PRISON officers urged a police informer who was threatening to jump from a gantry to throw himself to his death, an inquest was told yesterday.

Prisoner Paul Day had climbed pipes onto a gantry two-storeys above the ground.

Although he was eventually persuaded to climb down, the vulnerable inmate was later found hanged in his cell at Durham's Frankland prison.

Yesterday, an inquest into his death heard from a prison officer how staff had urged him to jump during his protest, which was carried out at Wandsworth Prison, in London.

Principal Prison Officer Andy Toppin told the hearing, at Chester-le-Street Magistrates' Court, in County Durham, that it was his job to talk down Day.

But he said: "It didn't help that other staff who were there were behaving in an unprofessional manner, giving him abuse and shouting at him to jump."

Mr Toppin said that instead of isolating the area, a member of staff had taken the decision to let other prisoners in from the exercise yard.

As Day balanced above them, fellow inmates joined in a chorus telling prison officers to "let him fall".

Mr Toppin agreed with Leslie Thomas, the lawyer representing Day's parents, that this was "outrageous conduct".

Day claimed a senior officer at the prison had betrayed him by telling other prisoners he was an informer.

He told a prison chaplin that he was afraid of reprisals because he had been passing on information to prison authorities. He also claimed to have worked with corrupt policemen when he was out of jail.

Day claimed they gave him information to carry out robberies in return for a cut of the proceeds.

Mark Poulton, Wands-worth's principal officer in charge of security, denied Day's claim that he had deliberately or inadvertently revealed his identity as an informer.

He said Day had never been a registered informer and he was not aware that he had been helping prison staff.

Day, 31, of Basildon, Essex, had been serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for robberies.

The hold-ups, which netted £4,500 in eight days across the North of England, were featured on Crimewatch UK.

He was sentenced to a further six months for a serious assault on a fellow prisoner convicted of a sex offence.

Durham coroner Andrew Tweddle was told Day had served his time in Wandsworth on separate occasions, as well as having spells at Parkhurst, Pentonville, Cardiff, Highdown and finally Frankland.

He had been involved in a number of climbing incidents and so-called dirty protests. And he had to be cut down from a rope following one suicide attempt.

The Reverend Deacon Peter Heneghan, Wandsworth prison chaplain, said: "When I saw him, he threw himself at me crying like a baby."

The inquest was told on Tuesday that Day had been restrained in Cardiff after assaulting an officer.

Mr Heneghan added: "My knowledge of Paul was that he could use his mouth to terrorise people, but I never saw him lift a finger in anger."

He said Day had also told him that he was being used as a police informant within the prison and that he was being asked to get information on behalf of the police.

Mr Heneghan said: "He had been at various prisons throughout the country where this had been expected of him.

"I took some convincing of this."

He added: "Paul also told me he had been involved with officers from the Flying Squad who would give him information which would enable him to undertake robberies.

"They would keep the police away from the scene, and then the spoils would be shared among them."

It also emerged that Day had been transferred to Frankland Prison against the wishes of his family, who feared he would not get the support he needed. But they had been assured by then governor, Philip Reilly, that he would be kept in a safe environment.

Mr Reilly, who arranged the transfer, told the hearing he had thought Frankland Prison had a "non sex offender unit" - which it did not.

The family felt let down when they learned Day had been placed on a segregation unit with sex offenders.

Mr Reilly admitted he had made a mistake and told investigators that the decision had been on his conscience.

But he said he felt he had still been right to send Day north - away from the London prisons, where inmates knew him as an informer.

The hearing continues