine months of torment in prison. We are now going to hear the words of a prisoner who lived with Khadija throughout the spring and summer of 2024.
Speaker 2:When Khadija came to house block three, she was put on a spur. She was always in her cell and she had to get help from her cellmate and other women on the spur. She couldn't clean, she couldn't feed herself. She never left her room unless she was going to meds With the help of her cellmate. We knew she couldn't keep the food down and she was weak and in pain, but no one really did anything and nothing used to happen. One day she was taken into hospital by ambulance and we all got locked behind our doors during this because they didn't want us to see how sick she was.
Speaker 2:After she went into hospital we found out she had stage four stomach cancer. Months later I remember seeing her and she looked much better. She was able to walk on her own without her cane and with no help, which showed that maybe if she had been taken to the hospital way before she could have got help she needed. I worked in the kitchen and we were told to just blend everything on the menu that she chose and we didn't do anything special for her. Once in a while she was sent a shake that's what kitchens used to give her with mild seasoning Because of her stomach cancer. It's such a shame she's died. She was a lovely woman and I'm sure her death could have been avoided if they just helped her before.
Speaker 1:Khadija's story is tragic but far from unique. Data shows prisoners of cancer are 28% less likely to receive curative treatments and have a 9% higher risk of death compared to the general population. Early diagnosis, timely referrals and ongoing specialist care cornerstones of cancer treatment are often missing behind bars. Watchdog investigations reveal a grim reality Between 43 and 48 percent of prisoners missed outpatient appointments. Women in particular suffer indignities such as being handcuffed to male guards during hospital visits, practices that deter many from seeking vital care. The Rebel Justice podcast previously spoke to Jo Armes, professor of Cancer Care at the University of Surrey. In this conversation, we explored the systemic failures that prevent incarcerated women from receiving cancer care equivalent to what's available in the community.
Speaker 3:One of the things we found was that part of the decreased survival rate was because people were less likely to be diagnosed through screening or through the two-week wait referral. So I think a key way to improve survival in that population is to kind of more earlier diagnosis, so improving uptake of screening. Some of the prison systems really help with the screening programmes. Though because of the churn within the prison system you know, people being moved around a lot so they might start the screening process, require an extra investigation, but in the meantime they've been moved to another prison.
Speaker 1:You can listen to the full interview on episode 76, titled Grace Colbourne, part two the right to dignified cancer care. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has repeatedly criticised prison healthcare services for treatment delays, failures to follow up on abnormal test results and a lack of responsiveness. Reports from HMP Bronzefield itself expose a history of neglect and poor care that eerily mirror Khadija's experience. Behind this failing system are corporate and institutional actors whose accountability must be demanded. Sodexo Limited manages healthcare services at Bronzefield, subcontracting clinical services to the CNWL NHS Foundation Trust. Both have come under scrutiny for repeated delays and failures to provide timely, adequate care to prisoners. Local hospitals discharged Khadija without proper care plans or social support arrangements, in violation of healthcare regulations and basic human rights. This chain of negligence, from hospital to prison to social care, sealed her fate. After her release, Khadija faced the daunting task of navigating the healthcare system alone, still battling pain and illness. Less than six months later, she died. Her death has ignited calls for a full corporate manslaughter investigation and demands the government terminate Sodexo's contracts in prison healthcare.
Speaker 1:The Rebel Justice podcast has reached out to Sodexo, the CNWL NHS Foundation Trust, the Care Quality Commission and HMP Bronzefield. As of this recording, we're yet to receive a response from the CQC. However, we have received disappointing responses from all others. Louise Stead, Group Chief Executive of Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals and Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trusts, where Khadija was treated, responded In this case, no internal review was initiated as no issues or concerns were identified within our clinical pathways or during the patient's care. However, we know that St Peter's and Ashford Hospital discharged her with no proper care plan in place. This is against the law. It's against a woman's basic health rights.
Speaker 4:Sodexo responded with the following While we do not comment on individual circumstances, we can clarify that healthcare services at HMP Bronzefield are commissioned separately by NHS England and are operated by a different organisation. As a general principle, prisoners are not treated any differently regarding their medical needs, whether they are on remand or convicted, and can expect a level of medical treatment equivalent to that which they would receive in the community.
Speaker 1:But we want to remind you of how Khadija was treated in prison. Nurses, noted specifically Stacey Close, told Khadija to stop complaining and gave her medication for stomach ulcers, completely undermining her pain and discarding her suffering. Hmp Bronzefield features a training cafe, vita Nova, which can be used by the officers and enhanced prisoners by swapping five good behaviour incentive earned privilege slips. A staff member prevented Khadija from accessing Vita Nova. Khadija was supposed to receive a special diet from the prison kitchen to aid her illness, particularly as she now couldn't swallow. However, the kitchen manager told the prisoners working in the kitchen to liquefy her food and stick it in a container. The food is repulsive and Khadija couldn't eat it. Khadija tried to get some food from the servery, but the prisoners on the server were told by Christine Morrison, then the house floor manager, that she was not allowed to. Khadija's weight sunk to only 42 kilograms while she was undergoing chemotherapy to try and shrink the massive tumor in in her stomach. All this while she has no access to vital and suitable food and nutrition. Khadija was handcuffed to officers on the way to hospital and during the treatment, including overnight stays in the hospital. Policy states that prisoners visiting hospitals with life-threatening illnesses or who are receiving treatment, such as chemotherapy, should not be handcuffed on the way to the hospital, let alone in the hospital, unless there are specific risks identified for a risk assessment completed by healthcare staff.
Speaker 1:This case demands more than blame shifting. It demands accountability, it demands transparency. It demands systemic reform that puts human dignity and health above cost-cutting and bureaucracy. The podcast reached out to the PPO, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, saying that the View magazine intends to support a clinical negligence claim against CNWL NHS Foundation Trust. Cnwl NHS Foundation Trust. The PPO responded on the 11th of July that this has been passed on to the relevant team and a response will be sent to us shortly. We hope for a further response soon and that this heartbreaking case is taken seriously.
Speaker 1:Khadijah Sennai's story is heartbreaking, an emblem of systemic cruelty and neglect. It reminds us that behind every statistic is a human life, a family shattered and a future stolen. It is a call to action for all of us to listen to the unheard, to fight for those trapped in invisible suffering and to demand justice for Khadija and countless others like her. You've been listening to Rebel Justice. Khadija's death was preventable and so many others remain at risk. Sharing her story is one way to shine a light on the darkness. Join us in calling for accountability and reform, because every voice counts. If you'd like to support our work and receive four digital editions and one print issue a year, subscribe to the view for just 20 pounds. Make sure to follow us on our social media. We're on instagram, @the_view_magazine s, and you can also find us on linkedinm, X, and tiktok.