The family of a man who died in prison a year ago today have hit out at the authorities after receiving no information whatsoever on his death.

The family of Steven Mansfield (Pepe) Dill have been told that the Director of Public Prosecutions is waiting to find a court date for an inquest to be held, but they questioned why a date had not been set months ago.

They have claimed that staff at the Prison Farm should be held responsible for his death after allegedly failing to get Mr. Dill to hospital when he began to suffer a serious asthma attack, which is believed to have eventually taken his life.

But Labour and Home Affairs Minister Terry Lister told The Royal Gazette last night that the fact an inquest into his death was being held meant there was unlikely to be any action taken against prison wardens at this stage.

He said: "Sometimes we go the route of an inquest if we don't think there is sufficient evidence to charge someone in the courts.

"I don't know what the inquest will turn up. We are really in the hands of the DPP now."

But Mr. Dill's wife of 14 years and the mother of his two children, Lee-Ann Samuels Dill, said she feared the whole matter was going to be swept under the carpet.

"I would like to know, where is the justice?", she said.

"I have tried my best to have meetings with Minister Lister, but I am just told he is unavailable and we are waiting for an inquest date to be found.

"Wednesday is the anniversary of his death and we are in exactly the same position as a year ago. I feel as though my husband is being treated as a nobody, just because he was in prison and we are not wealthy.

"He was looking forward to coming home and starting a new life with his family. He was our life and now he is gone, but nobody seems to care."

Mr. Dill was serving time at the Prison Farm in Ferry Reach last December when he suffered the fatal asthma attack. He was due to be released in February this year.

His family said the guards knew he had a bad asthma condition and should have summoned help straight away, but they claimed that instead he was left at the farm for several hours, until it was too late.

Two separate investigations were carried out, by both the Police and Prison authorities, and then the file was handed to Minister Lister and then the DPP, before going back to the Ministry. That was in September, and still an inquest date has not been set.

Ms Samuels Dill, 33, a community nurse, of Princess Street, Pembroke, said: "The last year has been awful. Neither me or my children have been the same since it happened. I spent my life with him, from the age of 19, he is the father of my 14-year-old and the only father my 17-year-old ever had.

"We lived together for 14 years, yet I can't even get the Ministry to return my calls. We weren't married, but we considered each other husband and wife, and everybody accepted that.

"But now I get nowhere when I try to find out information. It's like they don't want to hear from any of us. If they could escape from the whole thing, they would, I'm sure."

Mr. Dill's sister Gina Tweed agreed wholeheartedly with her on every issue and said the authorities had had long enough to plan an inquest.

"We are very frustrated. We are very hurt, and we are annoyed that we have not heard anything to date."

"We have not received an autopsy report or a death certificate. We are still where we started from. To me, it seems like they said things to us when we had a meeting with the Ministry thinking that we would just go away feeling fine. Well, we are not fine."

Mr. Lister said he had a meeting with the family a few months ago, but Mr. Dill's wife did not attend. He said he did not know why.

She claimed she did not know about the meeting.

And Mr. Lister said he was as frustrated as the family that nothing had changed.

"It went back to the DPP for a Coroner's inquest to be set up. I asked about it on Monday," he said.

"They are trying to get it on the court calendar - that has been the case since September. I have no control over that.

"I want the inquest heard as much as the family does. It annoys me because tomorrow (Wednesday) is a year and we have not had the matter resolved, yet we acted on the day that he died.

"We are not the least bit happy about it."

Director of Public Prosecutions Khamisi Tokunbo was off the Island last night and unavailable for comment.