COLIN Penrose was only recently recalled to prison when he was found dead by prison guards in E Hall at the Glasgow jail.
THIS is the young man who was found dead in a prison cell this week.
The lifeless body of Colin Penrose, 22, was discovered by prison guards in E Hall at Glasgow’s Barlinnie jail early on Thursday morning.
He had only recently been recalled to prison.
John Clark, 21, yesterday appeared in private at the city’s sheriff court charged with murder.
He made no plea or declaration, was remanded in custody and will appear for a full committal hearing next week.
Penrose, of Oban, was jailed for an offence of sexual assault but had been released early.
He is believed to have been sent back to finish his sentence after being caught breaking the law while out on licence.
It’s understood the offence for which he was jailed involved him having sexual relations with an underage girl.
His parents Thomas, 60, and 60-year-old Linda were too upset to speak about Penrose’s death last night at the family home they shared with Penrose and his brother Mark, 24.
Linda ran Oban’s Soroba Stores, which she built up from an ice-cream van, for 22 years before deciding to sell up earlier this year.
In January last year, Penrose posted a picture of himself on Facebook with what appeared to be serious facial injuries, including a badly swollen left eye.
He wrote: “Does any face wot to say anything about my eyes in this picture or do u nt give a s*** wot happends to me if u dont give a s*** i will just block u from talking to me again and dnt even bother saying hi to me in the street.”
It is unclear where his injuries came from.
Self-portrait of alleged victim Colin Penrose in 2011.
John Clark appeared at Glasgow  on Friday charged with murdering cellmate Colin Penrose, 22, in the city's .

Penrose, from the West Coast town of , had been recalled to prison for alleged further offending after being paroled from a sentence for sexual assault against a teenager. Police Scotland confirmed they were called to the prison, Scotland's largest, shortly after 2:00am on Thursday when Penrose was found dead in the cell.

Clark has been remanded pending a full committal hearing next week. Clark is variously reported to be either 21 or 22.

Penrose died on the top floor of the jail's E Hall. E Hall includes accommodation for vulnerable prisoners.

Penrose, who attended , is survived by his parents, both 60. He listed himself on Facebook as single but had liked a dating page, and according to his profile was seeking employment. "I hate football and I hate the police", his profile reads, adding he enjoyed a drink at the weekend.

In early 2012 he uploaded a photo of himself with a swollen eye. Without explaining the injury he asked "does anybody want to say anything about my eyes in this picture or do you not give a shit what happens to me"? He received no response until a year later, when the reply "thats what happens to beasts

" was received.

Several friends posted condolences to his page after his death. One claimed he had been strangled.

The famous four-storey Victorian prison is routinely overcrowded, with prisoners sharing cells meant for individual use. With drug use at over 80% of the population, Barlinnie is Western Europe's largest dispenser of  substitute .
HMP Barlinnie from file.
In 2011 governor Derek McGill complained "If we could eliminate overcrowding, we could do more with the prisoners." He was speaking after an inspector branded the facility unsafe for prisoners and staff alike due to chronic overcrowding. Scottish Executive  spending cuts around the same time reduced the 's building funds significantly.

Plans are nonetheless afoot to replace Barlinnie with a new prison, to be called . The Prison Service is tendering for consultants to identify potential sites. Although the Scottish Government aims to reduce prisoner populations the new prison is to be more than twice the size of Barlinnie.

The nation's sex offenders were, until recently, usually all held at . The internationally-acclaimed sex offender treatment center was permanently closed late last year and the inmates moved elsewhere. Peterhead prison has been replaced with the 140 million "super prison" , built next door to the Peterhead site. Men, women, and young offenders are all held at the prison for the first time at a Scottish jail and the first inmates arrived this month.  has also closed and been replaced with the new jail. 

Homicide behind bars is unusual in Scotland, though there have been cases in 2006 and 1996. Neighbouring England has seen a spate recently, including four last year. Those four deaths were all charged as murder and represented the highest  total since 1998.


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